Re: Re: a slightly different perspective
 

Sorry, I just read through all these posts, and I had to comment.

Yes, our chapter was known to be a great option for wonderful women that is completely different from our stereotypical Penn sororities. At a recent freshman leadership dinner, our seniors made up a full quarter of the women leaders meeting with the freshmen. We are seen all around campus doing great things for the community, for Penn, and for Phi Sig.

Unfortunately, the chapters who were most concerned with their own reputation chose to knock down our reputation instead. When I joined in the spring of 2000 (we have spring formal rush), I remember another sorority in particular telling me during rush that I should not join Phi Sig. Luckily, I already knew how wonderful the girls were and became disgusted by the chapters that were knocking it down, so I suicided and put only Phi Sig on my bid acceptance sheet.

A few years later, and the badmouthing and lack of National support had left us in a lose-lose situation. We as a group were stronger than ever. But no, national had no intention of accepting any sort of progress. Their expectations were clear monitarily and numberswise, and yes, we did talk to them trying to come up with creative solutions, but they were not receptive to helping us out. Frankly, we had full plans in effect to make formal recruitment the best ever and save our reputation. The reaction at Penn has been one of loss for most of the campus (with the only exception perhaps being the sorority that was trying to put us there... they're next in line for bad reputation, unfortunately). But national coming in ended all our hopes of saving our chapter... we STILL love our group of women and what we have become. The girls living in the house still happily live there together, although all of our Phi Sig composites and insignia will be carted away while we are home for Thanksgiving. Another sorority will be living in our house next year, and there is a consensus on campus that Phi Sig will not be able to successfully reaffiliate (perhaps if National had worked WITH us, we would not have ALL had our hearts broken as we realized we were in a lose-lose situation). Sorry this is so long, but there have been a lot of comments hypothesizing about our character, our values, and our choices. We are still a sisterhood, and the values we held, we still hold. It's unfortunate we were unable to continue to hold them as Phi Sigma Sigma.

Thanks.

Well...
I understand that what I say may anger some people and I assure you that that is not my intent....
There are always three sides to every story; your side, their side, and the truth.
Although the previous post (Penngirl1234) shared the story of the chapter in question, it is only their view of the issue.

I don't think that CO would swoop in and destroy a chapter.....Besides the fact that I'm a Phi Sig and would like to think well of those who head up my organization, it really wouldn't be in their best interest. I'm sure that both the U Penn chapter and CO see the events and circumstances in their own view and feel that their actions were the best options of those that were available. The women of Nu chapter should not be criticized for their decision, as it was probably a very hard one to make and, although unfortunate, was probably what appereared to be the best solution to their problems.

To defend CO, some of the remarks made were uncalled for... We are one of two Canadian chapters and have 21 members, up from last years total of 4. We are, basically, what one post called a "black sheep" chapter. From what I have seen, Phi Sigma Sigma's Central Office does not desert it's chapters....I do not feel that they view our chapter as insignificant, even in comparison to the chapters which are five times our size. Although there are some jokes about spelling on shingles.....it IS, with the exception of one position, a VOLUNTEER organization.
I guess that's all I have to add...one long post to an extremely long thread...

Lynzi,
Delta Epsilon

That is certainly the case. I don't know, and can't understand, why we would have received the ultimatum that we did receive. And we have tried our hardest to revive a chapter that was low in reputation for a couple years even before the oldest girls were initiated (we just didn't know or understand until it was too late). I'm really glad that national has not always made the same mistakes, but what they TOLD us is that by making us all alumni and starting over, they were saving the larger organization. Fine. But if the larger organization truly stood for sisterhood and academic achievement and philanthropy (and fun!), then we should have been given a reward rather than a forced alumni status. And while they may have another side, for whatever reasons, they did give us a situation in which we had three options. 1) do the impossible (which is why our Panhel supports our decision... they understand how our campus works) and add 30 non-freshman women in a week without any monetary or human support from national, 2) become alumni, or 3) disaffiliate from Phi Sig. I understand that these women from national are not uncaring or "bad" women, but they made some mistakes with us that ended up hurting their sisters and hurting our campus' Greek system. And our recent alumni and advisors are disgusted as well, because they saw the same thing we did. So I understand that National doesn't ALWAYS make these mistakes, but please just don't try to make us defend our actions when we were crying the entire time we made the decision to close the chapter.

Just as a side note...

National officers and volunteers are HUMAN. They are not golden deities touched with some sort of all knowing vision for anything that will ever happen.

Sometimes they do great things, sometimes they screw up, sometimes they have agendas, and sometimes they would put their lives and sanity on the line to help a sister. Just like I'm sure ALL of us do at one time or another in our Greek lives.

Just don't assume that every single thing they do is right, because sometimes it's not. If my sisters had not realized that back in 1930, ASA would most likely no longer exist.