ZTA closes at KU
 

I just found out that the ZTA colony at the Univ of Kansas has been closed due to low numbers. Here's a link to the article: KU ZTA article My thoughts are with all the members, several of which I know.

Oh no!! That's so sad :( I'm sorry for your loss ZTAs!!!

It's really sad to hear of any greek organization having to close a chapter...hopefully they will be able to recolonize in a couple of years.

My thoughts are with them! I too hope they can recolonize. Be like a Phoenix rising from the ashes!

So what will happen with the new girls they got on bid day?

how sad...
pity they didn't have a bit longer...
but national knows what it needs.

My heart aches for these young women. I hope that they are allowed some kind of closure, because from the article it sounded like it was over, no final gathering, no nothing. Here's hoping those who feel a deep bond with ZTA may be allowed to pursue ZTA membership at a later time, and those who still wish GLO membership at Kansas are given that opportunity in the near future. I also hate that they weren't given any longer, but perhaps it's being realistic (although it's just gotta hurt!)

If you've got to have a house at Kansas to be competitive, and there weren't plans to house them any time soon, maybe it was for the best. We'll never know, and that's how it should be, but it really is unfair to everyone involved if a colony isn't viable to let it keep struggling (yes, to me a colony of 85 with 16 new members sure wouldn't be struggling, but I've never been at Kansas so I don't know!) I've seen what can happen when a colony is installed but was uncompetitive at the time (whether numbers and/or housing.) Was housing really their problem with retention, or was it something else? Again, we'll never know and we shouldn't, but it's something to think about when we are supporting our own sorority's colonization efforts.

In general, what do you think is best for our (all sororities "all") continued growth and success when colonizing? Do we want our sororities to install a chapter filled with outstanding women who are true XYZs (insert your letters here!) regardless of numbers? Or, do you think it's more important to install to campus average/total? Which is really more important to you as a member? Do we want to see our sorority to spend the money on housing (expense involve to successfully expand at LSU or IU, for example)? To build a competitive new structure at some schools I'm sure we're talking $1 Million Plus, folks. What about all the existing, smaller, established but still unhoused chapters? What message does it send to them? I'm guessing that we'll see more big expansions across the board in the next few years, and fewer of the others (smaller installation numbers, unhoused on housed campuses.) What can we learn from this sad story, to prevent it from happening to all colonies of all NPC groups in the future?

Christin

(Edited to answer Jill's ?? -- since all colony members are technically "pledges" they will be released, including the new members picked up on bid day. All are free to persue membership in another sorority if they wish, since no one was ever initiated.)

BOTH. If you can't do both, you won't succeed there. Period.

how sad for those girls!!! i think that it is so sad for them because this happened right after formal recruitment.

why are people so obsessed with a house???? if you know that this colony JUST started, why would you not give it a chance bc it doesn't have a house? i don't get it.

and to back up a bit- i agree with 33 girl. i think that if you colonize some where with let's say 30 women who very much represent the ideals of your glo and expect that they will be able to recruit to 100 (which is campus total), then i think you are smoking crack! it is absolutely irresponsible of a glo to start off a group with such a disadvantage. how can 30 women compete in rush when the other houses have more than twice their numbers? to me it is like starting the colony off in hopes of their failure.

I am not at all familar with NPC sororities, except for what I read here on GC (I went to a HBCU), so there is something that I really don't understand. I know that NPHC sororities and fraternaties can and do function on campuses where they have very small numbers. This is especially true on predominately white campuses, where their might only be 4 or 5 members.

Why do NPC sororities have to have a certain number on a campus to remain on that campus? I can understand the housing issue, i.e. if we don't have enough girls to fill the house/pay dues, etc. we will be in a bad place financially, but for those groups who have no house, and they are meeting the goals of the organization (not sure if this is the case here), what does it matter if they have 10 members or 100? What impact does "campus total" (I think that is what I heard it called) have, especially since different campuses have different "totals"?

I hope this makes sense!

Thanks!

Personally, I think it's a bad call to try to colonize on a campus where every group is housed with no house and no plans for a house.

Going by the DZ colonization at UF, their methods (rushing at a fraternity house--showing their clear plans to build a house) enabled them to recruit well.

