News
Pledging survey shows displeasure with changes
By Kevin Welsh ’15
April 3, 2015
Results from the Inter-Society Council survey of this year’s pledge class challenge the administration’s prevailing rationale for the changes it made to the Greek pledging process two years ago. Most pledges wish they could have pledged during their freshman spring rather than during their sophomore fall. This feeling contradicts the administration’s decision last year to push back the pledging process.
The Inter-Society Council, which is composed of representatives of every Greek society, surveyed recent initiates about their academic and social experiences after this first year of sophomore fall pledging. One hundred and fifty-six pledges, roughly 95 percent, responded to the survey and results indicate that it was an overall positive experience for most. Fifty percent of pledges said that pledging had no impact on their academics, and another 30 percent said that it has a positive impact on their academics. In terms of social life, 60 percent of students said that pledging had a positive impact on their social life. Curiously, when asked how they felt about the length of pledging, fifty percent of respondants said they thought it was fine, but forty-seven percent wished it was longer.
The responses about timing, though, expressed serious discontent. When asked “would you have preferred to pledge in your freshman spring or your sophomore fall?” seventy-four percent of respondents chose freshman spring.
The administration’s concerns for January Admits were similarly undermined when only one-third of January Admit pledges answered that they preferred pledging during their sophomore fall, rather than during their freshman spring, their first semester on campus. This result in particular suggests that there is still room to improve the pledging process.
Hannah Keohane ’17, of Alpha Theta Chi, pledged this fall, and does not approve of the change in semester. She believes that moving back Greek initiation just prolongs the period in which first years focus on joining Greek life and not on finding alternative social life. “You spend a year and a half trying to become closer with a small group of people, and it prolongs the period of you being isolated.” She believes that pledging freshman spring is a more “natural extension of the bonding you’re already doing with the freshman class and then you can move on and seek out other groups of people.”
Associate Dean of Students for Student Engagement and Leadership, and former president of Phi Beta Chi, Lisa Magnarelli ’96 disagrees that sophomore fall pledging poses more disadvantages than benefits. She understands “the social benefit from getting plugged into a social network freshman spring,” but sees the first year as a now wide open opportunity for students to explore areas of campus, giving them more time to properly evaluate their wants and needs. She thinks that students now have the opportunity to make more friends without being hurried into the rush and pledging process. “I think the benefits outweigh the social difficulties of not having that group,” Magnarelli explained.
Beyond the difficulties this change may pose for the pledges, though, the change in semester can also create serious problems in the structure and nature of pledging for Greek organizations. President of Delta Upsilon Robert Miles ’16 explained that his fraternity in particular suffers under this new system. “DU traditionally brings in mostly football players, and this typically worked well with spring pledging. Not only does the fall schedule put a strain on pledges who want the full experience, but it put an even greater strain on members who were in season working to provide an appropriate experience.” Emails to other Greek life presidents went unreturned.
Before this year, other societies voiced concerns that their recruitment numbers would drop or that a lack of members to manage pledging would lower its effectiveness. These concerns, however, were not investigated by the survey and Magnarelli does not feel that Greek societies suffered as much as they feared.
Nancy Thompson, Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students, initially prompted and formed the Committee on Greek Recruitment in 2013 and commented on the results of the survey saying, “I do not think the committee came to the wrong conclusion,” and that the difficulties greek societies faced this year are unsurprising “given that this is the first year of the new model.” For students who wish to discuss the pledging process further, she says that the conversation about Greek life is ongoing. She cites one serious limitation to these new conversations though: “I would not entertain a return to pledging in the first year.”