Thank you. I know it hurts morale and such to ask a girl to be computer chair or on kitchen duty or something like that. You know what else hurts morale? Not making quota. By a lot. A lot of posters in this thread have never been in that situation.

Others have, and feel that it is better to close your chapter than hurt feelings. I disagree with that, and always will. What if HQ told you to get your chapter GPA up or be shut down? Would you be unwilling to put women on social probation or require study hours? It might hurt their feelings if you make them feel dumb, but I think few posters would hesitate here. What about women who can't pay their dues? If you try to put them on a payment plan and they still can't do it, do you let them remain a member forever without paying?

GPA and being put on probation is WAY different than being told to hide in the corner during rush. I was once on academic probation and I think it was the best thing possible because the sorority motivated me to do better and study my ass off. Telling someone they can't be in view during rush hurts and is subjective rather than looking at someone's GPA which is objective.

I agree with you, PM_Mama00, but as someone else said, this thread is going nowhere. There are, I guess, people that view being cruel to their sisters necessary in attaining numbers during Recruitment, rather than taking an objective view of the situation, and orchestrating positive action. In short, many women, I fear, feel that instead of rectifying a situation, they should just push it to the background. Sadly, however, no matter how much you push a situation out of view, it's bound to come out at some point, most likely with dire consequences. :(

the thing is that "hiding" the fat members is not going to change the immediate reputation that the chapter has. for instance, i know of a chapter that has the fat girl reputation on their campus.. i was very surprised when i saw all the campus sororities in a competition-each chapter had some fat girls, but the aforementioned one has the "fat girl" rep. this chapter also has the fewest members.

it seems to me that if a chapter is socked with a bad reputation, it takes practically an act of God to change the rep. closing the chapter and then trying to recolonize in a couple of years is not time enough for the reputation to die down.

Sad, but very true. Admittedly, I don't have personal experience with what really happens when a chapter is closed then recolonized. But, I've seen a too-recently-recolonized chapter struggle for its entire existence. And it's not pretty.

Just from having witnessed that, I'm of the opinion that the general response to a recolonized group should be, "Wow - I never knew there had been an ABC chapter here!" before deciding to try again.

Umm....NPC has been "moving" towards this since the early 90s. Many campuses have kind of giggled and kept right on doing what they've always been doing - if you don't believe me, read the "rush clothes -what are you wearing?" thread. If they keep "moving" at this rate, they'll get rid of all frills by, oh, 2050 or so.

I don't know about that--but we'll just have to wait and see. They have been moving pretty quickly these days. :D

Amen. FWIW, I googled and I think I figured out the school and the sorority. It's the newest in an area where new = bad and they had the smallest pledge class this past year.

The majority of girls going through rush here know about the sororities' reputations before they even get to campus. The national office probably should get a clue on that, and realize NOTHING they do will fix this (much like Tippie's example). So, either 1) accept being the smaller chapter on a big Greek campus and go with being the "unsorority" and get a smaller house or 2) close the chapter.

There are places I would love ASA to be because I would love to have a chapter at a school with huge Greek traditions. But I'm not going to push for it because I wouldn't want any of my sisters to have to suffer with being "that sorority" just because all the other groups have been there for 100+ years. It's not worth it.

Yes, some campuses have jumped right on the no-frills bandwagon...if that's what you mean by "moving fast", but there are other campuses that haven't changed a bit, and have no intention of changing.

There are a bunch of campuses where dropping all the frills in the world isn't going to make people recruit differently in terms of what groups look for in new members and what new members look for in groups.

And because of that, I don't see how ritual based recruitment would be possible.

Yes!

I also wonder if thinking that every chapter can be made strong is in itself faulty. With a couple of rare exceptions, even when my recruitment thread reading experience is added to my SEC experience, most campuses have a group or a couple of groups that struggle to maintain the membership that is expected.

Why not change the standards for those chapters so that their goal rather than quota and chapter total was financial solvency? And if they are financially solvent, even living on a dorm floor where most groups have houses, then concentrate your efforts on helping those sisters have an excellent experience rather than making the experience all about how unsuccessful they are at recruiting?

Or have a hard and fast rule about pulling charters of groups whose membership is below a certain point for more than X number of years relative to the rest of campus and then stay the heck off campus for long enough that people forget what your problem was.

I don't understand, I guess, why we have to be so different from IFC groups when it comes to our attitudes about chapter size, and as a result we do some weird stuff, and one of things we do is over-focus on the physical appearance of members during recruitment.

The problem is that if you stay off campus, you might not be able to get back on. There's room for another sorority, it's just that your sorority isn't able to attract women. How many times on here have we read about a chapter closing at State U, and then 2 years (or less) later, the Panhellenic is open for expansion, a new group comes on and does fabulous?

