Do many people join Greek organizations that aren't Nationals?
 

My sorority, along with 5 other organizations at my school are "locals" which means we are not part of a national organization. We operate solely as a independent organization with no chapters at other schools.
Meanwhile, in the last two years, Two national organizations have started on our campus.

I can see a big difference in how the 6 of our organizations work and how the 2 national ones do. And I honestly like how we operate better.

Opinions?

What do you perceive to be some of the differences? (Be tactful if you wish to make friends, lol)

How do you operate that you consider preferable? We have no idea what differences you are referring to. No one ever said that NPC rules are perfect... but a whole lot of schools prefer to work with NPC organizations over locals.

Do you think UW Platteville is going to approve that you haze, but that you keep it to a "bare minimum"? How about your insurance provider, assuming you have one?

@ the bold -- I hope no one from your school's administration sees this.

"Not as much hazing" is not necessarily something to be proud of, especially from an administrator's POV.

ETA: Kevin types faster than I do.

LOL - I love the "we don't haze as bad as they do" excuse.

And if you beat your wife, but your neighbor beats his wife even more than you do, does that make it okay?

Gotta love those who have to pick up on that. For all I know (and what I presume) is that you do things that some consider hazing because someone might consider it demeaning. I'm thinking thinks like pledges answering the door at the house, or answering the phones, or actually having to hold a conversation with every sister prior to her initiation.

I come from a very small chapter, though of a national, that guarded our independence fiercely, and tolerated visits from headquarters (mind you, this was long ago and far away). I may understand what you mean. I like the idea of freedom to do what one feels is necessary for the health of the chapter and the sisterhood without NPC or even a national determining how you'd do something. There's something to be said for independence.

But there's something, also, to be said for having a network of thousands of sisters across the country, and an instant network and bond wherever you may go. Running into a sister while on a family to trip to Europe, for example, or in the mall where you had to stop on a cross-country trip 'cause you ruined your jeans.

Each has its pros and cons. The important thing is that your sorority gives you the bond and home that's right for you.

I'd agree. And I'd add that my experience was of good relations between chapter and national HQ, so from that perspective, there's much to be said for the support that a national organization can provide to a chapter. YMMV.

Exactly.

I completely agree with this.
I have to admit that I was scared witless of going to the Sorority City Council Meeting a few weeks back with our chapter President. The meeting was held in a large local hall and we were sitting there and waiting for our sisters from the Sorority City Council to arrive because no one currently in the hall knew where to direct us to for the meeting (we were running a bit early). I wasn't sure what they'd think of us or whether we'd all get along. Bundle of nerves, I was.

I remember looking up suddenly and getting this feeling that the group of women entering the main hall entrance at that moment were my sisters, and got up to ask them if they were also Beta Sigma Phi. As it turned out, they were. :)

Of course, as it turned out....I had nothing at all to worry about. :D Our sisters, even we didn't know them from Adam, immediately made us feel at home and were eager to reach out to us, the new kids on the block.

That's my take on one extremely positive experience that has happened in my short time of being a member of a national sorority.

My initial instinct is that the NPC sororities that have come in are starting to do well and shake things up and you're getting defensive. Hazing in NPC sororities is not tolerated AT ALL, but if you think that diminishes their sisterhood, you are sadly mistaken. However, being that improved sisterhood is the justification for your hazing, I can appreciate why you think it. "We humiliate our sisters but nobody every breaks bones or ends up in the hospital" is not an acceptable answer. If on the off-chance you mean phone/door duty is your version of hazing, then maybe we can talk about it.

But from my perspective, the benefits of membership in an NPC far outweigh any benefit you get from being in a local. The biggest being membership for a lifetime. And that's for real. Virtually every member of an NPC sorority, regardless of how old she is, will be within a few hours of an alumnae chapter anywhere in the US. And with regional exceptions, probably in the city where she lives. They provide scholarships, leadership training, and many other things most locals are just not going to be able to provide.

If the reason behind this question is that your group is considering affiliation with an NPC, you should strongly consider it. You will get out of it a lot more than you have to surrender.

I'd go so far as to say the universal truth of that statement is questionable. What do your sisters want? That should dictate your future. What are the principles that mean the most to you? If independence is #1, national is not the way to go.

I really don't want to belabor the point. The person I am now fiercely rejects standardization in lots of things, and in standardizing to the lowest common denominator. However, I gave an oath, and the fact my sisters know I will live up to that oath now - 40 years post pledging - and in the future is important to me. The person I am now would have chosen a local for the independence, but would have had to give up a lot.

Many schools don't permit local sororities.

And many colleges with locals are requiring the locals choose affiliation with an NPC group or disband. This goes for campuses with mixed locals and NPC, and campuses with strictly locals.

I can't say why people would join locals, but I joined an NPC for a lot of reasons, one of the biggest being the rich history and traditions. There is something sacred to know you are participating in the same ritual that has been handed down for so many years, and was written when women were not even allowed to vote. The struggle that they had to even be given an education and the things they went through means a lot to me. I'm also very proud that my sorority doesn't endorse hazing. AT ALL. And the ideals it represents. Every time I see my badge it reminds me of those ideals, and that I must do my best every day to live up to them. That I truly am inspired to the highest type of womanhood. That is why I chose Gamma Phi and I'm just over the moon that Gamma Phi chose me as well. Even years after graduating!

