small vs big/dorm vs commuter/house vs no house
 

In A Nut Shell Deffinte maybe!

Good Question tho!:)

What do you mean?? That nationals would treat you more favorably as a smaller chapter?? Or a bigger chapter??

Maybe I'm just not understanding.:D

Just overall....are they willing to provide the same amount of support, arethey understanding of the diffrent circumstances, etc

When we were smaller.... we were pushed harder, had more visits. We needed it, we got the resources to get better and we did.

SDT seems to be VERY understanding, especially with their chapter on my campus. That chapter has been the smallest since before I rushed. And we're not talking like 35 when the total is 60... usually they were maybe around 15. I heard various reasons for this, some being that they liked everyone to live in the suite (our suites hold ~16), etc. At one point in time they did get a few sisters who really tried to make a push to get bigger, but they didn't get too far and it just reverted back down. I'm not sure what their current numbers are. They had been recolonized in the latter half of the 90's. They have a gorgeous suite, I guess they have some wealthy alumnae that help keep them afloat. But i'm pretty sure had my KD chapter ever been at that level and stayed there...we would've been gone. I really don't know how they can financially do it- whoever did that chapter's budget had to have been good. Or again, if they had a lot of donations or something.

I think that Alpha Gam is understanding of the differences between all chapters. They provide special exceptions to some chapters for things like a mandatory Housing Support Fee. We have a chapter in the inner city of Detroit at Wayne State University who gets exempt from this payment each year. I have another chapter who rents their house and has permission for a reduced mandatory fee.

They had scheduled a travelling consultant for Wayne State for 10 days and I talked with them about shortening the stay because, for them, a consultant is usually staying at someone's house with their parents, since they all live at home and commute. They were able to shorten the stay to make it more comfortable for everybody and still get things accomplished.

The awards that are presented at our Convention are divided into categories based on size. So three awards are actually given: one for chapters under 50, one for chapters with 50-95 and one for chapters over 95. That way chapters are competing for awards with other chapters of similar means/sizes. The current philosophy is to pour tons of support into struggling chapter to keep them alive and get them thriving again instead of closing them.

Bottom line is, we have some awesome chapters with 30 members and some awesome chapters with 150 members. How well they are living up to our purpose has nothing to do with their size. If a chapter has a house there are financial reasons for needing to be bigger, to be able to fill a house. It is easier to get things accomplished with at least 30 members. When you don't have enough women to fill all the offices and people are doubling up on offices, they get exhausted and burned out and retention suffers. It is easier for them if they are of similar size to the other chapters on their campus because of things like Greek Week competitions, socials, and sadly, reputations.

Dee

I don't think I've actually seen an Alpha Phi chapter on a commuter campus, now that I think about it. If someone has, then please let me know!

Like PM_Mama00, I've also noticed that the big chapters seem to get the most attention in the Quarterly. Even though I think we'd be considered a medium-sized chapter by most sororities (we're at about 35-45 girls usually, with total being 40), I have a feeling that we are one of the smaller Alpha Phi chapters. I think our headquarters would prefer larger chapters, but they understand that some campuses just aren't going to have big chapters.

:confused: :confused:

Obviously you know more about your school than I do, but even if there's only actual dorm space for 3000, I've never heard of Kent being referred to as a commuter school or would think of it as such. Plus doesn't the 35,000 include some branches? If that was all at main campus it would be as big as Penn State Main which I don't think it is.

KSU Factbook

Not entirely. Total enrollment for all 8 branches IS 35,000. But the main campus is only at about 25,000. :)

What is the definition of "Commuter School" anyway? People throw that term around and I am not really sure what makes a campus "commuter"

Aren't most campuses at least part commuter. Could you really get everyone to live on campus? (except good ol' Bob Jones of course)

A commuter campus is a school that is the opposite of a residential school. Most of the students don't live on or around campus. They drive in every day sometimes from great distances or they schedule their classes for only certain days of the week to cut down on drive time. So the campus atmosphere can be a little more like a "ghost town" when class isn't in session or on the weekends. It can make it hard for them to participate in extra activities like greek life or student government. These schools also often have higher percentages of nontraditional students.

There are many schools that are a mix of commuter and residential.

Commuter campuses get a stigma because they are often ranked lower on reports like Princeton and US News because the nature of communting also affects retention and graduation rates. Many of these schools try to fix this by building gyms, better recreation, a nice union, promote apartments, lure stores to the area --- to keep students on campus for more than classes. And they will build up their prominence in certain majors to lure more students and gain a reputation for excellence in that area.

To me, the concept is similar to a "bedroom community" -- where a town becomes a ghost town during the day because everyone is commuting into the city to go to work. The town tries to lure more businesses and entertainment to its own area to keep its residents' money and volunteer interests in the area.

