Help Finding a non-NPC Sorority to Affiliate With!

[rcnjinterest]

Hey Everyone! This is my first post on here, so please bear with me. Myself and a group of girls at my college are attempting to bring a new sorority onto our campus. We have, in essence, been told that we cannot bring a new NPC sorority to campus, so we are looking into the possibility of a local organization. Ideally, we would like to have other groups either nationally or locally that we could talk to, meet up with, and share traditions and rituals with. The problem is, we're having a lot of trouble figuring out what our options are! It seems like a lot of the databases with lists of locals and national GLOs have many broken links, or don't list many schools near us. So, myself and the girls were hoping that you could give us some suggestions of sororities that you either belong to, or know of, in our area for us to get into contact with! We're from Ramapo College of NJ, which is in Mahwah, NJ.

Thanks in advance for all your help!

[OmegaPDPrez]

usually your greek life advisor would be able to help you out with something like this. I know that at my school our advisor has a book with a TON of organizations that are not included in the NPC. my advisor was nice enough to let me flip through that book. but you can always do an online search for sororities in the Multi cultural council. As well as other independant groups.

[33girl]

I'm confused by your post...

It's titled "looking for a non-NPC sorority to affiliate with" and then in your post you say you're looking into forming a local organization. Which do you want to do?

If you are looking solely for support, check out the Locals and Up and Coming Nationals forums on here. There's also a post in the U & C forum with links to groups, if you want to become a chapter of one of those groups.

As an aside, unless you become a chapter of a regional or national sorority, I don't believe any of them are going to "share traditions and rituals" with you. Develop your group's own traditions and rituals for the time being. Imitation is a form of flattery, but not in this case.

Originally Posted by 33girl

I'm confused by your post...

It's titled "looking for a non-NPC sorority to affiliate with" and then in your post you say you're looking into forming a local organization. Which do you want to do?

If you are looking solely for support, check out the Locals and Up and Coming Nationals forums on here. There's also a post in the U & C forum with links to groups, if you want to become a chapter of one of those groups.

As an aside, unless you become a chapter of a regional or national sorority, I don't believe any of them are going to "share traditions and rituals" with you. Develop your group's own traditions and rituals for the time being. Imitation is a form of flattery, but not in this case.

I could be totally wrong, but visions of a tie in an already existing thread come to mind...(I just hope that this isn't the group that already had that Facebook group).

[AlphaFrog]

Originally Posted by OTW

I could be totally wrong

You're not.

[skylark]

To rcnjinterest:

If there are already other NPCs on campus, have you participated in formal recruitment? While it may be alluring to start up something brand new, your campus already has 8 sororities (I recognize 4 as NPCs) and I'm wondering why you've been "told" that you can't bring a new NPC to campus. Is it because national orgs have been struggling to keep quota up in recent years? If so, then I would think very strongly about why you think your campus could support another group. Are you *truly* filling a niche not being filled, or have you discounted existing groups based on their stereotyped reputations on campus?

Keep in mind that starting up and keeping a new group on campus takes a lot of work (likely more work than fixing a couple problems with an already established group) and it isn't just work that will need to be done by you and the girls you've got right now... it will be a lot of work for girls who will be on campus 5 years from now after you've left, and it would be a shame to see a group die out when its enthusiastic founders graduate. Just make sure you're doing it for the right reasons and you've already checked out the campus's current options before you take on such a challenge.

(And I'm also wondering if this poster is part of the Facebook group of girls mentioned in another thread)

For the OP, just in case you're confused with some of these posts: http://greekchat.com/gcforums/showthread.php?t=91931

[skylark]

I found this interesting... Ramapo "suggests" new students interested in sororities and fraternities ask these questions on their greek website (http://www.ramapo.edu/studentlife/st...eek/index.html):

Each fraternity or sorority has their own ideals and traditions which make them unique. Below are some common questions that one might ask when meeting them to find out more about their Greek organization.

• How many brothers/sisters do you have?
• How much does it cost to be a member?
• Do you have a philanthropy?
• When where you founded?
• Do you have a mascot?
• Will pledging affect my grades?
• How long does pledging take?
• What happens if I decide not to pledge after rushing?
• Do you haze your pledges
• Can I still hang out with my other friends once I am a brother/sister?
• Do you ever arrange off-campus activities?
• What if I decide not to pledge after I start pledging?
• Do Greeks get academic recognition?
• Do you sponsor any activities on campus?
• Has your fraternity/sorority received any special honors?
• Why did you pledge?

While some of these questions are good, the first one is to suggest that they ask about numbers! I can't imagine how hard it is for every group besides the largest one to recruit in this kind of environment. How crappy when the school itself is implying that you want to join the one with the most numbers (which will probably be the hardest to get into).

[33girl]

Originally Posted by skylark

While some of these questions are good, the first one is to suggest that they ask about numbers! I can't imagine how hard it is for every group besides the largest one to recruit in this kind of environment. How crappy when the school itself is implying that you want to join the one with the most numbers (which will probably be the hardest to get into).

