"Schafer said that she thought ZTA seeks to meet Tulane’s sorority average membership of 236 students."

This statement in the article infers that 236 is the average chapter size at Tulane, not the number of members in the largest chapter as nolagreek stated. Anyone know which is correct?

Of course, we have seen some humdingers of mistakes made in student newspapers.

Just an observation...
I don't know how accurate school papers are and I don't know how colonizations work but it says in the article, "Junior ___________, who accepted a ZTA bid on Wednesday, said that the ZTA national office will make a decision about whether to colonize at Tulane by the end of next week."

This tells me that at least the girls were AWARE that NOT colonizing was a possibility?

The latest article from our school's newspaper

http://www.thehullabaloo.com/news/ar...a4bcf6878.html

I've been reading this thread, but not responding as I know little of the process. What I find interesting is in each of the articles, there seems to be an emphasis that ZTA was not offering bids to every women. For instance from the second article:
Do they really expect a new organization to take every woman who shows up?

I have read and followed this thread with interest. It is sad on both ends to me in that both ZTA will not have another chapter added to their rolls yet, and the women at Tulane will have to find other groups to associate with. As someone who loves history I find this topic ironic in that back in the day when all of our groups were being founded, the stories of how early chapters got started usually by just having one or two members going to a school and attracting only a couple (sometimes more) people to start a new chapter.....now it's up to having almost 200?!? Wow.

When I was a founding father of the Kappa Sigma chapter at the University of Cincinnati we only needed 30. That was in 1994.....

Anyway, I hope it all works out for both the sorority and the women....

BG

Of course they do. People come to college and have not had the experience of having to compete for a spot unless it was the school play or a sport. The idea of competing for a spot in a club is a new concept to them. So I can't say I blame them for feeling miffed that they expressed interest, were passed over, the organization sought more people, couldn't fill the spots and ultimately decided not to colonize.

I'm not saying theirs is the right mentality, but I can appreciate their frustration. They're saying, "Hey! A bunch of us right here want to do this! We put in the time! We did our research! Don't look for other people after we showed you were interested! Don't leave!" They're going to take it personally.

Good points, but remember that when the founders developed their organizations they were starting from scratch and didn't have to stay competitive with other groups or be held to a set of rules attached to a conference. And a fraternity colonization is very different from a sorority colonization. Not to mention that the numbers needed at one school vary greatly to another. The idea here was to develop a ZTA colony that would be competitive with the other sororities and would become a chapter that would thrive. That required a number of women roughly equivalent to the existing chapters and also women who met the high academic standards for ZTA and Tulane Greek Life. It's unfortunate that they could not recruit enough qualified candidates to make this work.

But how many of these same women went through formal recruitment? That's competing for spots.

You are right. I'm struggling to understand that they don't see how accepting everyone as a bad idea. My high school was big on the entire "everyone who tries gets a position" idea, but I still knew that there were certain criteria that had to be met for membership in most situations. The article also mentioned the low GPA of the PNMs. Wonder how many went through formal and were cut due to grades.

Their frustration is completely understandable.

Question for those who know more about this: Is there a set time limit for colonization? Could they have recruited for longer say into next Fall? Not saying they should have done so, just curious to know more about the process.

Absolutely true and I have no idea... But I imagine that the ones who went through formal recruitment aren't the ones complaining in this article. And even formal recruitment is the first time someone competes for a spot in a club.

Most of the founding sisters I know in real life never went through formal recruitment. They were plucked from campus activities and leadership positions.

Oftentimes, yes there is a time limit. Staying longer than planned could be cost prohibitive when you consider the staffing needed for an extension. The cost of each consultant is food, lodging, salary, not to mention the other expenses like promotional material, advertisement, events, etc. You also need to consider staffing needs elsewhere, be it another extension or chapter visits.

There were fewer than TEN women enrolled at Indiana Asbury when Bettie Locke Hamilton formed Kappa Alpha Theta (not positive but it was either six or nine).

Can't compare (past to present, fraternities to sororities). Won't work.

Bottom line: ZTA was not able to offer membership to their required number of qualified women, based on their membership selection criteria, which is private.

Oh. Sorry, wasn't trying to compare, just stating how times have changed....
I know there is no comparison between then and now. It's amazing to see how much organizations have grown!

Thanks
Bg

No problem BG! got it!!! When we think about how hard it was 150 years ago (thinking of Pi Phi, ADPi, Phi Mu) to get things going, it is amazing, huh? But then, the population today - the college enrollment - blah blah blah.

Speaking of founding, thinking of scholarship ... connecting the dots.

I'm pretty sure there is not a time limit set by the NPC (we have talked about some drrrraaaawwwwnnnn oooouuuuut colonizations on here). Whether ZTA or Tulane set a time limit officially or unofficially is another story.

Colonies cost a lot of money! Just within the last 10 years I think they've sped this process up an amazing amount. Not long ago a semester long colony was (I think) the norm. Now it's weeks. If they didn't attract the girls they wanted and felt like they would be working at a deficit right out of the shoot, we're talking about thousands of dollars extra that would need to be spent.

