Nationals Coming to My College!
 

Yesss! Three national fraternities--KA, Chi Phi, and Delta Sigma Phi--have already made presentations at the college where I teach. I don't know if more will follow!

At least four national sororities have indicated interest in the 2 local sororities--I can't reveal their names yet, nor do I know when they'll present.

For those who don't know, I teach at a college that has had locals for almost 100 years...of the 2 sororities, 1 is almost 100 years old with 100+ members and the other is about 40 years old with 70 members. A third folded due-it seems-to mismanagement a few years back but it was as big and as old as the first one just a few years ago and I really think we have space for a strong third group.

We finally have a top notch, committed Greek advisor who's working closely with the Greeks here and I'm hoping for great things!:)

Woo hoo!! Keep us informed. And when you can say, please do. :p

How exciting!!! Keep us posted on the progress, carnation.

GREAT NEWS
 

That's always good to hear! I PM'd you with some info...

Thanks, aopinthesky! I tried to pm you back several times but GC won't cooperate.

That's great! I can't wait to hear more! :D

Okay, Cream! It just so happens that I have more news--the fraternity decision will be made sometime around next week!

Carnation, what great news for your school! The very best of luck to everyone as they embark on this new greek journey. I'm glad to hear you have a strong Greek Adviser there, it'll make all the difference in the world.

(and of course, I can't wait to hear which sororities are being invited to present there!)

Christin

I just had to chime in on this thread and wish your school and your student body a successful transition from Local GLOs to Nationals. I know from your posts how much you have wanted this for your students, and so I'm thrilled to see this is happening. Keep us updated on the developments.
I wish all the fraternities and sororities interested the best of luck!

Good luck with transitions. I would imagine they stand a good chance of being rocky in some cases.

Okay, it's definite--a fifth group (let's say it's a traditional Southern sorority) has contacted the school. This sorority was actually on campus for 2 years near the turn of the last century--as was another who has already indicated interest. Now wouldn't that be interesting if those 2 were the ones chosen?

Yeah carnation!! yay for your school!! :) :) :)

Okay Carnation!
 

Fill us in on what has been happening at your school?????:confused: :confused: :confused:

Don't expect a 100 year old local to pick up a national affiliation. I don't think it would be of any benifit to them. At least on my campus Locals have dues far lower then the national groups, and stronger reputations for the most part.

One of our locals picked up a national affiliation, then dropped it. They still wore their local letters, still used their crest, etc. They were basically still the same fraternity and used the national simply for national support and reputation, not for pride, name or ritual etc. This was simply because they had more pride in their local letters. Frankly with a fraternity like theirs, I don't blame them.


They dropped the affiliation, most likely because it was more of a pain then it was worth.

And who says that a local can't resurrect itself without the benifit of a national body. It would simply take alumni who cared enough to try and do it.

-T

If I recall what....
 

....Carnation posted before, the problem with the locals at her college is that the hazing had gotten out of hand...Carnation, is that right?

It's rummored the locals haze here too. I don't know how true the stories are, so I will not spread rummor.

I do not condone hazing but, I doubt that a local which partakes in hazing will stay affiliated with a national very long if the national attempts to tell them how to run their pledging system.


Locals that are older then dirt know that they can survive without national support and arent afraid to dump national affiliations, especially if the national is telling them to change something they've been doing for longer then that national has even existed!

Carnation,

Any word on the fraternities yet?

I think I know which college you teach at now becuase they listed the schools where we were looking at possibly to expand.

Out of your wishes, I'll keep quiet though ;)

Best of luck with everything though!!!

I believe the college is requiring them to go national? (Somebody correct me if I'm wrong here.) Either they go national or they have to disband.

That doesn't mean that they'll be fully prevented from hazing, but they'll definitely have to go underground with it if they decide to keep doing it.

I think the situation is that these groups would be attracting a lot more students if they didn't do so much hazing -- there are lots of people who would want to join the groups if they didn't require ridiculous acts to join -- so regardless of whether the original members decide to remain in the groups after hazing, the groups will attract new ones.

How could they be required to go national? Is this a private/catholic university? A public university cannot do that, a public university cannot deny organizations entry.

archangel -

I think there is a previous thread with more detail about carnation's school. The two biggest probs are 1) people are quitting in their sophomore year, once they've had a chance to haze the new people and 2) what would normally be the type to go Greek - the really involved, intelligent kids - avoid the groups because of it. The uninvolvement of alumni is one reason the hazing has gotten so bad.

I think it is expected that the more stringent rules of the nationals will weed out the bad seeds.

and yes, it is a private university.

Actually, essentially they can.

My school, which is a public university, does not allow local sororities or fraternities. I think this is true of many of the big state schools. It's just too much of a risk management problem, since if something goes wrong, the school will be held responsible. At least with national organizations, they know somebody else is watching out for that kind of thing -- or should be, at least.

Of course, the school can't force the sorority or fraternity to disband; it's in their constitutional rights to be able to meet as a group. But the school can forbid them to advertise on campus, participate in formal rush, be a part of IFC or Panhel, display letters on a house (at some schools, the school itself owns the Greek houses!), be listed in the student organization directory, etc. These things can go far towards killing off a group -- most people don't want to deal with the kind of extra work that being an unrecognized fraternity or sorority will bring.

If there are that many people wanting to join GLO's just not the local ones the best solution might be to invite national GLO's to colonize there on their own. That way they can start fresh. It would be easier I am sure than trying to transition the existing locals into a national - if they have been there that long I doubt they will accept change easily. Also, if the hazing is that big of a problem then the school should close them down anyway - that won't stop just because they slap a new set of letters on them.

