On March 1, 2002, the girls began their pledge program. At around six o’clock on Saturday night, the whole sorority would pick the girls up in their dorms, one by one. All of the sisters would be chanting and singing, telling the future pledges that they were looking for them. Denise also had to say good-bye to her new boyfriend because Rodney had decided to pledge a fraternity. I was so ecstatic to learn that I would barely be seeing him, but they were still together during his pledge period.
The fraternities also picked up their prospective pledges as a group, but everybody was quiet and lined up single file. The pledges were outside of their dorm rooms, and usually the fraternity pledge master would quietly look the pledge in the eye and point his fingers in the direction of where the pledge should go. All of the pledges, no matter what fraternity or sorority they were pledging, were extremely nervous. Final Bids was the name of the night where they were formally inducted as pledges. Everybody went out and got drunk—most until they threw up. Since most pledging programs were dry, it was the last night that the pledges could drink. One boy actually busted an eye vessel from throwing up too much.
The next morning at brunch, a girl approached me and asked if I missed the girls. “Well, isn’t that what they made lubricants for?” I responded. Even though I was being a wise-ass, I did miss the girls. The pledge program at all of the fraternities and sororities lasted six weeks, and every week the pledge program got more involved. In Renee’s and Diana’s sorority, the girls usually had to be up at a designated dining hall by eight, and then in between class, they had to go to the library for study hours. Plus, they weren’t allowed to walk alone. Every girl had to have an escort, and if the two saw one of their sisters, both of the girls had to stop and greet her. The greeting was a special ritual; at minimum it consisted of a hello, then the pledges would have to tell the sister everything they knew about her—her major, interests, hometown, and so on. Since there were over fifty girls in the sorority, Shannon, Diana, and her friends made flash cards.
The sorority Renee and Diana were pledging, the Betas, made their pledges walk two by two—one girl facing forward and the other walking backward. Walking backward was a punishment because one pledge didn’t see her pledge mistress walking behind her and failed to give her the proper greeting.
The girls’ dress was also controlled. They had to wear their pledge T-shirts usually three days a week, and then something that said “SUNY Geneseo” on it the rest of the week. Since the girls were pledging, I couldn’t sit with them at any meal. All of the pledge sisters had to eat meals together, and once when I saw the girls in the dining hall, they said that I couldn’t sit with them or make any jokes about what they were doing. Pledging was supposed to be taken seriously, and if any girl was seen wearing makeup, laughing, or having a good time, all of the girls would have to stand outside the sorority house and get yelled at by their pledge mistress, who was the director of the pledging process.
Another time I was talking with some of Rodney’s pledge brothers in the library. Rodney made a remark that I was a wuss, and he brought up the time he won our wrestling match. Rodney said to me, “I showed you who the boss was, right, son?” I replied, “The last I knew, Tony Danza was still the boss.” Some of the pledges started chuckling, but one of the pledge master’s spies saw them and made the pledges do an extra thirty push-ups because they were caught laughing in the library during study hours. As a result, the next day all of the pledges yelled at me like I did something wrong.
Most of the different missions that the fraternities made their pledges embark on were bizarre and degrading. One night all of the pledges had to steal a squeegee from a gas station, find a vibrator, walk to all of the sorority houses in their underwear, and get at least one sister from each of the ten sororities to sign the pledge’s underwear. If the pledge got more than one signature, it was considered bonus points. One pledge was so ambitious that he had a sorority sister actually sign his penis.
Some other fraternity missions that the pledges had to complete involved carrying a balloon around for one day without popping it. Another time the pledges couldn’t speak for one whole day, and many times the pledges had to run across campus as a group. One time a sorority made all of its pledge sisters get naked, and then a group of fraternity brothers walked around and stared at them. If a girl had some fat or extra skin in a certain place, the brother would circle it with a marker.
All of the fraternities and sororities completely isolated their pledges from any contact with the outside world. If a pledge had a screen name, which all of them did, the pledge master would put it on their buddy list. If the pledge was caught talking online, the whole pledge class would be punished. Most of the pledges got around this by inventing new screen names. All of the pledges, regardless