My original answer explained that because of hazing, locals were on their way out because every single one of them is a lawsuit away from extinction and generally, they're going to have an awfully hard time finding an insurance carrier when they explain among their reasons for independence are that they want to haze a little bit.

!!!

I'm a little emotional right now, but this seriously made me choke up.

Wow, I see a lot of hate for locals here (intentional or otherwise). Maybe the OP's is not the best example, but many locals, mine included, are absolutely anti-hazing. We established our chapter in order to provide an alternative to what many saw as an unnecessarily drawn-out, ineffective rush process. At our institution, several nationals have been disciplined or even expelled for hazing (I could rattle off a number of them just within the past 10 years), so the assertion that NPC orgs haze less is, at least in our case, completely untrue. Yes, it would be cool to run into a fellow sorority member from another chapter that you hadn't met previously, but I also love the fact that I am at least acquainted with almost all of my org's sisters and not feeling swallowed up in a 200-person chapter (of which my school has some!)

OP stated that she thought locals were better, that she is a member of a local, and then she asked for opinions. I don't think anyone is being hostile. They are simply stating facts. Everyone joins the organization that is best for them.

What she considers "hazing" may be relatively innocuous. So before jumping on her for that statement, ask what it she really means.

In her neck of the woods, from what I understand, the tradition of local sororities is very strong - and one of the NPC sororities on her campus was local for far longer than they have been national. The other one is still a colony, not yet chartered.

I joined the group I joined because of the women in it. If those women had been in a local, I would have joined a local. It's ridiculous of us to go on and on about the superiority of nationals when we still conduct rush the way we do. This is more pronounced in some areas of the country than it is in others.

Having been a national officer of my NPC group, on the housing side which is rife with risk management issues, I have to say that the lack of proper insurance coverage and interface with legal entities would be my biggest concern. How do you have events without liability insurance? Where do you get such coverage and at what cost? What about bonding for your officers? Who handles your income tax returns? Who filed your incorporation papers and maintains your corporate status with the state? How does your payroll get done? Who provides the W2s or 1099 to your employees? All those are off the top of my head. Sorry, too scary for me.

What employees??? (I doubt very much that they have a housemother/cook/any of that type stuff.)

I think it is very important to remember that this is the case in some places and at some schools. Statements similar to this one:

Quote:

Originally Posted by summer_gphib (Post 2209894) . . . I joined an NPC for a lot of reasons, one of the biggest being the rich history and traditions. There is something sacred to know you are participating in the same ritual that has been handed down for so many years, and was written when women were not even allowed to vote. The struggle that they had to even be given an education and the things they went through means a lot to me. . . . And the ideals it represents. Every time I see my badge it reminds me of those ideals, and that I must do my best every day to live up to them.

can be made by members of some locals.

This. We join our NPC chapters for the people in them at the school at the time we join. You may have loved your organization's creed, philanthropy, history, whatever; but during recruitment/rush, the people are what draw you in.

I know no offense was meant by any one here (at least I hope not), but I just have to chime in. This is going to be a very long message, so bear with me.

I went through recruitment at a school that had a local among a few other sororities. When I went through recruitment, I got to meet a wide variety of girls who were from different backgrounds and who were all fairly pleasant and who I truly liked. However, like many of you have all previously experienced, there was one house that I fell in love with right away. One house shined just a little brighter to me because I felt an instant connection to the girls. I still liked the girls in the other houses, but the girls in that one sorority just made me feel at home. I knew this was the house for me and when it came to signing my pref card, I only put that sorority down. The next day I received a bid. Flash forward a couple of years. I am currently a senior in my last semester of college and there has never been even a millisecond where I regretted my decision to join a local sorority.

For those of you who question local sorority pledging processes, my sorority completely bans hazing. Aside from the fact that hazing is completely unnecessary to make the lifelong bonds of sisterhood, we feel that because we do not have a national organization to back us up in case of legal problems or issues with the school, it is too much of a risk to even consider doing something that could be considered hazing. So just know that there are some locals out there that don’t haze.

For the next point that we might not have super meaningful rituals or traditions. Our sorority has a fairly long history. We were originally a national sorority. However, we broke away due to significant disagreements. We have repeatedly been given the chance to re-affiliate with our national (by the national itself) but have chosen not to because we love our rituals and our sisterhood and we feel that it would be so painful to give that up. The traditions and history of my sorority are incredibly important to me. I am not kidding when I say that I get incredibly emotional during our rituals because I am so moved. I think about how hard it was for my sisters to stand up for something they believed in and to take a chance to create something new and beautiful (please don’t take this as me bashing national sororities, it was just a different time). We have had founding sisters come and visit our house and it is just such a meaningful experience for both sides. It is amazing for me to meet my sisters who created our rituals and traditions and it is amazing for them to come back and see how much we’ve flourished.

