NIU’s eight black fraternities and sororities are under a membership freeze until their national chapters decide on a program to replace pledging.

This summer the national chapters of all the organizations made official their February plans to ban pledging from Rush activities, said Black Greek Council President Cynthia Miller.

The organizations are hoping to receive new procedures this academic year because new membership is essential, she said. “The national chapters are not insensitive to our needs,” Miller said.

She said the old pledge program was meaningful to the members, while the new program will be a complete change.

“I’m not looking forward to it,” she said. “Change is always hard. My biggest challange this year is to encourage, as well as see adopted, the new membership intake program,” Miller said.

The national chapters saw no other way than banning pledging to eliminate whatever hazing existed, she said.

BGC Treasurer and Zeta Phi Beta sorority member Carolyn Watkins said her sorority hopes to receive its new regulations before October because it has only seven members now.

“We don’t take in the number of members that the white sororities do,” Watkins said.

The new regulations’ purpose will be to prevent emotional and physical stress that resulted from the old four to six week pledging program, she said.

The new program of one or two weeks will focus on the history of the organization, she said.

Intake of new members will become more selective because organizations will not be able to use the pledge period to judge prospective members, she said.

It remains to be seen if any members will try to continue pledging underground, she said.

“We still have pledging, so the ban will affect us in the future,” said Sergeant at Arms for the BGC Lydia Hernandez. Hernandez is a member of Alpha Psi Lambda co-ed fraternity, which has associate status in the BGC, she said.

Hernandez said pledging did not have a negative connotation for her because the Hispanic co-ed fraternities are new in the United States.