Talking Point: Are we Fraternity enough to embrance the real ideals of our Founders and our Ritual?

Power often corrupts. Back in the good old days of our Founders, there was never really anything as “trial membership” or proving oneself to be “worthy” before becoming a member. Men were asked to join, they became brothers and were immediately assimilated into the chapter.

As the college fraternity system evolved there were many factors that led to the “pledge” period, or to be more politically correct today, the “new member development” period. For a variety of reasons, the “pledging” period was most often a term length because of university/college restrictions on “initiating” these new members. As this extended time was perceived to contribute to a variety of non-positive activities (aka hazing), this new member orientation period was shortened by Universities and National Fraternities to help reduce the possibility of problems.

Logic tells us that the problems which are often attributed to perceived stereotypical “traditional” pledging model resulted from a power trip by the “initiated” brothers to emphasize their control over new members. As an abused child becomes the abuser (and sometimes worse) the cycle began. It makes no difference whether it is in the college Greek organization, varsity band, varsity athletic team, or even HQ staff and RD's in training. Many times those who don’t understand the difference between leadership and rank seek to impose their position of perceived importance on their underlings.

So, what power does the “initiated brother” have over the pledge/new member. Well, for one thing it is “full and often lifetime” membership in the organization. He also holds the knowledge of the particular organizations body of secret work (aka The Ritual). Both of these, the new member seeks. Since knowledge of the Ritual endows one with the “rights and privileges” of full membership, this knowledge gives both rank and power. As Sig Ep has evolved over the decades and even with the Balanced Man Program, we still keep the new member (including Sigmas and Phis) separated from the rest of the “fully" knowledgeable Brothers by the complete experience of the Ritual. If you are honest in looking at it, we actually devolved from a two-tier system (pledging model) to a three-tier system in implementing the BMP (don’t worry, there is more coming in the S&P later on member development}. Any time you have differences between groups of individuals you have the opportunity for abuse of power.

The question is, do we believe strongly enough in our Fraternity and are we men enough to fully embrace accepting new members in the same spirit of our Founders? Chapters spend so much time and energy in selecting the right men to bid. What then are these se;ect men going to need to do to be better acceptable members? Most member development programs tend make the new members less enthusiastic and slothful once they are full brothers. What chapter is willing to accept the challenge to bid a man and immediately endow him with all the rights and privileges (e.g., initiate him) and then let him get on with the business of being a better brother. We don’t need model pledges, we need better brothers. Let’s return to our roots and do the right thing. If we do this, then a four year MEMBER development program really has worth and meaning.

I am Il Doge and I approved this post.