And I think, just my opinion, that certain sororities have a reputation they have to meet right out of the gate. ZTA is so big all over the south that going in as bottom rung would be seen as a bigger failure than if a Phi Sig or other northern sorority did. I mean, what would you expect out of a fish out of water sorority? Of course it's going to take them time to get established. I don't know that ZTA would have been given the same grace period.

There are tons of reasons that a sorority might decide not to proceed with colonization and we'll probably never know why Zeta did so at Tulane. As strong as Zeta is, they must have had major signals that it wasn't going to work. Quién sabe?

I recall a fairly recent story about 2 groups that were selected to present at a large Southern university. Now the third group apparently knew this ahead of time but the other 2 were shocked to see that a majority of the girls at their presentation were Goth/alternative types. These dozens of girls had decided that they were going to be the "alternative" sorority. Group 3 was okay with this.

Groups 1 and 2 didn't want to deal with the ongoing problems that an alternative chapter can have. They put their heads together and gave very "blonde" presentations. As they hoped, group 3, with their presentation tailored for these girls, was selected. The chapter still exists but is very unlike the others and is much smaller than the rest. They're lucky because a chapter like that would struggle at most big Southern schools.

Anyway, I have no idea what the girls at Tulane were like but I wanted to throw in this story to show that something other than numbers or grades or anything else you'd normally expect can be the dealbreaker.

Thats an interesting story, carnation.

It's nice to know that group #3 actually cared about giving these "alternative" :rolleyes: girls a sisterhood where they would feel welcome and is OK with being smaller instead of just condeming them. As long as you aren't biting off more than you can chew with a ginourmous house, the only reason smaller chapters have a bad sorority experience is usually because their national$ are con$tantly telling them they suck because they're smaller. It's hard to rush successfully when the people who you pay dues to, ostensibly to lift you up, are always putting you down.

I don't see where groups 1 and 2 were any worse for not wanting an alternative chapter than any other group is for deciding they're not interested in a certain group of girls. I don't see why 1 and 2 would've wanted to spend millions of dollars on a chapter that would always struggle--and they do--in many ways.

I don't think of Group 3 as being noble. One of their alums told several of us that really, what they wanted was a chapter on that campus and they hoped to gradually change the group. A few years out and that really hasn't happened.

Because they decided from the outset (with apparently very little interaction with the women in question) that a chapter full of girls who happen to like black makeup etc would not be committed to their values, excellent fundraisers, great students or otherwise good sisters. As I said, if they don't go all out and buy a house they will never fill - if in effect they are OK with being a smaller chapter, much in the way that SDT does on several campi - who cares? It seems that 1 and 2 were far more concerned with initial appearances than with what the women would actually give back to the group.

Was this alum a national councillor/decisionmaker of any sort at the time? Or just someone shooting off her mouth and clutching her pearls? If this was really the case, the group would have probably bait-and-switched before they even chartered, rather than waiting for the horrible Bauhaus* fans to even sport their letters for a millisecond.

*Yes I'm old.

This alum is a regional officer whom I've known for years. She's hardly a pearl-clutcher and I've got to say, this woman has tried everything with this group.

The chapter doesn't do "excellent fundraisers". It's hard getting them to do much of anything because the girls don't appreciate being asked to do them or much that's social either. After all, they were going to be the un-sorority! This chapter has been a total frustration for their nationals. Getting a house is on hold.

You think it's all about the black makeup? No, it was the attitude that went with the makeup. Those of us who have been around for awhile have seen what usually happens with un-sororities around her because their dislike of traditional sorority life makes them not want to participate in the usual Greek life (we can't figure out why they even wanted to pledge). This gets around and those groups often get disastrous recruitment results.

Maybe they need to be assisted by someone who is a little more open-minded, instead of someone who thinks there's only one way to be a successful sorority - even in (gasp) THE SOUTH.

Well, thanks anyway for making those 150 girls at Tulane happy that they're not going to be in a sorority.

Well GCers, this is what I was talking about. I'm acquainted enough with the un-sorority's doings that I know what has occurred and that they have cost their national buttloads of money and pain. 33 doesn't know the situation and can only make assumptions.

Same with Tulane. Something (some things?) told ZTA that the situation wasn't going to work out. Maybe it was numbers or scholastics or something we haven't dreamed of. *Zeta is there, we're not, so I wouldn't begin to make assumptions about what happened.*

Interestingly, I've seen the acquisition of a house dramatically change the tone of a chapter overnight. Dues go up to pay for house and parlor fees, people leave because they don't like the change/can't afford the increase, and the perceived prestige of a house attracts more women in the next recruitment. I can't speak for everywhere and I'm not, but that happened quite a few times on my campus.

Which is why you really shouldn't have posted this little tale (that I'm sure all 3 groups really appreciate having all over the internet) in this thread - it's like you're intimating ZTA bowed out for the same reason, because the girls sucked, which is exactly the conception most people in this thread were trying to negate. Kudos.

adpiucf, I completely agree - that doesn't just happen with big multimillion $ houses, it happens at all types of schools. Sometimes the acquisition is positive, sometimes negative. Again, it's just simply a matter of timing and who is in the various roles when.

No, I didn't hint at that. I explicitly said that it could be for a number of reasons, some of which had nothing to do with the girls. And the stuff about the 3 groups is all over the internet, still to be found if you know where to look.