We have the same issue on my campus. If we were ever to expand, we'd have to have a house--and it is very costly. The sad thing is that this limits expansion to orgs with a lot of money (ie, large orgs), and that it puts a lot of economic pressure on colonies.

However, I will say that it does seem that colonization efforts are getting more and more support and are resulting in stronger new chapters. How many times have we heard of situations where a new group colonizes, doesn't have the strength/momentum of the other groups on campus, struggles for 5-6 years, closes, only to be followed by another unsucessful colonization on the campus in question?? We need to find ways to support our colonies so they don't end up at the bottom of the pecking order! An important issue for all NPCs!!!

In the immortal words of P Diddly Daddy Puff....

it's all about the benjamins baby. ;)

As I've said before, I think the pressure to increase numbers ends up being more detrimental than being small in the first place. If you have a small chapter that isn't obsessing about it, and is supported by the national regardless of their size, they will be happier and will probably attract more girls. If they're constantly under the gun to get x members by x date or they will be closed, it's damned hard to put on a shiny happy face for rush.

I'm not saying just blow off quota/total, at the big schools they would be lost without it. But there is a difference between encouragement and unreasonable pressure.

Another thing is that a group that is consistantly FAR below total (I'm talking... if total is 80... 20 members... or if total is 110... 40 members), they just can't compete with the other groups. For example, they are not going to be able to do as well in rush--they just don't have enough people to rush, often resorting to double rushing (which can work but it takes SOO much effort). Also their competitiveness in Greek week, homecoming, etc, is going to be impaired--they don't have the resources or womanpower that other groups can use. Usually, low numbers are a sign of a negative reputation, also, for whatever reason. Usually a chapter that is far below total is considered the "worst" group on campus--this is because the reason they aren't making quota is that women are withdrawing from recruitment when they get cut from the "better" groups on campus. It is really hard to be considered the "worst" sorority on campus--even though these groups a lot of time have many strengths. It becomes a financial drain on the national sorority--they have to send more consultants there to assist with rush, etc. Chapter morale drops. People feel looked down upon and cut back on their chapter participation. :(

For groups that aren't FAR below total (if total is 80... 50 members... if total is 110... 85 members), this usually isn't as big of a problem. I think ZTA must have seen a bad trend... It sounds like from the article that the original members from the colonization process were rapidly siphoning off/depledging/deactivating. Not a good sign for any chapter.

Because the NPC orgs do their rush together, and because they're all a standard size on each campus, being the smallest group hurts your reputation--it's like year after year in rush you didn't put up the numbers.

Makes a little more sense to me now...Thanks breathesgelatin and 33girl! Another question for ya....do you think this has anything to do with the fact that it seems most girls rushing NPC sororities come to campus without strong ties to one organization vs. another, but make their decision based on the local chapter, while many girls who want to pledge NPHC chapters have a strong idea when they come to college what they want to pledge, or if they don't, seem to take a stronger look at the national organization than potential NPC members?

It was sad to hear of this, as I remember someone actually going to that group on here. But ZTA saw something that we cannot sitting here, and chose to discontinue their colony. As for the question posed by AOPiAlum which is what you'd rather have. I don't think it's a choice of smaller numbers of dedicated women or campus average/total. The fact is that without campus average, no matter how dedicated the women may be, you can't get off to a bad start and then expect big numbers. They obviously had some issues if they lost nearly half their new members. And the amount of money it takes to invest in a group with a house is really big. Therefore, it's a do we take the chance or cut our losses while we can situation. They chose the latter. It's hard, but it makes sense.

I've read all the posts, and I think everyone has been pretty right on. One thing that bothers me is the housing issue. When I went to the right couple of nights foe recruitment of the colony last year, they said they were planning on getting a house within 5 years, and that they already had some sites in mind. It just irks me that they pulled out so early. I'm really disappointed because a good friend of mine was a colony member last year, graduated in May, and now her only hope at becoming a sorority member for life is through AI. This news really has made a believer out of me of "everything happens for a reason". I wasn't meant to be a member of the ZTA colony last year. If I had been, a year of hard work would have been wasted. Every day, I'm really believing that I was meant to be an A Phi. It feels kind of eerie, but very settling at the same time.

