Nationals vs. Local debate
 

Hey fellow local GCers!

I posted a thread under Greek Life ...it's about nationals versus locals. It has received quite a few posts so far...and but not a lot from those of us who are in local groups. Please feel free to read that and comment :)

Thanks!! I want to make sure local opinions are heard too!!


*SiggieJilly*

I did think of a BIG advantage to being in a large chapter-regardless of national afiliation or not. When you order t-shirts and other Paraphernalia, it is sooooooooo much cheaper if you order a large quantity. An organization of 10 is going to pay $20 per T-shirt but if you have 100 sisters, the cost goes down to like $7. Big difference. Just something I noticed.

That's not completely true. We can get t-shirts for under $10 and we usually have 15-20 active sisters. It all depends upon where you order your shirts at. :)

agreed... it really just depends on where you get them. you can't rely on the big name greek stores to give you a huge deal. the smaller ones and small screen printing shops usually help us out a lot.

if you want just screen printing, try customink.com. they specialize in greek shirts and usually charge about $8-$12 a shirt.

I would like to order cheap embrodiered shirts.....also I cant wait to get a line jacket.....I notice that most nationals dont wear a line jacket........

i love being in a local because you don't have to deal with nationals breathing down your neck... and you kind of have creative license to change things if you want... i def like that...

Name one instance where any national group has "breathed down the neck" of a chapter, unless that chapter has already committed a grave violation of policy (like hospitalizing a pledge.) When such lamentable events happen with locals, their entire existence hanges by a thread. Rare, drastic actions by parent organizations ensure their survival.

Coming from a school that once had three national sororities I always heard them complaining about their national getting on their asses about their numbers. We went to a small school and their national organizations couldn't grasp the fact that Greek life was small and there was not going to be 40+ active members in every chapter. They all have been threatened over the years about low numbers and having their charters revoked. One of the national sororities decided to go local because they didn't want to deal with their national organization anymore. When you are local you don't have to worry about things like that.

yea- actually i have friends in all of the nationals on my campus- and they all complain about how nationals is constantly hounding them for more and more money- that nationals always send reps out that completely tear their chapters apart... and i know that nationals for two different sororities are threatening to close 2 chapter because of money issues.... (i think b/c the chapters aren't bringing in as much as they should) their numbers barelly dip below 40.....

yep, either they go through and clean house and kick out a bunch of girls bc they dont fit the image they want or else they are constantly bitching about numbers. i have seen house cleaning a couple times here and i see the issues with numbers all the time. plus the girls get so anal around structured rush bc they HAVE to have so many girls. its rediculous.

We get this from our nationals.....it's annoying and they will never understand.

I have never received a numbers lecture from my national. I am sure it has a lot to do with not having the responsibility of maintaining a house and our campus not having total (our local sororities are not members of Panhel so we won't have total if other chapters don't have to follow it). They have been very understanding about the differences with commuter schools and the tendancy for chapters to be smaller than those at away schools. We have always been above the average chapter size on campus though, so I don't know if their opinion were change if we were below average.

Not to air my chapter's dirty laundry in public, but - well, let's just say we did get the numbers lecture at one point, and it wasn't pretty - but the chapter did come back strong.

I liked being in a local; I like being in a national. There are advantages and disadvantages to each. (For one thing, I liked having local dues that were about 15% of the national sororities' dues... ;) )

I have seen this done at the University of Missouri-Columbia (MU) in '98 w/ Alpha Phi. All of the current members were forced to become alumae early or become inactive. Events were held by nationals to recruit new women and the house was recolonized...my roommate at the time was chosen.

I have never heard of Alpha Phi forcing the members to go alum. What probably happened is the sisters in the chapter have a vote, and they chose whether or not to do it. The sisters must have realized that in order for their chapter to survive, this was the best option. Now I know nothing about this case in particular, but I do no that my sorority is not cruel and would not force such a thing onto the sisters.

I do know that the recolonization (or whatever it's called) went very well at Missouri. They got some outstanding women. Two were even ELC's this past year, one came to one of the schools I advise at. Seems like they were all good leaders, smart, and polished.

No, they didn't yank the charter because they started recruiting new members not long after.

I belong to a National Orgnanization & our chapters have free reign to do what they please. As long as they adhere to By-Laws & are not doing anything to give the Fraternity a Bad name there is no problem.