The next point I'd like to address goes into how our chapter functions. We have a house. We have a cook. As a former treasurer, I was in charge of creating and maintaining two different budgets. One budget is for dues and our other budget is for our meal plan. I was in charge of paying our cook and working with our accountant when it came to her payroll taxes. I was in charge of paying bills. We have two separate bank accounts. We also work with an insurance company for our sorority that covers any events we might have . Since our school owns our house (that is a crazy story I’ll have to share at a later date), they are in charge of the insurance costs for anything that happens inside the house. We used to have a house resident, but in the mid-90’s our house resident wrote a report to the school that essentially said she trusted us to be on our own. We still have a school security guard walk through the first floor at 11pm and 3 am to make sure everything is okay.

Now my favorite part… Okay, we don’t have hundreds of thousands of alums around the country. I am too tired to count the composites, but I’m going to make a rough estimate that we have over 1,500 alums. Yes, that’s a lot smaller, but that doesn’t make it any less important. It’s a small world. I have a friend studying abroad in Europe who met an alumna of my sorority walking down the street. I was in the airport the other week and met an aunt of an alumna. It’s still possible to make those connections. For personal experience in applying for a job, I am working with 3 sisters next year who put in a good word for me. One of my friends just got an internship working at another sister’s company. It is still possible. Please don’t think that just because there are fewer local sorority alums we aren’t able to have that same instant connection or that we aren’t able to reap the benefits of sorority membership. At our Alumnae Weekends, we have alums come from across the country. We are currently working on a 5 year plan to make significant renovations on our house. Our alums are very active and involved.

I’m sorry this is so long, but I just had to say something. If you have any questions about anything feel free to PM me!

Just to clarify, I didn't mean that the OP's group didn't have a housemother/cook/etc because they were local, I meant that they didn't because I doubt that anyone on that particular campus does. :)

And I was just talking general concerns that I would have with any local - not OP's specific chapter. Her original post was generic and therefore so was my answer.

I figured you were generalizing so I wanted to explain how one particular local handles those things :)

I think it is a lot easier to say one's organization does things better than another, whether you are local or national. We're a self-selecting group on this board who are very proud of the organizations we have joined and which we contribute our time and efforts to.

I disagree. If you're saying that your [and I mean your in the general sense, not as in adpiucf] organization does things better, it's probably a sign of hubris unless you have real insight into how other groups operate.

Now, I know for a fact that on a national organizational level and in terms of property management expertise, ADPi runs circles around my own organization. The amount of guidance we get on our house corporation is that we should probably start one, but no one at HQ really can be of much help because corporate and not-for-profit laws vary from place to place.

A couple of times here recently, I was ramping up my own chapter's House Corporation, leases, subleases and whatnot because it looked like we might acquire some property. Most of my information came from a couple of very helpful sorority members from GC and from my undergrad days who now sit on their House Corp boards and it was far better than anything I could have come up with on my own.

It seems like I've digressed, but I haven't.

With respect to property management, I pretty much understand what it's like to be a local. You have to reinvent the wheel. From my direct experience with a couple of major NPC groups, NPC groups do not have that. They have tried and true organizational approaches to similar problems, they have a deep bench of alumnae volunteers networked across the nation.

My first rule these days in approaching any property related issue is to find out how an NPC group would handle that and then emulate that as best I can.

Right, and don't forget, the NPC groups are pretty open with sharing stuff, helping each other out, etc. While obviously there is inter-group competition on different campuses, at the national level, there's a pretty decent amount of sharing best practices and such, and locals just can't compete with that type of strength in numbers.

Most of the NPC groups use MJ Insurance out of Indianapolis. They have a forum once a year - usually February/March for all the NPC groups (even the ones who don't buy their coverage are invited) and it is a very informative meeting. And yes, they share everything! the good, the bad and the ugly. NPC also now has non NPC delegates sitting on the NPC University Housing Initiatives Committee. The three of them are termed "subject matter experts" and they are working with colleges and universities that are looking to start, expand or renovate Greek housing. So there is a lot of collaborative work being done in this area by NPC groups. I've even had a couple of NIC groups call be for advice!

OP is clearly a collegiate member. The AVERAGE collegiate member who isn't here to gripe about their chapter (not a Greek Chat alumni member who is likely super involved with their organization and is very aware of other groups' policies and practices) will think that their organization does things better. They have no other experience and little insight into what other groups are doing aside from what they may hear on the street.

At the end of the day, this thread serves no purpose other than locals defending themselves and national groups asserting the benefits of national membership.

That's about as high and dignified a purpose as most threads on GC.

I'm just confused. Your thread title is "do many peple join Greek organizations that aren't Nationals?" but then you give your opinion that you like how your local operates.

Answering your thread title:
I have no idea how many people join locals, and I don't even know how to begin to collect that data. Nor do I have any interest in doing so.

Body of your thread: opinions about what? Your opinion that you like how your local operates? Opinion about the national chapters at your school? My response: I don't have an opinion about your opinion or about the national chapters. Different strokes for different folks (and so on and so on and scooby dooby dooby/ ooh sha sha we got to live together)

Well, I'm not confused any longer. It always helps to talk things out.

Amen!

Annoyed, are we? :cool:

Busted. :D