"Positive Panhellenic Contact" Implemented at Washington - St. Louis

[exlurker]

Panhellenic at Washington U - St. Louis has successfully relaxed (somewhat) its policies on contact between sorority members and non-members, according to an article posted by the student paper November 12, 2007:

Brief excerpts from article:

Sorority recruitment process receives facelift
By: Puneet Kollipara
Posted: 11/12/07
Women's formal sorority recruitment got a facelift this year, as the Greek Life Office implemented a new recruitment policy and improved its marketing program.

. . . the new policy, called Positive Panhellenic Contact, softens previous restrictions on interaction between affiliated and non-affiliated women during the recruitment process.

As part of the policy, unaffiliated women may interact more freely with affiliated women during recruitment. . . .

Prior to the new policy's implementation, the previous NPC standard that the University adhered to disallowed any sort of interaction between unaffiliated and affiliated women.

According to Lucy Morlan, GLO coordinator for chapter development, the old policy was meant to keep the playing field level and to help interested women get a more complete overview of Greek life so they could make a more informed decision, but it sometimes sent bad signals.

"The rule about not talking was supposed to help with that, but sometimes it gave off a bad feeling of, 'Well, they're not interested in me and they don't like me because they won't talk to me,'" said Morlan. "Our compromise for that is making sure that they're talking about the entire Greek system and promoting the Panhellenic side of it, which is what women's formal recruitment is supposed to be about."

. . . In addition to Positive Panhellenic Contact, the Greek Life Office has improved its marketing program to help reach out to interested women and better inform them about the recruitment process. . . .