I was in a local before we went international, so I feel like I can say this. If you're in a local and not worried about numbers then you're not worried about the survival and existance of your group. I know that's not the spirit of the quoted post but every org is concerned about maintaining membership. If they aren't proactive, then they simply will not exist.

While some may view national intervention as 'breathing down their neck'--imagine the resources they have if something does go wrong. If you need training on recruitment or a myriad of issues, a national will have your back and get you those resources you need.

Sororities are great--but they are essentially businesses as well. It takes a certain number of members to make things work--its not an arbitrary number from somewhere in the sky. And I've never heard of a national that asked for a group to be at a number that based on analysis wasn't somehow attainable. If there is quota on total on campus, it means you have that potential.

:)

I think it should also be mentioned that this 'breathing down their neck' is often to prevent hazing or other risk management nightmares. When you join a local sorority and you become pres or vp you accept the liablity of that group. they haze, you are personally responsible, very few locals actually have insurance to protect them. The national is often a buffer to prevent major issues.

Locals are a great option for some women, but for others the connections and help of a national is just as vital as the independance that many local member seek. Yes we have oversight, but if we have number issues, we are given help, often a local will die. Yes they don't always understand, but we still have access to resources to help spur new ideas to help ourselves. I came from a 'special' chapter. There were times when AST did not know what to do with us, mostly because of our campus culture. They could not handle seeing HELL written on the house of the local sorority when they came to visit, but they still support our chapter with whatever means they can. That is an amazing asset.

I love being in a National sorority, the local sorority scene is just not for me. I like the bigger picture, the larger meaning to our letters, and that I can move anywhere in the country and have sisters. I think thought that both groups need to stop being afraid of eachother. Locals, need to realize that many women prefer the national oversight and the inherent structure of a national organization. And yes, nationals need to realize that locals are not all running wild. But we all need to come to terms with common issues that face young women not point fingers.

just my 2 cents as people being to fight amongst themselves...

See, I don't think I could handle being in a national...having plege classes of 100 or more. We had a pledge class of 9 girls...each of them wonderful, beautiful, talented. With an active chapter of 17, we are the smallest sorority on campus. The pledge class before mine was 6 girls, the one before that had been 4. But the thing is that we are 83 years old, we went inactive in the early 70's I believe, and then were resurrected in 85, stronger and more rockin' than ever. What I love about our locals is the history they have. Each one is over 80 years old. They all have these incredibly unique traditions and styles that are distinctive to them and really add a certain flavor to Otterbein. 30% of our campus of 3000 is Greek, and we're damn proud.

I love my small chapter. We're hoping for 13 pledges this year, but even if we get 2, i'm sure they'll be damn proud delta kittens through and through!

I think that most of the women on here have mentioned the "breathing down your neck" as a numbers aspect rather than a risk mgmt aspect.

Phoenix - not all national chapters have huge pledge classes - that's mainly in the South. I don't think any sorority, national OR local, in the Northeast is anything like that.

lauralaylin, every single NPC sorority out there has done a recolonization while the old members were still on campus and made them alums. Sometimes it goes well, sometimes it doesn't. They may say that the old members voted to do this, but sometimes it's a case of "either you can vote and say you voted or we will just recolonize you anyway." The charter isn't "yanked" from campus but active membership is "yanked" from the current members.

The main thing is like Little E said, nationals and locals need to learn to respect and work with each other. National Sorority XYZ can't blow into a college full of locals and expect everyone to start doing things their way. If you can't handle the campus culture as it is, you probably should not start a chapter there. By the same token, the locals need to realize all those rules and regs the nationals have are there for a reason.

I also feel that part of understanding is that not all locals are small and not all NPC are huge. My chapter, during my 4 years as an active ranged from 20-30. We were small. We were encouraged to work on numbers, but not threatened to be shut down. Affiliation does not correlate to size.

I agree that there should be respect on both sides!

As locals we really don't have the resources at our beck and call, I have seen that NPC houses on our campus and the Nationals lend support when ever they need it.
I also understand the desire to have sisters accross the country

There are of course somethings us "local" either don't understand or just plain don't like that is why we created locals right?
It is much harder to change years and years of tradition on a national level especially when they are deep rooted.
My sisters have friends in many of the houses on campus (some are even roommates) and we all try and help each other out for the good of greek life on our campus.