It's kind of like staying in a marriage you know is messed up for the sake of the kids or your lifestyle. You (the national HQ you) have to figure out how much that marriage/chapter means to you, and what you're willing to do to keep it. There are women who put up with their husbands cheating so they can have the perks of being "Mrs Important." There are sororities who put up with their chapter being at the bottom of the totem pole on large campuses because they feel that chapter is important to have there, for alum support or whatever reason.

Well, not getting back on campus would be the risk you took with a keep-membership-this-high-or-we'll-drop-you kind of policy.

Personally, I favor just letting some chapters be small and figuring out a way for them to do it without running in the red. But letting them exist isn't enough: GLOs need to figure out a way to keep the programming for the women who join at that chapter strong so that it's a chapter worth being in from a ritual and campus activities point of view.

What I think happens a lot at smaller chapters is that the experience can start to stink all the way around.

Within the campus PC community, the group is looked down on or pitied because they are so far from total or quota. Formal recruitment is kind of doomed no matter how hard they work if reputation and current size are the issue. Alumnae support may not be that great, so there's not much immediate help. The group is small enough that the officers are already working pretty hard just to exist, so the group ends up actually doing less in terms of activities. The average member makes a commitment of time and money for an experience that might be less fulfilling than being in the glee club.

And rather than saying, "we need to make sure that we put something in place so those members have a great experience," everything the chapter hears from the national or international group is likely to be negative about recruiting.

So, I'd first like to see a commitment to support all chapters, but if we're going to narrowly define what a successful chapter is, then a resolution to close chapters who hit a well-defined membership level is the only option that seems fair to current members. Any form of the "we are going to dump you for someone better" kind of stuff, which was the connection between the DePauw thread and this one, always seems to backfire from a practical point of view in addition to its betrayal of the ideals of sisterhood.

"She ain't heavyyyyyyy....she's my sis-terrrrr.....her wel-fare is myyyyy con-cern....."

True True!

Not everyone is a Lindsy or Paris, thank goodness!:rolleyes:

Amen to that. Old bag of bones ain't cute. :cool:

Lindsay used to be gorgeous. When she quits the cocaine and puts the weight back she won't be a bag of bones.

I agree! When people stop telling her that she is sexy when she looks like a crackhead, then she'll stop doing that. She looked spectacular when she was at an average (albeit below normal) weight. I hope everything works out for her.

It annoys me because she's stunning and her red hair is absolutely beautiful. She should never have gone blonde. Bad Lindsay, no more coke!

Silly Lindsay, coke is for, well--stupid people. :eek:

wtf??? see this right here is some hot bullshit!!! behind the scenes???? wtf!!! see thats the difference between nphc sororities & npc org. nphc doesnt worry about the make up of the sorors, its all about the character of them, and what they are doing for the chapter, sorority, & community. hell, some of these supposed "fat" members of the npc orgs actually are good sisters and can be a valuable part of your respectives orgs, and not just behind the scenes, as you so put it.


and another thing...wit the numbers issue, what do ya'll consider a small chapter? and how is it that ya nationals is telling you to get more members??? shit i know chapters that would love to have just 5 pplz in it, let alone 20+. i mean, i'm Phi Beta Sigma man, so i'm used to seeing chapters with small numbers, like 1 or 2 pplz in there, and sometimes none for a few years. Only chapters that really have any type of numbers(20+) are grad chapters, and a few undergrad chapters here and there.

The definition of a small chapter is based on total at that school. For instance, a chapter with only 15 girls, at a school where total is 18, isn't small. However, a 50 girl chapter at a school where total is 100, is a small chapter.

This isn't a bash NPC orgs thread. Also, I have met people from NPHC orgs who talk about who are the only members who get in because of who their parents are, so superficiality is NOT just limited to NPC.

A lot of the issues come in with the difference with intake and recruitment. In NPC, it's all based on the groups trying to end up with the same number of new members, and groups that don't kind of look bad. Over time, if you're a lot smaller than the other groups, it looks like it's because the group is undesirable rather than selective.

Not all NPC chapters, even in the same national GLOs, do this kind of stuff, but some of the recruitments are really image driven.

It seems to me I remember people repeating rumors about historically there being a "brown paper bag test" for early membership in some NPHC groups. I'm not saying it was ever true, but I think it points out that image can be (or maybe was) an NPHC issue too.

Man...if they was Made, that legacy shit dont mean a damn thing...just cuz you're legacy, you still got to go thru your process, which dont make it any easier.

as far as the brown paper bag test...yes its true. well not my org, but there is one in particular, but its an ugly part of history, and one that was corrected decades ago. i mean we got certain stereotypes in the nphc for each individual org, but only a fool would actually base a decision off of that. and i still dont see the point in numbers....i'll take QUALITY over quantity anyday. but thats just me. if it just so happens that there are 20+ quality individuals in a particular chapter, thats wats up, if not, then thats a waste. but i'm lookin @ it from the outsiders perspective...ya'll do what ya'll do tho...i wouldnt...

