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As a collegiate Zeta Tau Alpha (for just another week!), I thought I'd chime in here and share a really great AI story with y'all. I, too, knew nothing about AI until I read some really heart-warming (and very addictive) threads here on GC. This past fall, my chapter pledged 50 beautiful new members, and one fantastic alumna new member. She owns Tiger Lily, the flower and gift shop that has been an indispensable help to us during Recruitment, Parents' Weekend, Formals, Christmas parties, you name it - for the past five or six years. She has been the "florist of choice", if you will, for a number of sororities here at Clemson because she absolutely bends over backwards to make sure anything you need or want is done, and done beautifully. I won't hazard a guess at her age, because it doesn't really matter, but I know that she has been out of college for thirty or so years.
She had become close friends with one of our advisors (a local resident and Province President who literally founded this chapter) since ZTA began here, and our advisor eventually approached her with the idea of initiating. The process, of which most of us in the collegiate chapter were entirely unaware, took a while but in the end our AI, Margaret, was able to pledge and initiate with our 2002 new member class. She has, if it's possible, become even more devoted to Zeta and to our chapter - doing anything and everything you could possibly imagine to further whatever we are working on or planning. In every sense of the word, she is our sister.
Seeing her during initiation, surrounded by all of her collegiate chapter sisters, and by many South Carolina alumnae who had come for the special initiation - was absolutely touching. I may never have really understood the purpose of AI until that moment, but it's now entirely clear to me. Zeta has added so much to my life, and shaped me in so many ways - whatever a person must do to be a part of that friendship, commitment, and bond - they'll do it.
I have great respect for all of the AI's and PNAM's - you have a drive and a desire that really says volumes about you, as it does about our own AI here in Clemson. Every time I read these threads I think about her, and how lucky we are to have "snatched her up", as we say about formal recruitment. Any sorority would be lucky to have all of you work to further their ideals and strengthen their sisterhoods. Good luck, and keep us posted.
Memo to those who question its purpose - Alumnae Initiation is not unfair, one-sided, "sneaking in", less difficult, better, or even worse than joining during college. It is simply a different means to the same end.
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