Being the president of a fraternity is a lot of work, but has a lot of perks. One of them is being able to grant the pledges a pardon.
During a semester, the brotherhood will ask the pledges to do a lot of things. Some of these things are required by the pledge program, but others are good college fun.
To avoid one of the ‘good fun’ tasks of the semester, the pledges can use a presidential pardon at their discretion. They should only be able to use it once, so they better make it count.
Of course, by tasks I am not alluding to hazing. I don’t condone hazing of any type. What I am talking about are requirements on the new member class that are tasks they need to accomplish prior to initiation.
It is up to the president on how they can earn this pardon. Maybe the fraternity president will give the group a task to accomplish to earn the pardon, or maybe he’ll task each pledge individually. Again, this is one of the perks of being a fraternity president.
If the president decides to do this type of program, you want make sure both the president and pledge marshal are on the same page. Then, the marshal needs to explain the program to the fraternity and let them know that the president is the only one with this authority. The last thing a fraternity needs is there to be a vice-presidential pardon and a pledge marshal pardon and a treasurer pardon. That will lead to a revolt against the executive board.
To learn more, check out our most in-depth article on being a fraternity president: How To Be a Great Fraternity President