I want to start a sorority @ a greek dry school!
 

I really want to start a sorority, but my school is against Greek life. I'm wondering if i must be affiliated with the school to have a sorority; my plan is to buy a house off campus and run the sorority just between the sisters, is it possible to do this? I also have a guy friend who wants to try to start a frat in the same manner. I'm wondering if this is possible or if you have any other advise that could possibly be helpful! I really want to bring Greek life to my school, Please Help me!!!! thank you sooooo much!

Anyone can create an organization off campus. It's going to be a challenge to maintain it, though, without the school's support. Why is your school against Greek Life? Were there risk management issues in the past? Is there a lack of interest?

I would look into groups that are already in existence, if possible.

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ad.php?t=93174

If you really think you can buy a house by yourself, my hat's off to you.

Creating a sorority is a LOT of work. Judging from your post, I'm not sure you even realize how much work you've got ahead of you.

Heck, maintaining a greek org at a school that doesn't support Greek Life is tough work. My alma mater wasn't welcoming to Greeks when I was there, and all of us (fraternities and sororities) had to work hard just to survive.

I'm not aware of any NPC groups who would be willing to colonize on a campus that sounds this opposed to Greeks. There are some campuses that don't recognize the groups but don't actively try to suppress them. There is a huge difference.

I got the impression that she wanted to start a sorority from scratch and not look at existing groups.

I do want to start from scratch, or whatever is the most plausible route. I just need help figuring out what to do, please!!!

A good start would be to read the threads in the link I provided.

Sorry, must have missed the link before; it looks super helpful! thank you so much!

Would you call your country...
 

Alanna- The reason Alpha Phi Omega does not have a house on your campus is because it is against the national bylaws for members to maintain a fraternity house.

And can you please stop calling my fraternity a "frat"? I really take offense to it. You wouldn't call your country a c^nt, so please do not call fraternities frats.

Before you decide to start your own sorority, why don't you check out APO? I honestly found more love and brotherhood than I could have ever imagined.

LFS
-StarGazer

Oh good grief. Is there really no way that we can get people to stop making this stupid comparison of apples to kumquats?

I get that lots of people are offended by the word "frat" because of its "Animal House" connotation (newsflash: there are also plenty of fraternity members who are not offended by it), but surely you don't mean to suggest that "frat" is an obscenity.

This comparison = fail.

Don't do it, Brother. On my campus, APO is called "the service frat" as well and no one is offended by it. On many other campuses, "frat" is used as a term of endearment between brothers. This is a case where you can ignore the reference if it bothers you because it is not an issue on the original poster's campus.

The next person to use that frat/c*nt reference deserves to be shot.

Second.

If we're following Robert's Rules- consent.

Has someone been watching "Greek"? IKI, anyone?

I do find "frat" offensive, as I am not looking at it from an NPHC standpoint. However, "would you call your mother a moth" is the saying I prefer.

I think it's only offensive depending on the context and intonation of the spoken word. On the intarwebs you don't really get the intonation. "The C-Word" is always offensive.

That's certainly a better comparison in that it avoids obscenity, but it still doesn't really work -- apples to oranges instead of apples to kumquats, maybe.

You wouldn't call your country . . . well, you know . . . because the shortened form has a specific (and offensive) meaning in and of itself, not because it is inherently disrespectful to shorten the word country. Likewise, "moth" is a word that has meaning all on its own. ('Course, my mother had an uncle that everyone simply called "Unc." And we used to refer to parents as "rents" all the time.)

"Frat," on the other hand, has no meaning apart from being a shortened form of "fraternity." It is comparable to calling a dormitory a "dorm," an organization an "org" (as is frequently done on GC), a refrigerator a "fridge" or the University of Pittsburgh "Pitt." The only difference is that "frat" has, over the last three or so decades, acquired a negative connotation in the view of many.

I'm old enough to remember when lots of fraternity men used phrases like "the dear old frat" and nobody gave the word a second thought. I'm like agzg -- I only take offense to the term if it seems that offense is intended.

But like I've said before, the "would you call your ____ a ____" reasons for not saying "frat" are just plain annoying and stupid. How hard is it to sound credible and reasonable by just saying "Frat has connotations we don't like. We're fraternity men, not frat boys"?

[/soapbox]

Begins by finding a small group of sister before thinking about the house!
Our chapters are new and that is what we do.
(sorry for my english)

I watch and love "Greek", but don't think I could really be compared to Frannie and IKI because there are no other sororities we are competing with because, well... there are no other sororities at my school at all ;)

P.S. Cappie and Casey <3

Third.

in all my many hours of lurking on GC, i've never seen anyone who says that crap give a logical explanation behind it. perhaps because there is none.

Ummm....I think you missed the point of the reference. It is not about competition but rather the idea of simply buying a house and starting a sorority in that order. Most normal greek organizations start out as a group of people (common interests, bond, etc) and then progress to eventually getting housing after established, not the other way around. . . .

And have you even considered the insurance issue with regard to risk management????????