This past Friday, SAE Headquarters announced a significant shift in how all SAE chapters will approach the new member process and the elimination of any formal pledge period. The link to the news release is below.

http://www.sae.net/home/pages/news/news---news-from-hq---historic-change-on-founders-day

Bloomberg has also released an article on the topic that you can read through the link below.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-07/most-deadly-u-s-fraternity-scraps-initiation-for-new-members.html