We also had a desire to go national that is now coming true but not in the same way as a NPC group so we still do have an influence on the development of our chapter and we have even further resources so that our chapter will not die.
All in all either local or national has its good and not so good sides as locals we have to deal withthe negative image that MTV so dearly loves to provide. I dont really know of that many locals that behave in that fashion BUT at every recruitment event we always have somebody that thinks that we like to go wild and that we will haze our new members. So any way you look at it...
Just my thoughts though :)

as others have said all national chapters aren't like that. prior to going into recruitment our chapter had only 15 members. since that is the norm at our school our national has never given us any problem with that. your lucky though that as a local you were able to re-organize after your chapter closed, thats something that most locals aren't afforded.

that's something that is really important to me about being in a national - my organization is here to stay. Bad choices by future actives or the whim of a single school's administration will not have to power to stop by organization. If the local that eventually became AEPhi at my college in 1954 hadn't gone national it would have disappeared it the 70's with all the other GLO's on my campus. There were many locals back then and none of them have returned.

What about traditions and ceremonies? What do locals do about all that stuff? My fraternity used to be national for 110 years, but had to break from national in 2000. Nothing changed, except some graduates came by and took some of our stuff. Same tradtions, we learn the same stuff. Our composites still have our previous national's name and seal on it. Our photographer sends national our composite every year and they havent said anything to us.

I think it depends on the sorority, how much pressure you feel on this. It's vital that you can tell your national rush chair or whoever that "this girl might look faboo on paper, but she is horrid in real life" and have them respect it.

I don't care if a national encourages quantity as long as they encourage quality as well.

I think that is true, but only to a point. We have a chapter of a national here that's fairly large for my school, about 35-40 members, and their nationals always gets annoyed that they don't take largee NM classes of like 30-50 girls because other chapters of that sorority do. What their nationals has a hard time understanding is that here, sometimes only 30 girls actuall come out to recruitment.

That's really strange then. Your post is making it seem that you continue to teach fraternity secrets to NM's. That could be cause for a potential lawsuit. Plus, if your charter was pulled in 2000, and rituals have been passed down orally, there's a chance that you may have even inadvertently changed how you do rituals.

I honestly never felt this pressure. Yes they always asked about our numbers to see how we were doing, but because we were always comfortable with our size, there was NEVER any pressure or threat to our chapter. We were competitive on campus, while still holding high expectations. We worked very hard on keeping drama to the minimum and being assets to our community. As a result of our drive we won national recognition for our Philanthropic efforts.

The point is still being missed though. As a greek community, we have to look at both sides. Yes, I do see why some locals are afraid of NPCs. They see these huge schools where a chapter of 60 women gets closed, but while you hear about that, it is not normal. Your average chapter is not on a yearly basis threatened to get bigger numbers. Encouraged, yes, but who doesn't want encouragement? It is nice to have someone come in and say you are the sweetest girls, how can we show more people this? That is what the 'breathing' really is in real life. By the same token, I'd have given anything not to have to fill out my CEPs, locals get that. They do what they do and don't necessarily have a nat'l board looking over everything.

Again, who are we to look down on someone else's decision to go local or national?

I think the nuisance of nationals harassing chapters over numbers is being exagerated.

I believe all chapters can have that issue regardless of whether they're national or local. If you're in a local organization and your numbers drop signifcantly you may not have to deal with a national office but if you have an organized alumnae base you'll definitely hear from them. Plus if a chapter has a house national or not you need to maintain a certain number of members to keep the house affordable.

Co-sign. Also:

Believe it or not, nationals would rather NOT become THAT involved with a chapter to the point where it seems like harassment. That's usually reserved for chapters who have CONSTANT issues that don't get better. We only see our traveling consultant maybe twice a year, but chapters dealing with hazing allegations, constantly low GPA's, debt,or EXTREMELY low numbers will see them maybe every 2 months. So it will probably get annoying but nationals is just doing it's job to make sure we're all functioning to the standard of the sorority.

And ALL NPC HQ's HATE to close chapters. It's not like they sit around in their offices gleefully thinking of who to close down next. Closing a chapter is the worst part of their job. Also, when a chapter is closed, it's usually for one of the issues listed above. And it's not like the MINUTE you dip below total, your chapter is closed. Most chapters closed for numbers reasons are severely below (Not 15 when everyone else has 22, I mean like 20 when everyone else has 90) And that chapter with 20 has had at least 2 years or so to pull up it's numbers.