I've found that AEPhi's national office has been pretty understanding of my chapter's situation. We were a local sorority with 10 active sisters, and we wanted to remain relatively small. Total was (and I believe still is) 80, and we didn't feel it was really possible to form a sisterly bond with 79 chapter sisters... we wanted to grow to around 50. AEPhi was actually cool with the idea of our wanting to stay below total. My chapter has faced pressure to grow (10 is just a little too small), but we haven't had our arms twisted to get to total this semester or else, we don't get nastygrams when we don't make quota, etc. Plus, a few area alums always turn out to help with recruitment, so the chapter has support.

Every school is different. For most GLOs, there are campuses where they're the only chapter there and campuses where there are tons of GLOs represented. There are chapters at commuter schools and at residential schools. There are big chapters and little chapters; there are little chapters where all the other chapters are big (indicating a possible problem) and little chapters where all the other chapters are also little (which usually means there isn't a problem, greek life just isn't all that big there). Every chapter has its own situation, and it's great when a national office is flexible enough to recognize that one size doesn't fit all.

I would consider Eastern Michigan (my alma mater) a mix of commuter and residential. There are large numbers of students who do live on and around campus, but there is a significant percentage of students who live at home (with parents) and commute to class each day. In the Greek system, we don't get a lot of commuters, but did get some from nearby cities like Saline or Ann Arbor.

Wayne State University in the city of Detroit is clearly commuter, even though they have built a couple dorms. The vast majority of students live at home with parents or are non-traditional students. Most of the students in campus apartments or dorms are international students.

UM-Dearborn is also clearly commuter, with most students living at home.

Commuter campuses definitely face different challenges and obstacles than residential do. Just finding places to hold meetings, sisterhoods and rituals can be difficult. Some of the women live an hour or an hour and a half away from each other. They are all on campus at different times of day. Greek life on those campuses can be key to feeling a sense of belonging and community with the campus though.

Dee

Commuter School= not many if any Dorms for Students. Students live Locally and Go Home at Night and so Donnt Do Much with Campus, or Organizations.:(

AXiD national treats all its chapters the same. We are all have the same goals and our nationals tells us what is expected of our chapter as a whole with the National organization.

AOII International Headquarters has always been fair and good to all of their chapters. I know Nu Beta (OLE MISS) is a bigger chapter and we do have a house but we are helped when we need help and treated fairly and we must follow the same rules and laws that all AOII chapters follow. AOII helps and aids all chapters of all sizes with houses, lodges, dorm suites, no housing, etc with the same passion.

Re: small vs big/dorm vs commuter/house vs no house
 

When I was at school (and I think its still the case) SDT on my campus is one of the few chapters that didn't have an official house (although they used several off campus houses), but they were either the largest or next to largest chapter at my school. The fact that they dont have a house makes their dues lower which probably is a deciding factor for some people. We are also not really a commuter school (we have a ton of commuters, but also a ton of people who live on campus). Greek life isn't all that great here (considering the fact that there are 600 women total in NPC sororities when the campus has over 30,000 students!!), but SDT never seemed to be struggling. I don't know anything about their relationship with National.

Its so weird to hear of struggling SDT chapters since it seems that everyone from my hometown is in an SDT chapter somewhere... but we're a bunch of Jews :)

astroAPhi:

We have a great chapter of Alpha Phi at SIUE (total is 65), and we are a mostly (2/3) commuter school. Though hopefully, we are getting housing in the foreseeable future!

For whatever it's worth, we always considered all of the state supported schools in Ohio (At least the ones in the Mid American Conference) commuter schools back when I was there -- with the exception of Ohio University and possibly Ohio State (Big 10) -- simply because the latter was so huge -- although a large number of those students were from the Columbus area, so even OSU was/is a communter school to some extent.

The reason is fairly simple in that all of the schools were reasonably close to cities:

Toledo and Bowling Green = Toledo
Miami of Ohio = Cincinnati and Dayton
Kent = Cleveland & Akron

In terms of O.U., the student body was larger than the population of the City of Athens in those days. Besides the kids from all over Ohio (particularly Cleveland and Columbus), we had a lot of folks from NY, NJ, WV and PA.

Wow, I'm from Chicago and I didn't realize that SIUE was a commuter school. But then again, one of my friends who is in the Air Force reserves goes there because it is the closest to the base.

Yep, most of our students still commute from the area, though our residential population has increased dramatically. Our new chancellor wants us to be at 50% residential in a few years, so that will be changing in the future.:)

Campuses (and chapters) may be classified as "commuter" simply because a large percentage of students live at home with parents or the percentage of undergraduates living in university housing is low even if it a large university.

I lived at home as an undergrad as did 90% of the chapter. That same chapter now has an on-campus house and the university has built dorm space sufficient that they are more residential. I still see a huge difference in the chapter traditions in that chapter vs. chapters who have always been housed. It isn't that one is better than another, they are just different (things like how meals are served, how members feel about living in). Expectations of chapters at commuter campuses do not differ but suggestions on how they fulfill those requirements will differ. For example, requiring proctored study hours is a whole lot easier when you have a house.