npc expansion
 

So here's a little bit of background. We have 4 NPC sororities at my school and two separate groups of girls looking to expand and bring more organizations to campus. PHC reps were told to go to their organizations to see how they felt about expansion regardless of the girls interested and what organizations they want to bring here [just to consider quota, total, etc]. After this, the PHC reps voted, and two organizations said yes while the other two said no.

I'm aware of the schedule, procedures and policy of NPC expansion, but our campus puts their rules before those of NPC. We are going to look at our constitution to see what to do of course, but it made me curious to see if anyone knew off the top of their head how they would handle a tie on their campus.

I would think in the event of a tie, that administration would be the ultimate decider. Since it will affect student life, normally following group votes, they are the final decision.

I'm a little fuzzy on the exact happenings; however, when my campus voted on expansion, I believe the final decision was up to the Greek Life/Student Life/Administration. Of course for us, the group vote was merely political, administration had already decided they wanted to expand.

Now by "PHC reps" do you mean the Panhellenic delegates? It's not really the delegates' decision, but that of your sorority's NPC Delegate (with some input from your chapter). I would think you would need a majority to allow another group to come. Do the interest groups want to affiliate with Panhellenic as local sororities or affiliate with an NPC sorority (and with Panhellenic)?

Weeeeeellll, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that from sorority to sorority, the degree of input from those two corners may vary.

Do you need an expansion, or are you just discussing it because these two orgs want to join Panhellenic ?

Weeeeeellllll, at the very least the collegiate panhellenic delegate should contact her NPC delegate or Inter/national HQ for guidance and input.

That's what I'm saying - there's a big difference between "input" and flat out telling the chapter Panhellenic delegate how she should vote. From what I've surmised from hearing expansion stories (on here and elsewhere), some groups are at one end and some groups are at the other.

If a vote results in a tie, the motion fails. NPC sororities are to contact their NPC Delegates for guidance on the vote for expansion. Collegiate chapters are also supposed to vote on the measure before the vote is brought up in the Panhellenic meeting. The Chapter Delegate should vote however her chapter votes. The suggestions of the NPC Delegate should be reviewed in the chapter meeting to guide the chapter in voting.

Our PHC is actually ONLY NPC groups; our campus does not permit local sororities. So technically speaking, they are the NPC reps from each org. From what I understand, each rep brought it to their orgs, they took a vote and the outcome of the vote reflected the reps' decisions. One chapter actually contacted their national office, and they told them they had to vote no.

The groups would be NPC orgs and would not be allowed to continue with the process of becoming a local should NPC expansion not happen.


In the opinion of two orgs, we do not *need* expansion. Orgs have consistently had trouble reaching total, and quota does not call for another organization.



From what has been hinted to us, it is that no matter what our vote turned out to be, the Director of Student Activities has the final say. If we voted no, she could very well override it and say yes. It's a little discouraging to say it's up to us, and then someone else [who is not at all active in the Greek department] makes their own decision. Although our NPC adviser mentioned that if the orgs selected to present were made aware of this, they would side with the decision of NPC. Not sure about that, anyone know?

Your place to get the best answer would be to contact your National NPC delegate, she can tell you for certain.

Perhaps. She's been in contact with us lately regarding spiffing up recruitment, but she hasn't mentioned anything about this. I was under the impression that the individual national orgs would choose whether or not to present depending on what campus NPC voted, despite a Student Life Director inviting them.

I've participated in an expansion vote as my chapter's Panhel rep. IIRC, declaring the campus open for expansion would have required a majority vote. So if you have two yes votes and two no votes, that's not a majority and your campus is not open for expansion.

It's not solely the rep's decision how to vote. As rep, I went back to my chapter with the expansion proposal, and we decided as a chapter how to vote. I don't recall if we consulted anyone on the national/regional level (it was a long time ago).

It's unfortunate that your campus doesn't allow local sororities... my first thought was to suggest that each group formally organize as a local and become an associate member of your CPH. Maybe the best thing is to tell the groups, "sorry, we're not open for NPC expansion, but ask us again in a few months / a year / etc". In the meantime, maybe each group can become some sort of women's club or something... but that's their problem, not yours.

I would think that the orgs to present should be made aware of everything you mentioned - it was a tie vote, tie broken by someone who is not knowledgeable in Greek life, the groups that are there can't get to total. Even if the school doesn't tell them that expressly, they'll hear it through the grapevine.

After knowing all that, I don't think any group's decision would be a question of "siding" with NPC - it would just be common sense. It doesn't sound like a good opportunity. Nothing against your campus, it just seems that the climate right now isn't good for colonizing another NPC group.

Are the two groups of girls women who have previously gone through rush, or are they the kind who are saying "we have something wonderful and different" without checking what's there to begin with? Would they be amenable to a national social/professional or social/service sorority?

One group was brought to our attention during the middle of fall [informal] recruitment. The Greek Director had told the girls in that group that they should go through recruitment first to make sure that they know what's already in place isn't for them. Out of about 30 girls at that time, 4 rushed that semester [and either they dropped or weren't bid]. We checked the list and none of the other names appeared to be familiar from previous semesters.

Group two came about after girls ended up not receiving bids this semester. If you've seen my post in the weird rush story thread, the leader of this group is the "let's make this happen" girl. Her and her friend, instead of joining up with the existing group of girls, rallied up the girls who didn't get bids and proceeded to start her own form of recruitment with a facebook group [including freshmen who have not been allowed to rush yet and others who have not gone through recruitment].

Each group of girls has about 50 on their respective lists [which is total]. They actually decided who they were "going to be." We quickly squashed that and told them it's a big no-no if they ever hoped to get the ball rolling.