There are people who say that these same practices, called colorism, are NOT practices of the past, and that they still occur today. So, just like there is ridiculous superficial behavior in NPC, so, too, is there such behavior in NPHC. Wherever we go, we are going to encounter STUPID people like that--it's just a fact of life. It's horrible, but it's the way it is. However, that doesn't mean we have to just sit back and take it, which is why so many of us on this thread completely disagree with the concept of hiding members to get more PNMs. Also, many organizations in the NPC feel the same way about numbers. Again, we have no idea what sorority this was or whether or not it was even true. All we know is that the practice of singling out sisters to intake more members is asinine.

Well, if hundreds (in some cases more than 1,000) of young women expressed interest in joining a group each year, but one group only attracted a few, some people might start wondering if the problem was the quality of the people showing interest or the quality of the people in the group. You know what I mean?

But please remember that not all chapters do this.

It's also really important to keep in mind that although people who have already joined can be involved life long in a PNC group, most people looking to join right out of high school don't look at it that way; they're more likely to be thinking it will be fun to have new friends and go to parties. So it's probably a more superficial process to that of NPHC groups generally.

Uh, Kathy, I'm going need for you to name the NPC groups that approach numbers like the NPHC.

I know many members of NPC sororities that would take serious offense to that statement, that their recruitment is a "superficial process," particularly members of Sigma Delta Tau, which was founded in order to combat religious discrimination in other organizations.

I said they feel the same way, meaning that numbers aren't necessarily the MOST important aspect of the sisterhood. If you notice, NPC chapters are not fighting over which organization is the largest--it is generally agreed upon that Chi Omega is. Not all NPC sororities are grappling for numbers all the time, as opposed to focusing on quality. :)

Would you put a brother who had no rhythm on the step team?

Probably not.

[If it's not called a step team, I apologize for my ignorance. I'm doing the best I can. Hopefully you know what I mean.]

OK, I'm really confused. Largest org has nothing to do with this thread. BTW, if you think NPC groups DON'T debate that, I'd advise you to search for threads on here that definitely prove otherwise.

Like alphagamuga, I'd like to know the names of the NPC groups who don't care about attaining quota and total.

Thank you.

If a chapter doesn't pledge quota it means they've gone to the bottom of their bid list, which usually doesn't include all "quality" women.

True.

If you look at the number of open, active, collegiate chapters, Chi Omega is largest with 171. (DZ is 2nd, I think)

If you look at the largest number of initiated members since its founding, Chi Omega is largest with 300,000+

Or it means that the pool of girls going through rush just...sucked. I know this isn't usually the case in the SEC, but it can definitely happen at small schools. Not that there aren't great girls at those schools that would join a sorority, they just don't care for the phoniness of formal rush or know they're only interested in one group and would prefer to join through COB. But seriously, if you only have like 50 girls show up for rush, it's entirely possible that you would rather not pledge quota than take some of the girls who are rushing.

Agreed. I'm thinking of campuses (all over the country, mind you) with more than 50 PNMs.

yeah...

Based on what I've read here, I can only think of one. SDT at Bama.

Or they cut all the non-quality women before they made their bid list. I know chapters that, under the new release figures, were supposed to cut no one for the first few rounds. Did they cut? Yes. Was it just grade risks? No. Did they necessarily make quota, no but COB/CR wasn't a big deal to them.

Yep, I do think this happens, and I think opinions can legitimately vary about whether this is a good thing, especially if you might not make quota without the cuts.

BUT the harsh reality is that if the chapter's return rates were different, they could make the cuts and still make quota unless something is weirdly wrong in terms of NPC policies at that school.

I think that NPC recruitment almost guarantees that it be a superficial process because of how contact during the decision making process is supposed to be limited to the parties. It has nothing to do with how friendships are formed in the real world. COB/COR is probably a more sincere form of recruitment if it's something more than just offering bids to girls who dropped out of formal.

Certain parts of the country have turned NPC recruitment in to a "who were you in your hometown" process, and in some ways that might be better in terms of being a little deeper level of knowledge, but it excludes anyone who doesn't have connections from some groups.

KathyKD, NPC and NPHC recruitments and attitudes to numbers are just very different. And compared to what's involved in joining an NPHC, I think you're going to have a really hard time finding even 10 NPC chapters that could compare. That doesn't mean that I think every NPC hides members during recruitment or anything horrible like that, but if you look into it, I think you'll see what I mean.

Omigosh - I know of one poor woman who went through SIX recruitments, never got a bid, but then became President of a colony when she was a senior. We saw her standing outside of a house after Pref one time, and were happy to see that she was going to get a bid, but I guess they opted not to do so, as they were still under quota (holy run-on sentence, Batman!).

ETA: She wasn't the least bit overweight, either!