I wouldn't hold my breath about Davidson. A friend from high school goes there and told me the faculty and administration is very anti greek.

Definitely not. Many women alumnae also vehemently oppose sororities. I don't think it'll ever happen there. Also I wonder how NPCs would react to Davidson's guaranteed self-selection. I know that most of the fraternities opposed it and many left campus when this was instituted in the 1970s, but many later returned.

Sewanee, maybe so, but it's my understanding from other GC threads that the locals there don't want national affiliation/supervision.

In layman's terms, what is that?

But would Sewanee locals have a choice if the administration said they had to affiliate with a national or disband? With liability risk so much higher with locals, wasn't that why WFU admin demanded the switch to all nationals?

Any person going through Davidson's fraternity or eating house recruitment (there are both all-women and co-ed eating houses) are guaranteed their choice of where to join. Basically if a person wants to join that group, they can. The potential new members rank their choices and membership is decided by lottery. My understanding is that you cannot be denied membership by the members of the group you want to join. Self-selection instead of mutual selection You may not get what you want in the lottery, however.

Of course students at Davidson might be able to comment on the theory vs. practice of this rule.

When the rule was implemented in 1971, many of the fraternities decided to close and at least a few began operating off-campus without school recognition. I think they are all now officially recognized and abiding by the self-selection rule. The eating houses obviously never had this issue.

Actually looking at the website it appears that the co-ed eating house folded...

Alpha Phi Alpha has a chapter there..... they must exist outside of this self-selection....thing.

I guess they wouldn't. I know that KD is currently at Sewanee--I'm not sure if they colonized outright or took in a local. At one time the rumor was heard on GC that they were going to be required to go national, but it apparently never happened (or maybe they were never actually required to). There is a really old thread about this:

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...hlight=sewanee

I agree with you re: liability concerns. I also wonder if KD's national resources haven't shocked and awed the other groups there. LOL. Who knows?

Yes, I noticed when I did a search on the Davidson site that Alpha Phi Alpha had colonized there in the early 00s.

I did find this PDF regarding the topic, but it doesn't tell me anything more than I already knew:

http://www3.davidson.edu/cms/documen...ife%200708.pdf

The Patterson Court (where the eating houses/fraternities are located) website is pretty cruddy and not as good as I remember it once being:

http://www3.davidson.edu/cms/x16074.xml

I have no idea if they left Alpha Phi Alpha not do self-selection. Honestly it seems unfair that they would let them and not any other groups do it... but who knows?

ETA: I found a very good timeline here:

http://www2.davidson.edu/studentlife...PC_history.pdf

I suppose I should add that I grew up 40 minutes from Davidson and went there throughout my life. I wanted to go to college there but ended up not at the last minute. My aunt is an alumna and is pretty much horrified that there are any single-sex groups there. In 1971 the process of self-selection really was designed to kill Greek life and make all the groups into co-ed eating houses. For whatever reason, according to that timeline the original co-ed eating houses all seem to have died by the early 90s.

According to the timeline, national sororities were debated in 1997 and 2001....

Found this too:

http://library.davidson.edu/archives...court_type.asp

OK, one more thing. Evidently fraternities do give bids somehow, although how that would work in the self-selection process isn't clear to me. Also, you can switch eating houses. And one more thing that I do remember hearing from my college tour: you can join an eating house in "clusters" of three so you won't get separated from your friends. Read about all of that in this article:

http://media.www.thedavidsonian.com/...-2673071.shtml

Indeed they did, in 1996 (all installed in 1997). I was a freshman during the first rush when all of the locals had just affiliated as colonies of nationals, and got to join the Gamma Phi Beta colony. At that time, there were 7 NPC colonies (one NPC has since left campus), and then Theta organized a few months after the rest and installed at around the same time.

The fraternities on campus also all went national at that time.

It was interesting hearing from my sisters that had been in the local sorority about the process of choosing which NPC they were going to be. According to what they told me, our chapter was deciding between Chi Omega and Gamma Phi Beta, and chose the latter.

