ok so what happened with mustard and ketchup????

i don't want to read the cmu expansion thread because i agree it is like opening a christmas present early

Sorry for the delay... but I'm back and ready to talk about Mustard...

We had all been waiting impatiently for Mustard. We thought that they were going to be amazing!

They had set their materials up in our downstairs area, like Relish had, and we waited upstairs while they were getting ready. We came downstairs and sat in the chairs facing the projector screen set up at the back of the house. We settled in, and the presentation began. The first presenter introduced everyone, including her husband, who she had "brought along to operate the projector." You CANNOT say that to a room full of Carnegie Mellon women in any situation!

Each presenter read their presentation straight off of their note cards. There was hardly any enthusiasm or excitement at all. Time for questions came after that. They didn't seem to happy with some of our questions. The transition ceremony that we wanted to do was not a happy topic, and the members of Mustard instead said that we should invite everyone to come back for the chapter's installation. We also wouldn't get much input at all into the other women who would join us as the chartering members. They also said that in four or five years, most people wouldn't really be aware of the local that had existed, as all members would be only Mustards and not Zetas as well.

This was extremely depressing for us to hear. We were all very upset that our favorite on paper hadn't come through. Our chapter advisor compared the situation to an episode in season 6 of Friends, where the character of Richard Burke tells Monica that he would be willing to have children if it meant he could be with Monica--Mustard would be willing to take us if it meant that they could have a chapter at Carnegie Mellon. We could tell that they did really want to have this colony... they even had an advisory board and a housing board all set up and ready to go for when we chose Mustard!

We still had one more presentation to go, though, and many people really liked Ketchup...

Wow. Somebody didn't do their research as to the campus culture or the fact that maybe this is a local that has been around for a substantial amount of time. I can't believe they'd present like that at CMU!:eek: It definitely sounds like they just wanted a chapter at CMU because of the academic prestige!

I'm not sure what you mean by "transition ceremony". Would it be before, and separate from, the installation initiation? Would it be just actives or any Zeta Psi Sigma alumnae that want to come too?

It is true that in four or five years, once the last Zeta Psi Sigma graduates that the members would only be the national that you ended up choosing (obviously not mustard and pretty sure not relish), because they would only have experienced the national ritual. Or were you campaigning for all members to be initiated with both rituals? In 4-5 years, I can see that the general population wouldn't be aware of Zeta Psi Sigma--unless the history were outwardly honored, but it'd probably still be limited to the CMU Greek Community. That totally came out wrong, unless they were completely against honoring the history of Zeta Psi Sigma.

What we had in mind (and what we did) was like a modified preference ceremony. We wanted to honor what our founders had made and "pass it on" to the chartering members and the chapter advisors of the national organization that would adopt us. We had it during Carnival (which is like a spring homecoming) and had over 75 alumnae come back to the chapter, plus the 26 collegiate sisters. (Zeta initiated about 155 people in 12 years.)

We knew that our ritual would sadly stop, but we wanted to continue some of our non-ritual traditions. They told us that they had colonized a "local" in the past decade, and that they taught about the chapter's founding and history. However, the local chapter's history was only about 4 years long, so the founders of the local were seniors when they were colonized. 12 years is a lot more history than 4. We asked them other questions about family trees, chapter traditions, and so on, and their favorite phrase was, "We'll talk about it."

What a cop out. That whole presentation just sounds sketchy to me. Note cards...no enthusiasm...unwilling to really answer questions.

There is a post on here somewhere. There was a local that was colonized by Omega Phi Alpha. The OP was a national officer or something and was officially pledging the colony. It was at some sort of camp retreat or something and come time for the ceremony a bunch of the girls were wearing the local's letters. She could tell the girls were getting emotional about "leaving" the local and she allowed them to wear the letters during the pinning ceremony. A lot of the girls said that was the first time they really felt a connection to OPhiA.

I mean really, when you have an established local that has traditions, rituals, and bonds under the 'old' letters, you really have to be willing to honor that at least for some amount of time.

I guess I kind of understand what Mustard was trying to put across...there was a thread on here about a campus whose longstanding locals all went national and after being allowed to do "local" things for years, one of the groups got into a giant brouhaha for not doing things the national way. Mustard is starting as they mean to go on - they intend for anyplace they colonize to be 100% Mustard and not looking back at the past. However, I think that you can honor your history without violating national procedures.

It does sound, though, like Mustard just wanted a CMU chapter, and not necessarily the women who were in front of them.

This is SO well written...and I love to see that. Keep going! :)

^^^^I think that was Wake Forest and the group formerly known as Fidelis in the early 2000s. Again, another nationally ranked school with very driven students....



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This is a really interesting story. Do the rejected groups ever get or ask for feedback as to why they weren't chosen? I think it would be very eyeopening for Directors of Expansion of the 3 groups that weren't eventually chosen to read this.

Thanks to Greek Chat -- not only will they get to read it, but we ALL get to read it!

Mustard couldn't be Chi O. However, in light of the WFU/Fidelis issue occurring only a few years before and the fact that the WF chapter was holding on to local rituals over a decade after they had been absorbed by a National, was Mustard concerned that the same thing might happen at Carnegie Mellon?

Wow, Mustard sounds so disappointing! Ugh!

It is definitely a different kind of challenge. I don't know how many locals older than four years seek national adoption. I would think that most orgs speak to interest groups, but I don't know any statistics on this.

This is the first I've heard of that situation, but it is completely possible that they were worried about this.

That's really disappointing about mustard, I expected more from them from how you said they were your top choice on paper.

Dear Klk,

I would realllllyyyyyyy like to hear about Ketchup. Pretty Puhweese!

Seconded.

Ketchup was our last hope. We knew that if we weren't happy with any of the groups who presented to us, we could go back to the drawing board and pick even more groups. We did like them on paper, though, so we'd have to see what happened during their presentation. The presentation was the day right after Mustard's, at 9:30 PM.

They gave us a lot of good information during the presentation, and a lot of the things they told us set them apart from other groups. We would keep our officer positions and move into comparable positions in the Ketchup model executive board. They also wouldn't actually start the colonization until about a month after we would contact them, so that they could get organized and get the Zeta alumnae on board, too. They said that it would be disrespectful to appoint an advisory board with only Ketchup members, and wanted to include some of our alumnae initiates as well. They also didn't have a resident consultant with them, because they wanted to meet us before they decided who to hire.

They did bring the executive director, a regional consultant, a regional manager, several alumnae from the Pittsburgh area, collegians from one of their oldest chapters that's very close to Pittsburgh, and the national president. The national president was a cute Texan woman, complete with accent... and she even knew the mother of one of our collegiate sisters! They went to the same school and were both presidents of their respective chapters. Talk about a small world!

One of the amazing things about Ketchup was the sense of sisterhood that I felt from them. They were all happy and enthusiastic, and I'm pretty sure they all smiled the entire time they were in our house. And not a fake smile... a genuine smile. They were extremely articulate and intelligent, too. After I went upstairs to finish up some homework, people were still milling about in our living room. My big came upstairs at 1:30 AM and told me that she had spent a long while talking to the regional people about a lot of different things, including her study of art history. I could tell that she was completely in love with Ketchup. :)