Getting started

In some of my last posts, I focused on fraternity recruitment & how necessary it is that everyone's prepared well in advance, before Rush Week so much begins. This one's for the new member/pledge educators, who also shouldn't be on vacation when it comes to laying the groundwork for this Fall's Pledge program. Here are some key guidelines which need to be taken into full consideration well before the PEs/NMEs receive this fall's latest class of new guys:

(1) If some of the stuff in question for this fall's pledging program is highly questionable, or done only to get the active brothers' kicks, it shouldn't be done - enough said.
(2) If we're perpetuating some of our trademark stunts from yore just for tradition's sake - "Oh, I had to do it so these new duders should too" - we should shut those antics on down.
(3) The new duders are aspiring to be chapter & with that Fraternity members, not our slaves.
(4) Are we designing our pledge programs just to make our prospectives "good pledges," rather than make them good brothers?
(5) see #4: Are we formulating our Fall pledge programs to determine how much our new guys truly want to become members of our fraternity instead of giving them the time of day to answer any questions they might have along the way? In either case, we shouldn't create programs which are in total variance or at cross purposes with everything our founders stood for.
(6) Don't make the new members do things you wouldn't envision yourself doing - seriously.
(7) You can't force unity out of the pledge classes which'll come your way: that's one of the premises for why we've got cliques/caste systems within this chapter or that, chapters where the brothers know little or nothing about any of their own or where some of the brothers are far more close knit than most. Unity should arise as the result of shared experiences, not out of fear or intimidation.
(8) As a pledge/new member education, one of our roles is not to disorient the duders under our wing. In fact, one of the key roles any PE/NME has in this program or that is to give the prospectives time to fully absorb, remember & understand the important lessons which the pledging program provides in spades, Initiation & Ritual. What are we gaining when some of the new guys are extremely anxious to get their stint as pledges over & done with? Well, their view on the chapter & with that the more important stuff about our Fraternity is going to be pretty fuzzy later on, so keep that in mind.
(9) Our pledge programs should consistently operate with the spirit & ideals of our Ritual, Ritual Statutes & Governing Laws - no more, no less than this.