See, I didn't take it that way at all. I think they're more saying that "if you want to be in a bigger group, look at the NPCs. If you want to be in a smaller group, look at the non-NPCs." Plus, these are questions for guys AND girls. Some guys want to be in the biggest fraternity, some want to be in the smallest. I don't think the school is implying "bigger is better" at all.

[rcnjinterest]

Originally Posted by OTW

I could be totally wrong, but visions of a tie in an already existing thread come to mind...(I just hope that this isn't the group that already had that Facebook group).

We do not have a facebook group, so the answer to that question is a definite no. I do however have a feeling that I know the group you're talking about, but I believe they were interested in an NPC affiliated organization.

[AlphaFrog]

Originally Posted by skylark

To rcnjinterest:

If there are already other NPCs on campus, have you participated in formal recruitment?

I think I want to hear the answer to this before this thread gets any farther...

[rcnjinterest]

Originally Posted by 33girl

I'm confused by your post...

It's titled "looking for a non-NPC sorority to affiliate with" and then in your post you say you're looking into forming a local organization. Which do you want to do?

If you are looking solely for support, check out the Locals and Up and Coming Nationals forums on here. There's also a post in the U & C forum with links to groups, if you want to become a chapter of one of those groups.

As an aside, unless you become a chapter of a regional or national sorority, I don't believe any of them are going to "share traditions and rituals" with you. Develop your group's own traditions and rituals for the time being. Imitation is a form of flattery, but not in this case.

We're not looking to steal/imitate someone else's hard work and progress with an organization that has already been founded. We're trying to figure out if there is a local group interested in expansion, or a national glo which represents the values we stand for that we could create a colony and become a part of. If not, we're going to go the route of creating our own, original organization. A majority of the girls, myself included, think that having other chapters at different institutions is something that we would like to be a part of.

[rcnjinterest]

Originally Posted by skylark

To rcnjinterest:

If there are already other NPCs on campus, have you participated in formal recruitment? While it may be alluring to start up something brand new, your campus already has 8 sororities (I recognize 4 as NPCs) and I'm wondering why you've been "told" that you can't bring a new NPC to campus. Is it because national orgs have been struggling to keep quota up in recent years? If so, then I would think very strongly about why you think your campus could support another group. Are you *truly* filling a niche not being filled, or have you discounted existing groups based on their stereotyped reputations on campus?

Keep in mind that starting up and keeping a new group on campus takes a lot of work (likely more work than fixing a couple problems with an already established group) and it isn't just work that will need to be done by you and the girls you've got right now... it will be a lot of work for girls who will be on campus 5 years from now after you've left, and it would be a shame to see a group die out when its enthusiastic founders graduate. Just make sure you're doing it for the right reasons and you've already checked out the campus's current options before you take on such a challenge.

(And I'm also wondering if this poster is part of the Facebook group of girls mentioned in another thread)

Both myself and the other original founder of our group of girls have gone through formal recruitment. I recieved a bid to one of the npc groups on campus, but it was not one that I was interested in being a part of for various reasons. After attending what we were told was the "largest recuitment process ever" at our school, many sororities took very small pledge classes and many girls were "unchosen". It happened that many of those girls were ones with whom I had bonded with through the week of recruitment. It is because of this that some of us felt that there was a need for another option to be brought to campus.

You're right that we have eight sororities currently on campus, four being NPCs. The other four are multicultural and have their own recruitment processes and regulations. After talking with the ONE greek life staff member we have at our school, she told us that she had contacted NPC, and as you presumed, she was told that our four groups were not meeting quota and as such they did not want to bring a competiting group onto campus at this time. We thought this was kind of interesting, considering what we were told at the time of recruitment.

And I agree, I wouldn't want to start something just to see it dissolve a few years after I've graduated. Our interest group as of now has different grade levels involved, so hopefully that would help to combat that issue, but I don't think there's really any guarantee.

Anyway, like I said I'm really just starting to research the non-npc options so I apologize if my post was awkward or unclear. As one of the "leaders" so to speak of our group, I offered to sort of head up the investigation.

[Drolefille]

OP I do think you seem to have your head on straight. I believe there's a list of other non-NPC sororities somewhere on GC, but one you may be interested in is Kappa Beta Gamma, they're a smaller national sorority that you may find fits with your values. I'd suggest researching and contacting other local/regional sororities in your surrounding area (the size of which would depend on your own discretion) about your interest in forming a new chapter.

[LPIDelta]

Normally I am all for new locals and people starting new groups if warranted, but it seems odd to me that they won't allow another NPC because of numbers but they will go ahead and ok another sorority. That really won't improve the situation for the NPC groups, or the other sororities on campus, and given all that the current orgs have invested to be on campus I would hope they would honor that first.

Why not approach one of the existing orgs as a group and offer a "merger" of sorts? Sometimes recruitment just isn't run correctly and it causes all kinds of issues with women going unmatched. If the groups are as hard off as you seem to indicate, I would think they might jump at the chance to add a whole group of friends to the mix who are interested in making a difference for Greek life.

Otherwise, you have have your work cut out for you. GOOD LUCK!