I think in ways, it is also different for girls in locals, if locals are the only things that are offered to you. I go to a school that has 7 local sororities, and no national ones. Yes, I will admit, I am kinda fascinated with how NPC sororities run, but my sorority is one of the oldest ones on campus, and I'm really dang proud of that.

Also, as it has been pointed out, Dues are WAY cheaper. We pay 90 a year, and then also do fundraising, but that goes plenty far when you're not paying HQ, or dealing with chapter houses.

I have a point of contention with the "not having to follow the rules" thing. We DEFINITELY have to follow the rules, as close if not closer than a national organization. While most of our chapters are 80+ years old, if we step out of line...we're done. We have no national office to go to, no financial help to dip into, (in most cases) no high powered alumni to go to for help. We have to monitor and govern our chapters very very closely or we're simply done because the school holds our chapters in the palm of their hand. They've closed several chapters over the years (Some have returned, others havent, some have faded in and out). So we have a lot more rules about the rules than most people do. Our finances are extremely important. While the cost is very reasonable, we still have to pay and do fundraisers. But I think that the strength of local chapters is evidenced by the fact that almost all of the original founding groups of Otterbein are STILL on the campus, STILL taking members, and STILL having a proud tradition.

My local's numbers will dip and raise all the time but it's never hurt us so badly that we've had to close down. Our 151st birthday is Wed. My campus had a local actually return last year. It just depends on the campus and what kind of orgs you have.

We have an amazing amount of traditions that are passed down year to year. Plus we can add our own in too! It's great!

I have total respect for nationals and I love to learn about them. I'm totally into the Greek system! (although i still havent figured out what tikis are!!!)

Local or national, big or small...it all comes down to how you represent and respect your letters/org. You can have 5 people and work your butts off with a positive repuatation and be just as successful as 100 people.

Yes being national gives you help when you request it, but financial help is not just a check in the mail. My chapter had major money issues, and we were not just given a check. WE had to work them out, find a solution and get the money. WE had to come up with a plan to prevent this from reoccuring. Our advisors were very important for this, as well as our alumnae. However, our alumnae are only 5 years out max. We are a young chapter. Alumnae should not be tied in just by a national organization, and in many cases are more tied in through the chapter rather than just HQ. Being national is not like being Harry Potter. We don't have any magical resources, except for assistance with organization, something that 100+ year old locals can have as well, if not better.

while i understand your point, i think that buttonz was just pointing out that on her campus, the locals don't have to follow any rules. some colleges are more involved in what the greek orgs are doing. if a campus doesn't recognize a local, they certainly can do whatever they want. no one from campus is going to be checking up on them. it really just depends on the college.

just to clarify about Buttonz and my school. Our locals are recognized by the school but our schools involvement is very minimal. We have a greek advisor and though he is very involved, beyond booking meeting rooms and providing general guidance there are no hard rules. He's basically like don't do anything that will get people sued or arrested and don't do anything on campus that will piss off the administration or really hurt your rep. Its kind of a see no evil, hear no evil policy. While I am sure a lot of national chapters around the country break the rules and haze to some extent and drink when they are not suppose to we are more conscious of risk management and reputation concerns b/c its been drilled in our heads by our national. If a national does haze they don't announce i to everyone on campus.

Our locals are not discreet and I have seen pledges wearing sandwhich boards, signs, pledge shirts, bags and screaming greetings on campus which announce their affiliation to everyone. One has had letters to the editor complaining about line-ups in both our campus paper and another regional campus where they are trying to expand. Their main means of recruitment is parties and mixers with a lot of alcohol.

Meanwhile the NPC chapters follow all the NPC rules. But a lot of girls rush the locals thinking they look like they have a lot of fun. A lot more girls drop pledging the locals. And while my chapter has at least 3 girls that dropped pledging locals and Buttonz's chapter has at least 2 including herself its very hard to win good girls back over to pledging b/c they don't realize the difference.

And I know this isn't the situation on most campuses especially where associate membership in panhel gives locals almost all the same rights as a national. But in New York and to some extent NJ this is the situation on many campuses. And of course I have heard that nationals haze but I almost always hear "this national makes their pledges do this but there is this crazy local..."

I am sure I am going to get a lot of crap for saying this but that's what I have experienced around me.

You shouldnt get crap for contributing to the convo. I'm in a local and I'm not about to give you crap. I think its great that you guys are strict about hazing and what not!