And the fact that they DON'T participate in formal rush probably creates even more of a nationals/locals schism. There are schools where the nationals and locals do everything together as far as rush/panhel is concerned, and there are probably girls rushing who wouldn't know (or care) which was which because everything's pretty much seamless.

As far as I remember back in the day....they didn't pursue other groups and once they got rejected by the one that they pursued they were anti-going national and put down any groups there were any chance they got, and this came from both actives and alumnae.

If this school made them participate in FR, I doubt there would be as many problems with the Greek system as their is, but they are allowed to do whatever they want. That is something that is a fault of the school

At schools where locals are associate members of Panhell and participate in FR are the PNMs made fully aware of which is which? And, do the NPC agreements really truly apply to the locals too? I'm just thinking of what if a PNM knows that she absolutely has zero interest in joining a local (or vice versa); why should she be forced to go to their events?

Bloomsburg U in PA has half locals, half nationals. AFAIK the unanimous agreements on rushing completely apply to the locals, the locals hold officer positions in Panhel, etc. They are full members of Panhel, so why should rushees be EXEMPTED from their events? I'm sure there are also women going through rush who have zero interest in joining (example) groups that don't have chapters in California, so should they be allowed to skip ASA and AST's parties?

If joining a national and not a local is that important to a rushee, she needs to research and ask questions at rush.

Locals that are just associate members usually hold their rush apart from when NPCs do. That's a whole different animal.

Same story at Dartmouth.

My campus decided to switch from all-locals to all-nationals in one swoop. I've been told it was because of hazing and the school's displeasure with having no real oversight re: rules, standards, etc. They just thought having (inter)national organizations would keep local chapters accountable and that the national reputations of NPC/NIC would actually draw more students into Greek Life (which it did). Almost all of the NPC sororities now on campus were orginally locals, meaning members of the local were actually initiated into Gamma Phi Beta along with the first pledge class (my class). So, some were members of both the local and NPC sorority.

The transition appeared to go pretty smoothly. All of the organizations sent consultants who remained with the chapters for the first full academic year and helped us learn new rules, bylaws, election procedures, ritual, songs, and international traditions. Some of the older members (mostly juniors and seniors) were a little resistant to change, but even they mostly went along with everything.

That said, for the years I was on campus, I became familiar with many of our local's traditions. Gamma Phi actually encouraged us to adopt the local's colors and motto as our chapter colors/motto. Our chapter's candle-pass song was actually written by the soon-to-be-fiance of one of our local's members from years past, so we retained the song and the chapter still sings it...it's a song no other Gamma Phi chapter sings, and is therefore very special to the chapter. So, going national does not always mean abandoning your roots.

ETA: although hazing supposedly occurred in the local system on my campus, my chapter of Gamma Phi NEVER hazed. I don't know if the local did before, but if it did, that was one tradition that did not stick around.