I'm not sure about how they feel about being non-NPC. It seems to be pretty much all or nothing to them. They have a mindset of competition against each other to see which group will be permitted to go on with expansion, if it happens. "Let's make this happen" is in the Greek Director's office at least twice a week nagging her about when she'll know which organization they'll be allowed to become.

I just read those posts and literally LOLed.

The only thing this girl seems to be making "happen" is annoying everyone within a 500 yard radius.

I think they are all failing to understand just how much the NPC delegates (on the inter/national level, not collegiate) communicate with each other. If, in fact, chapters are not at total and the general environment is not good for expansion, even if a Greek Life Advisor votes to expand, it doesn't mean that any NPC groups will actually send in packets, present, or follow through with an expansion. A Greek Advisor cannot force an NPC group to open a chapter on their campus.

Thank you! Very well said.

Well said, and from what it seems, the campus isnt' in need of a new chapter. if not all groups are at total, and NM classes are a reasonable size... why would you vote yes ?

For the most part, another chapter should be added only when all groups are at or very close to total. If the majority of groups are significantly below total, then perhaps total needs to be lowered.

The only exception (and I could see this being a good exception at a small school in particular) is if a niche is not being filled. If there are a lot of women cross-released (but still have a reasonable GPA) or these interest groups have something different to offer (and if they actually have a group wishing to affiliate), such as a Jewish interest group where there are no Jewish sororities on campus (just an example), then why not let them affiliate?

ETA: With that said, most of these women have not been through recruitment, so I am not sure how they know there isn't a place for them.

Y'all have FIFTY girls who went through rush at 4 sororities and didn't get a bid?? Do y'all have the kind of rush where rushees can decline invites to 2nd Round (or later), and those 50 girls only accepted invites to the groups that were close to total, and declined the smaller group's invites?

If not - I know we have the right as GLOs to be picky - but the smaller groups couldn't find ANY of those 50 girls that met criteria?? The only other reason I could come up with is that those 50 were all under GPA requirement.

No no no no!! Barely ANY of them went through recruitment. The girl who started the second group wasn't bid and asked the 6-8 or so other girls not bid if they wanted to form some sort of interest group. It expanded from there with a Facebook group with freshman who have not been permitted to go to recruitment yet [deferred rush] and other girls who have never gone through.

Round 1 is mandatory; round two is not. We don't do invites to round 2, so they can choose whichever parties they wish. We tell girls if you don't go to all four, it's probably gonna bite you in the butt. Next round is pref; they can choose up to two, and we still recommend not suiciding. This was also informal recruitment, so girls who were pref'd are *not* guaranteed a place on a bid list, as they usually are for formal.

Total right now is 50, and we discussed lowering it, but just this semester, one organization is up to 48, another 46. Lowering it may be considered within another year as in one semester one org has 20 girls graduating and another 22. Quota is usually never above 13.

I'm sorry - I misunderstood. I read it as she rallied the girls who didn't get bids, and that was the complete makeup of that group of 50.

Are y'all allowed to do informationals with the Freshmen??? It might not be a bad idea to get all of the Greek-hopefuls together and let them know that these two groups are NOT university approved and NOT NPC groups, and do not (yet) have the approval to become NPCs. If you're a freshman and can't wait to rush, someone luring you in with "join our group NOW because you can" is probably pretty tempting if you are only fed BS and don't have the whole story.

We've never done anything like that [as far as I know]. We are concerned about them being manipulated about all of this, and although these groups aren't even Greek [yet], a stretch is to consider it dirty rushing. The freshman girls were told that should something happen this semester, they wouldn't be included since they don't have the credit & GPA requirements yet, but they will be included in future semesters. They were told all of this, mind you, after we cracked down on the groups for not telling them those rules and even for using the letters of the organizations they are 'going to become' on their web pages. :rolleyes:

Formal begins the middle of February and we get back to school at the end of January, so I'll see if I can arrange some sort of informational session at the beginning of the semester. I just want these girls to actually come so they can hear it all.

Maybe make it "mandatory" for any woman who is considering going Greek (including future Greek groups:rolleyes:). I'm sure if you include some anti-hazing/PC junk in there, your Greek Life director will agree to it.

I would make sure to get this clarified ASAP. This is the case at many schools, where the final decision is with the administration.

And from my own collegiate expansion experience, NPC groups will come, will present, and the school will expand-even if the vote was against it, but adminstration wanted it. And our campus was similiar to yours tpa in terms of total and avg quota.

I agree with AlphaFrog, market market market, get a lot of girls interested in the process and give them the CORRECT information to avoid these groups interfering. Information sessions do work and they are a great place to get girls to sign up right there and give them the information right there.

The situation at your school, though, was that the entire character of the SCHOOL was changing - going from commuter to residential, or attempting to, and the admin saw a larger Greek system as a component of that.

Without outing luv n tpa, I'm going to say I don't think that's exactly the case here. I don't think the school necessarily WANTS to go against the recommendation of NPC or the individual groups, or expand the Greek system, they're just asserting that they CAN. The only reason I think they would approve this is if they're afraid of an unrecognized local sorority running underground, and if, as AlphaFrog suggested, it's made clear that these groups are not sanctioned or approved in any way by the school, the likelihood of that happening would decrease considerably.

Do these organizations know these groups are using their letters with the claim of becoming a chapter? I would think most if not all NPC groups would make complaints to said group(s) about that. Arent our letters copyrighted material?

We advised the girls to remove them, and they did. I believe that they truly didn't know that it was wrong and weren't aware of the proper sequence of events. After talking to them and had they not removed it, I would have gone further up.