Rushing Progress: Conversations for the Modern Sorority Woman

Kristi & Christiana

Welcome to Rushing Progress, where we aim to start important conversations about sorority life in an attempt to promote progress in our chapters and to encourage reflection for current and prospective sorority women. Join us as we discuss crucial issues within the Greek community, break down common sorority myths, and share our opinions and experiences as sorority women. Our discussions are primarily focused on NPC affiliated sororities, although most of our subject matter encompasses sorority and fraternity life. Please note that all opinions stated in this podcast are entirely our own and are not affiliated with/do not represent any campus, sorority, or NPC. Thanks for tuning in! - Kristi & Christiana

Episodes

  1. 19/10/2020 · BONUS

    Recruitment Mini-Series: The Pros and Cons of COB

    Today we are joined by our first guest ever - Michaela!! Michaela joins us for Recruitment Mini-Series episodes 6 and 7 and brings two years of specialized recruitment experience on the chapter side. Over the past two years, Michaela has played an integral role on her chapter's Recruitment Team and has an understanding of the "behind the scenes" processes that happen during recruitment season. In this episode, join us for a discussion about the pros and cons of COB. If you're thinking "whoa! what does COB even mean?" - we've got you covered! Michaela joins us for a conversations about the COB process, how it may be the right or wrong choice for you, and things to think about with COB during a pandemic year. We hope you enjoy recruitment mini-series #7!

    13 min

  2. 16/10/2020 · BONUS

    Recruitment Mini-Series: Let's Talk About Legacies And References (feat. Michaela)!

    Today we are joined by our first guest ever - Michaela!! Michaela joins us for Recruitment Mini-Series episodes 6 and 7 and brings two years of specialized recruitment experience on the chapter side. Over the past two years, Michaela has played an integral role on her chapter's Recruitment Team and has an understanding of the "behind the scenes" processes that happen during recruitment season. In this episode, join us for a discussion about legacies and references. What is a legacy? What does it mean to have a reference? Are either of these things ~actually~ important qualifiers during sorority recruitment? Even though fall recruitment is over on most campuses, we wanted to make this discussion accessible for those considering recruitment in the spring, those going through COB right now, and those who did join a chapter this semester and are curious about these terms. We hope you enjoy our recruitment mini-series #6!

    15 min

  3. 27/09/2020 · BONUS

    Recruitment Mini-Series: What To Talk About During Recruitment

    Welcome back to our recruitment mini-series! It can seem like all you hear about recruitment from your friends, recruitment counselors, and online advice platforms is a litany of things you should NOT talk about during recruitment. We know this can cause a lot of stress and increased nerves before recruitment - if there are so many topics and things you should be avoiding...what is a good conversation topic? Today, we give our best tips and advice we've gained from our years of recruitment experience to help ease your nerves and give you some conversation topics to keep on hand. As with our mini-series episode about things to avoid discussing, we want to make clear that this episode and our advice is in no way meant to limit you or make you feel like you can only discuss things we mention - this is just supposed to be a recruitment resource to help ease your nerves! Even though recruitment is ending or over on most campuses, COB is still happening around the country and conversations are still important during that process as well! We hope you enjoy this episode and that you feel more confident for recruitment this year or in years to come!

    38 min

  4. 06/09/2020 · BONUS

    Recruitment Mini-Series: Is It Worth It To Join a Sorority During a Pandemic?

    In today's mini-series episode we share our thoughts on whether or not it's "worth it" to go through recruitment during a pandemic. With most campuses either partially or fully remote for fall 2020, organizations like sororities that are traditionally based in social interaction and in-person bonding face a serious issue. With a large portion of normal sorority operations from ceremonies, to live-in member capacity, to Bid Day, sisterhood events, and recruitment itself moved to online-only forums, how sorority women interact with each other has drastically shifted due to the pandemic. How does that impact potential new members? Is it still worth it to go through recruitment when so many of your new member activities will be strictly over Zoom? Should you just wait to go through recruitment in spring 2020, or wait for a form of informal recruitment like COB? (Don't worry, we'll define what COB means in the episode, too!) Join us as we tackle all of these questions and give our advice for fall 2020 potential new members!

    20 min

  5. 31/08/2020 · BONUS

    Recruitment Mini-Series: Should You Go Through Recruitment If You're Not A Freshman?

    Today's episode is tailored towards campuses that offer the option to go through recruitment to incoming freshmen. These campuses often have pledge classes that seem to be mostly freshmen, and of all of the potential new members going through recruitment, a majority may be freshmen. Joining a sorority is often promoted as a way to make friends and get involved in your first semester on campus and as an organization that allows you to adjust to college with a support system of women helping you. But...what happens if you didn't go through recruitment during your freshmen year and want to join a sorority later in college? We share our thoughts on going through recruitment after your freshmen year and give our opinions on if it's still "worth it" for sophomores, juniors, junior transfers, and seniors to go through recruitment.