Just my opinion :)

Here's the other thread on this (more info).

http://greekchat.com/gcforums/showth...s&pagenumber=1

Wow! A lot went on on this thread while I was teaching class!

Yes, the college has told the locals they must go national. I've been told that nationwide, many locals have been made to go national because of liability...the insurance companies are no doubt hoping that national HQs will crack down on hazing so no problems will occur.

Sorority hazing has disappeared from this campus, best I can tell. I had a feeling this would happen once we got a student activities advisor who told the women that hazing just wasn't done by classy groups. I've heard other professors say that the college feared that hazing would remain if the locals stayed local. In addition, many of the most beloved professors are national Greeks.

It's a whole new ballgame here! The Greeks have freshman members who would no more haze or tolerate being hazed than I would. Numbers have gone up and there's an air of expectancy here. I can't wait to see what will happen!:)

Hey Carnation!
 

I bumped this back up so we could get a report of the frats there -- weren't they supposed to choose which ones would come on by now? Also didn't a sorority already come visit? Tell us more more more already!!!

I'm still not so sure about this whole thing.


Basically the supreme court case stated that publicly funded schools cannot deny recognition to new groups seeking affiliation.

The actual case involved the Students for a Democratic Society. The university didn't want the group to come to campus because it had a reputation for violent protest. The Supreme Court decided that the reputation for violence was not nough to keep a chapter from forming. Here is a link for the case:

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/script...s/408/169.html



In addition, forcing Locals to affiliate with nationals is stupid. It curbs the growth of new nationals.[/i] It's terirble how locals are disrespected. I know that our school doesn't like our 100 year old locals, but they know if they tried something like this, would cause a riot from both greeks and alumni.

It doesn't matter what rights students theoretically have; what matters is what happens in reality, and schools DO in reality forbid locals or make them go national. If someone wants to find a lawyer to take these people to court, be my guest, but saying that theoretically these things shouldn't happen doesn't do a speck of good toward preventing it.

I don't know what "new nationals" are having their growth curbed. The last NPC sorority was formed in the 1910s! There is at least one old national non-NPC sorority, but it's quite small - and growing, and I don't know of any serious attempts to found a new NPC-style national sorority in the last 50 years. New national groups are mostly multicultural or ethnic- or major-specific, and guess what, they're growing too!

I don't think it matters when the last national group was formed. And I don't think there haven't been attempts to form new national groups, I just think here have been many failures. Check out the locals forum, I am sure there is talk about going national and trying to establish beta chapters. Founding a chapter is damn hard enough, I know first-hand. Founding a national is probably so hard, it's near impossible and this will just make it harder.

My point is that if there are any groups attempting to go national, they will be killed if this effort to force locals to affiliate with nationals becomes common place with universities across the country.

In addition you are quite possibly killing off hundred years of traditions and ritual and who knows what else by forcing these groups to affiliate with nationals.

Please also understand that I am arguing this on a broad level. I'm not saying that locals going national will not, in this singular case at hand, benifit them and the university. I simply think that locals being forced to take on national affiliation just because they are locals is terrible.

......I agree that forcing a local to go nat'l SIMPLY because it is local is bad...but that is not the case here or many other places either -- check out wishinhopin's very long thread about her NBO local sorority at UCSC trying to go national -- the reason there are locals that are seemingly forced to go national is just as Carnation has stated...regardless of how old they are and how much tradition they have...if they are doing bad things (e.g. hazing) and offering little benefits from membership and fewer students are wanting to join, then a local's history and tradition just don't amount to much on the overall scheme of things...

I think also that trying to establish a national org along the lines of an NPC, NPHC etc really needs to have a clear focus and purpose that sets them apart from what is already out there in order to succeed...otherwise they WILL fail and not just because of the oft-exhaustive work of many folks...

Just my two cents....

The locals at Wake Forest "had" to go national because of liability reasons and pressure from WF, if I remember correctly. I think the transition was difficult at first, but everything worked out for the best.

Can't wait to hear what happens, carnation!

GPBLC is right...

The groups at carnation's school dug their own graves. They hazed, they didn't offer much to their members and didn't have active alumni. The college didn't want to get rid of them because they are local but because they finally got sick of their isht. Maybe if they would have gotten a Greek advisor who took the bull by the horns earlier, they wouldn't have had to take this course.

Local groups that do have all those things (other than the hazing, duh) usually stay around. Check out some of the groups on localsororities' website - some of them have more professional websites (and from the looks of it, more active chapters and alums) than the national groups. Although I think many of them are quite happy being the only chapter of XYZ and have no desire to go national.

The fact of the matter is, it IS harder to establish a new national these days - heck, it's harder just to keep a national going these days.

YESSSSSSSS!!! HERE'S THE LATEST NEWS HOT OFF THE PRESSES!!!! We now have 2 new national fraternities: Chi Phi and Delta Sigma Phi!

Congratulations!

congratulations Carnation!!

Yippee!
 

Carnation -- did they take the locals lock, stock and barrel...or what?
Any news on the sororities?

They took 'em all--no news on the women!

NEWS ON THE WOMEN!!!!!

The following sororities will be asked to present to our women: Phi Mu, Kappa Delta, Gamma Phi Beta, and Tri Sigma!!!!!!!

And that's all I know about it right now!! (happy, happy dance!!):)

Yeah!!!! I'm glad that everything is starting to come together, carnation! Are you in a position where you could spy on these presentations and give us the scoop? ;)

:D I sure hope so!

YEAH!!!!!

First USC and now this. Gamma Phi is on a roll..............

:D :D :D :D :D :D