Pledgeship at Bama

Most fraternities on campus are no longer real fraternities, but country clubs and social clubs for social media content. A real fraternity does not have 50 man pledge classes with month long pledgeships. A pledge class should be between 15-30 pledges with a 5-6 month pledgeship.

Right about the large numbers, wrong about the pledgeship period.

There should not be a 'pledgeship' at all because that's not how fraternities were supposed to work from the beginning when they were founded. The original idea was to find a select few quality men to join the brotherhood, and then initiate them as equals pretty much right away. They 'pledged' themselves to join and wore the pledge pin to announce their commitment, but there was no idea that they then had to further prove themselves or earn their place or endure abuse from the men who supposedly already considered these new guys as a group of friends they esteemed enough to want to make brothers.

The hazing and boot camp crap started after WWII when men delayed college to go and serve their country, and then came to college afterward bringing their military experience and mentality with them because that's the only thing they knew. In the military you get a bunch of random guys from god knows where and who knows what backgrounds with a lot of problematic attitudes and lack of good backgrounds that you have to shape up by force in a limited period of time to get them ready to fight for their lives in a WAR. That has NO place in a fraternity, where the men are in an academic setting and are supposed to already be deemed worthy or they wouldn't get a bid in the first place.

As far as the numbers in a pledge class, there should be fewer individuals with a higher standard required of the gentlemen chosen to receive a bid.