    22 min

  6. 19/08/2020 · BONUS

    Recruitment Mini-Series: What should you *NOT* talk about during recruitment?

    Welcome to the second episode of our Recruitment Mini-Series! Recruitment, whether in person or via zoom, is all about conversations - it's how the recruiter gets to know the PNM (potential new member) and vice versa. However, placing so much weight on such short conversations can cause anxiety, stress, and lots of nerves for everyone involved! Every year, from both recruiters and PNMs, the most common questions we hear is "are there things I shouldn't talk about? Will I get in trouble or will I be seen in a negative way if I talk about certain things"? While we disagree with a lot of the rhetoric surrounding conversation topics in recruitment, we did want to address this topic and give our advice and thoughts. Today, we're sharing our thoughts and tips for conversations topics we think should be avoided during recruitment. We dive into the notorious "5 B's" of recruitment (boys, booze, bucks, Barack, bible) that are so often told to recruiters and PNMs as the ultimate "no-no's" of recruitment conversations. But...should all of these topics really be off limit? Do some of them have some leeway in conversation, or should they be avoided at all costs? We hope you enjoy episode two of our mini-series!

    31 min

  7. 12/08/2020 · BONUS

    Recruitment Mini-Series: Is the Only Form of Truly Inclusive Recruitment Random Selection?

    It's finally here...our first Recruitment Mini-Series episode! Before we dive into the common questions that apply to recruitment, we wanted to start our mini-series with a hypothetical; what if recruitment as we know it was completely reimagined? It is incredibly important to us, and to many sorority women, to prioritize creating as inclusive of a recruitment as possible. We know there are important changes and discussions to be had about making our current recruitment system as inclusive as possible in an effort to promote progress and change in our community. However, we have to ask ourselves if it's even possible to have enough change in our current system to make it a truly inclusive process. For this discussion, we tried to think outside of the box - instead of just thinking about working within our current system, what if recruitment as we knew it was completely eliminated? Join us for our first mini-series where we think of recruitment as a completely random selection process; in this system, everyone who signs up for recruitment receives a bid to a house, but every bid is randomly assigned. Does this system make recruitment truly inclusive because the system of ranking chapters and selecting women is eliminated? Or does random selection come with its own issues that would have to be overcome? Is the only form of truly inclusive recruitment a recruitment that looks nothing like what we know? Tune in to hear our thoughts!

    20 min

  8. 27/07/2020

    Should Greek Life Be Abolished?

    *content warning: sexual violence/sexual harassment Today we discuss a hotly debated topic: should greek life be abolished? Should fraternities stop existing and should sororities keep existing?  Join us as we share our thoughts about the issues that could lead to the abolition of Greek life and as we talk about the possibility of reform within the Greek system. Notes & Clarifications: * a study showed that 25% of college campus sexual assault survivors were in sororities, not 25% of all survivors Sources Mentioned: - Bound by a Might Vow: Sisterhood and Women's Fraternities 1870-1920 by Diana B. Turk - TIME Article: "Colleges Should Get Rid of Fraternities for Good" by Lisa Wade - Lewis & Llewellyn LLP Blog: Campus Sexual Assault: Greek Life (contains links to studies/other sites as well)

    1 hr

  9. 25/07/2020

    Can You Be a Feminist and a Member of a Sorority?

    Welcome to our first podcast, where we take on the question that is so often debated online - can you consider yourself a feminist AND a sorority woman? Even if your chapter or campus promotes feminism more than other chapters of your organization, are you still a feminist if you pay into the organization as a whole? We share our thoughts on what it means to consider ourselves as a feminist and how to balance the anti-feminist aspects of sorority life with our own beliefs. Sources Mentioned: - Bound by a Might Vow: Sisterhood and Women's Fraternities 1870-1920 by Diana B. Turk

    1h 1m
  • 9 Episodes

About

Welcome to Rushing Progress, where we aim to start important conversations about sorority life in an attempt to promote progress in our chapters and to encourage reflection for current and prospective sorority women. Join us as we discuss crucial issues within the Greek community, break down common sorority myths, and share our opinions and experiences as sorority women. Our discussions are primarily focused on NPC affiliated sororities, although most of our subject matter encompasses sorority and fraternity life. Please note that all opinions stated in this podcast are entirely our own and are not affiliated with/do not represent any campus, sorority, or NPC. Thanks for tuning in! - Kristi & Christiana

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