At Sewanee, Kappa Delta started from a colony - it did not take over a local. They are doing fairly well, but I don't think being a national has given it an advantage over the locals. Sewanee is such a sopping wet campus that the locals don't want to have national oversight with regard to alcohol rules (and the administration has a long history of turning a blind eye to alcohol use).

I went to Davidson, and yes, that is the way selection for eating houses is determined. In the fall, freshmen visit the eating houses, kind of like an Open House. Then in January, women who want to join rank their preferences. Once the cards are in, a lottery determines where a woman will join. The eating house has no say as to who will or will not be a member.

I do not remember fraternity rules, but I'm pretty sure when I was there that bids were given like any other campus. I just remember that my then-boyfriend so badly wanted to join SigEp, but he didn't receive a bid. He did get one from PiKA, though. I had a good friend from our high school in the SigEp house and I remember him telling me that he didn't want the boy in his fraternity... whether that had anything to do with it or not, I don't know. But bids are usually given out starting around October, and that goes on for awhile... the "rush" time is a whole semester. So that doesn't make sense with a self-selection process to me.

At the time of the Houston and San Jose State selections the NPC rules were much less regimented.

At Houston the Dean's Office notified all of the national groups of the intent and requested to be notified of those groups interested in placing a chapter on campus. Each local group could contact any or all of the national groups which had registered. After each group had done their research they notified the nationals of their choice. If the national was interested in that group, a meeting was set up where a presentation could be made (selling the merits of each to the other). From that process all of the groups matched with a selection. Amazingly efficient, the process began in the spring of 1955, the groups officially pledged in January and installed in February. The fraternity process was similar but far less organized and took longer to complete.

San Jose State was similar but a little more competitive because there were far more nationals interested than locals available. At least two local fraternities (and maybe some of the sororities) made tentative agreements with a national but continued shopping and finally upgraded to another group they felt was stronger or a better fit. A couple of the national organizations, after losing out on a group of their choice, went back and selected a local organization they had earlier rebuffed. The four groups that formed colonies had either lost the local group of their choice or lost out completely, but felt that the climate was healthy enough to support more groups and were successful in starting from scratch. Fascinating drama!

The ultimate feeding frenzy was when the University of California opened its Southern Campus, known today as U. C. L. A. Over about a 7 - 8 year period during the 1920s, 35 sororities (and a similar number of fraternities) installed chapters, almost all of which came from previously local organizations. As fascinating as the story would be, it would require a lot of research, including on-campus, which I do not have the facilities to do.

Still active at the University of Houston:

Alpha Chi Omega, Chi Omega, Delta Gamma, Delta Zeta, Phi Mu and Zeta Tau Alpha.

Pi Kappa Alpha, Pi Kappa Phi, Sigma Phi Epsilon, Sigma Chi, *Sigma Nu, Tau Kappa Epsilon

*I'm not quite sure what their status is.

I was about to mention BU here because that's exactly what happened.

Supposedly the Kappa Omega Tau fraternity couldn't find a national that fit their needs in all the rush, and that's why they stayed a local. Makes for some interesting local histories, that's for sure.

Back when I was chapter president, I met the Baylor Pi Phi president and she described some of the craziness that occurred when they were trying to choose what national... it sounded very dramatic to say the least!

One of my good friends now is a Chi-O from Baylor and I think her husband is a Kappa Omega Tau.... I may be wrong on this, but aren't there some local sororities at Baylor as well? I know a really sweet girl who is a member of a local (or maybe regional, don't know) group there with a strong Christian focus.

Ah ha! Thanks for that! I was trying to reconstruct from what I learned when I was applying there and from my aunt. It's interesting that they would have self-selection for the women's groups and not the men's.

May I ask what your opinion of bringing national sororities to Davidson is? I know my aunt is so vehemently opposed to it, but when she was a freshman there I think at least the seniors (and maybe the juniors too) were all male and she is really influenced by the specific political situation that was on campus then. She's a pretty involved alumna, but she once mentioned to me that she'd quit giving money to the school if they allowed sororities on campus. I'm not sure I really believe that though. Although it's true that she's pretty upset that the co-ed eating houses gave way to all women's eating houses.