By Jonathan Smith, Managing Editor
Social club pledges were officially inducted into their respective clubs the week before fall break, signifying the end of the four-and-a-half week pledging season.
New GATA member Kristen Turner, sophomore nursing major from Irving, said the pledging process was worthwhile and the best part was “being able to get to know everybody and getting to make some really great friends and having fun.”
Julie Goen, GATA president, said she liked the same aspect of the pledging season.
“The pledging process basically makes it impossible for you to not spend time with each other,” Goen said. “The pledge class gets to know each other better; the members get to know each other better, and then both in turn-members and pledges-get to know each other.”
Luke James, Galaxy president, said he has enjoyed seeing changes the new members undergo.
“The guys just going through the process, I think they’re stronger and better men after going through it,” James said. “They also form very tight bonds with guys that are going to stay that way for a long time that wouldn’t be there unless they went through something like this together.”
This pledging season brought with it several changes to pledging rules and regulations by Amanda Spell, coordinator of student organizations and activities, including not allowing pledges to stay out all night before Homecoming.
“I guess [the rules] all do serve a purpose,” James said. “At times it’s kind of hard to see that from our perspective. It’s not just the ACU administration having to crack down; everybody in the whole country is through state laws and national laws.”
Goen said she wished the rules were more flexible.
“I’m not going to say they hinder us; when you’re working with people it’s always hard to have such black-and-white rules about everything,” Goen said. “It seems sometimes that the rules are so black and white and so set and absolute that there’s no give for those strange things that come up.”
Turner said the most difficult part of pledging for her was the time it took doing “all the different activities and not having much time to do your homework.”
Goen said members could easily spend 20-30 hours a week planning and organizing the pledging events, even though pledges were only allowed to participate in 15 hours of activities each week.
James said he felt pledging has changed somewhat even since he pledged two years ago.
“After all that’s been changed over the last 10 or 20 years-them being able to do a lot of stuff we can’t do now-in order to accomplish the same purpose, you have to get more creative in what you do,” he said.
