So I guess I just got too excited last time about how great my motto was and how much I loved the purpose of tridelt that I may have forgot to say why our chapter and OSU greek life in general doesn't always follow everything we say we will.
I know everyone in the greek system gets really frustrated when we are looked down upon. I was talking at chapter last night with some girls about how people immediately judge us when they find out we are in a sorority. One girl had a professor tell her she might as well drop his class because sorority girls never pass (she got an A in the class btw). But even if these judgements annoy us, they have to come from somewhere. They had to be started by something and they have to continue going on because of the things we do.
Its hard when people only think of greek life as parties and drinking when we all know that we do so much more. Or so we claim. How many of your mandatory events to people get so annoyed of having to go to? I remember so many people from my chapter (me included) being rather less than enthused about waking up early to go to rock the block last year. But where had we been the night before? Out at a TG. I think it is so easy to go to chapter every week, talk about your values and everything you want your chapter to be. It is another thing to go out every other day and live those values.
When I joined tridelt, I received a letter from the girl who heavily recruited me and it said that you will always be known as a tridelt now. It doesn't matter if you are wearing your letters, not wearing your letters, sitting in class or out on the weekends. You should live every day of your life to represent the organization that you have pledged your life to. This is not always an easy task and too many times, it is aspects of greek life in general that make us stray away from our values.
I am from a small town about 15 minutes away from Miami University where in the past few years, sooo many sororities have been but on social probation for getting to out of control at there formal events. I know the same thing has also happened to at least one house at OU also. I hope this is something that NEVER happens to us here at OSU. I love to tell people that OSU greek life isn't like at other schools and I hope that I never turn the news on and see any of our chapters doing something like these girls did.
Recruitment is a part of the greek system that I find to be incongruent with the values and mission of tridelt and many other sororities. I honestly cannot think of a way to make it different though. It is a harsh process that is always going to end up leaving girls upset and not happy with the results. All of us in this class probably don't always think about the people who weren't picked to be where they wanted to be or the people who didn't get the houses that they wanted.
Jaclyn, this blog made me think of an article that my fraternity's national president sent to everyone to read. It's called: "The Apathy Myth: You are always wearing your letters" (http://apathymyth.blogspot.com/2010/03/you-are-always-wearing-your-letters.html). It's a very good article and it always reminds me that I represent my chapter as a whole everywhere I go. Just thought you would appreciate it as well. And just one more thing, I cannot truly understand how you see your chapter's recruitment process to be incongruent with your values and mission. I know you cannot go into specific details, but be a little more elaborate.
ReplyDeletei agree with recruitment being one of our least congruent activities. its hard to learn enough about a person in the short amount of time we are given, so it is almost like we are forced to judge on appearances and superficial characteristics. recruitment was long enough though, so more time is not the answer, but its still hard to find a way to make the process more reasonable.
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