I think this is definitely a good point. The NPC rush process is designed for each sorority to have a chance to "woo" girls to their organization, thus the biggest groups are seen as the most desirable because they successfully captured the attention of more girls in the past, so they must be doing something right. By the time the NPHC groups do intake, most of their potential new members have long decided which group they want to be in, often based off national reputation or "Every woman in my family has been an AKA so there's really no other choice." So within the NPHC, numbers aren't equated with quality as much as they are in the NPC, because there's no "rush" process that makes the sororities compete for women -- the vast majority of the women already know where they're going.

As for the colony, it's definitely sad, but I think ZTA made the right decision. It sounds like, from the way numbers dropped, that there were some internal problems that could severely affect their size. I'm guessing that numbers weren't the biggest problem here, but possibly a side affect of the problem? And the lack of a house wouldn't help them either.

I know I will fuel some flames but my take is a bit different. My biological sister was a founding sister of a colony, years ago and they too didn't have a house. And the entire 18 sorority greek system did. Right there they were "set apart" from the rest. Granted, diversity is a good thing but I don't believe being different is what some young women going through rush wants.

She has very specific opinions in her colony (they have since been chartered and received a house pretty quickly but the chapter isn't what she would call one of the best on campus.) She feels that NATIONAL errorred big time with some of the women they chose.

This could be true because think about it, if the rushees are meeting subquality women AND they don't have a house, in theory they are going to have only subquality pledges. And then those new members are now initiated and still unpolished and the cycle repeats itself at rush time.

Maybe I'm shallow but when I wanted to be in a sorority, living in the house was definitely something I wanted to do. No question. So, if I were to rush a sorority which in all likely hoood wouldn't have a house until AFTER I graduated, I wouldn't have pledged them.

Even if National chose top notch girls for her colony, not having a house really hurt them and I don't believe after more than 10 years they have fully recovered.

Personally, I could go on and on and on with how I feel colonies are at such a disadvantage right off the bat since they can only get new members AFTER rush is over (and perhaps have to "settle" for those women who didn't get their first choice, any choice, etc) which then leads to potentially self esteem problems, etc. but I won't.

I applaud ZTA closing them even though my heart goes out to those women.

I also disagree with the quality over quantity in terms of how nationals look at it. They would keep the chapter open if it was financially smart. Period. National would rather you make quota every year, retain those girls for 4 years than to have half quota of only cheerleaders and homecoming queens.

Again, I don't mean to be argumentative but I think in the long run it's better for the KU chapter of ZTA to be shut down for now.

i think that this is possible, but there are plenty of women who go to school without having any ties to greek orgs. i think that one of the other differences between npc and nphc is that (and i could be completely wrong here) nphc orgs don't compete for the same pool of women. npc rush= 125 women sign up and attend parties for 6 houses (example)....so each house has to be able to compete with the others to get their "share" of the women. from what i can tell, intake for nphc is much different (duh), but that there isn't the same competition for the same group of women. i don't know if there are several orgs on the campus if they hold some sort of an open house type thing where women can meet members of all of the groups, but even if there is, it seems that in the end, the potential new members decide which group they want to pursue. to me, nphc intake sounds like npc's cob.

I think that in a lot of cases, as we definitely saw with threads on here re 2 DZ colonizations, it is announced far enough ahead of rush - usually a year for big schools like KU - that if women decide it is something they want to pursue, they have the time to think about that decision. If you have family ties to the group (which usually comes into play when groups for colonies are selected - the amount of alums in the area) it probably also plays a part. Colonies also take all classes of women, unlike formal rush, where at some schools is 90% freshmen. Some women drop out of rush because they want to be part of the colony. At any rate, I wouldn't characterize colonizing members as "leftovers."

As far as National picking the women - well, as we know, 2 people could look at the same girl and see 2 different things. I think it's very important to have women at the colony who are familiar with the type/region of Greek system there. (i.e., don't send the Belles from LSU to pick women for the Western Connecticut U colony, or vice versa)

I am saddened that our International Office decided to close the KU colony. However, I trust their judgement and know they had the best interests of the women and ZTA at heart. My hope is that the colony members are able to pursue sorority membership. I wish that they could be initiated into ZTA, but if that is not possible, I hope they find their home.