Just a General Question
 

I was just wondering ... is it out of the ordinary for someone who's a sophomore in college to be President of their sorority?

That's all. Thanks everyone!

Well generally speaking from what I've seen presidents tend to be juniors.

My chapter elected a sister president for her second half of her sophomore year and first half of her junior year. Her faults were not related to her being a sophomore.

Usually, our presidents are second half of junior year/first half of senior year.

I know another chapter at my alma mater tends to have younger presidents.

IMO, class year is less important than leadership ability and maturity.

^^^ Can I just say that I LOVE when organizations have January to December terms? The summers are great times for leadership development and recharging. And it also provides an entire semester of transition time before seniors graduate.

Well that's exactly how my chapter does it. Our new officers begin to hold their positions in January and go through December of that year. So if a Sophomore were President, she'd spend half the time as a Sophomore, and half the time as a Junior.

When I was Chapter Advisor, there just wasn't anyone with the amount of common sense as one of the sophmores when we were slating. She ended up being a great president for two years.

We had one like that when I was an active. She was fabulous!

IIRC, I think we have an eligibility requirement that says she must be a current member of the Junior class (in addition to past service on EC)?

When you think of the past service requirement, time-wise Juniors would seem most likely to be eligible.

As long as they're the right person for the job, I don't see what the problem is.

But it isn't very common.

That is something that differs from campus to campus. At my undergrad chapter, the Presidential term usually went from second semester junior year to first semester senior year. At the campus where I advised, the trend had become for the term to be held second semester sophomore year to first semester junior year. The only requirement for the office of President is that she previously hold an office on the Chapter Council.

I think some sophomores can be effective presidents but it depends greatly on their individual personalities and how much training they're given.

Sure..for NPHC. But in NPC sororities, almost all of us get back to school (or even before school starts in August!) to face immediate recruitment. You do NOT want someone who is completely untried in the 'easy' semester (winter) handling that.

January to December terms make that possible. As opposed to terms that start at the beginning of the school year. When everyone is insane from Work Week and Rush! :)

I thought that the fall classes were generally the "major" classes in NPC sororities? Wouldn't that Jan-May semester help to prepare an officer for recruitment in the Fall?

Our elections for new officer positions were held a few weeks before the end of Spring semester. We'd get the new VP Recruitment then.

When I was a collegian, our Rush Training School (Rush Boot Camp, as I fondly remember it) was held in the summer a few weeks before Fall Semester.

I wasn't speaking for or even about the NPHC. My APO chapter functions this way.

My organization has elections at the end of Spring semester as well. We also have similar workshops during the summer. I was just thinking that having that extra semester of lead time could be beneficial since I've read on here that more emphasis is placed on fall classes in NPC.

It's out of the ordinary on campus here, however one of the houses recently elected a sophomore whose doing absolutely outstanding. I believe she won "Best President" for the sororities.

Yeah, it's not common on my campus either, but it also depends on the chapter.

My chapter got 50 new guys this past school year (07-08) and this is the majority of our chapter.

A lot of the older leadership has/will graduate, so its up to us guys that were rushed in 2007 (Spring 08 and down, not so much) to step up to leadership positions. I was the first from the fall pledge class to be appointed to e-board when someone resigned and I'm running for a higher position this fall. :D

But president... thats another story.

We also do January to December officer election, but with a January formal recruitment. Our president is a 2nd semester Jr/1st semester senior, because we have a must have been on EC clause in our bylaws. Our Recruitment and Panhel positions start once recruitment is over, so you are the assistant as soon as you are elected, and then the following recruitment is yours. I like it especially with these positions because it gives you a chance to help, then do COB, if needed after recruitment in the spring, then the fall is when you plan all the formal recruitment.

As an advisor I have never had a soph Pres in this chapter. I have known several at other chapters over the years who have done bang up jobs. It all depends on the candidate. My org has a stipulation that a Pres candidate must have served on Exec previously, but that can be waived with Inatl permission. We had to do this one year when practically our entire Exec was made up of seniors. The two who weren't didn't run for Pres the following year.

We, too, had the Jan-Dec terms, which were great.

It certainly was not the norm for a sophomore to serve as president, but there was another NPC chapter on our campus that did elect a sophomore one year. This caught everyone by surprise, but she served well and earned tons of respect from the entire greek community. She then served a second term as president the following year.

So, to echo many others here... it was certainly a major exception on our campus, which had pledge classes of 40ish. But... if a very special individual came along, clearly there was at least one chapter open to the idea.

The chapter I advise now has a sophomore president and she is really very good. She had been an officer previously, although not on Exec.

I didn't even know the rule about Presidential candidates needing to serve on Exec until I was on the slating committee following my term as EVP senior year. My chapter had deferred recruitment (so no one could take positions until their 2nd year since elections were in December and rush was in January) and was pretty large (around 200) and therefore was very, very competitive for positions - it would have been unheard of for a sophomore to be on Exec.

That is exactly what happened to me while I was Chapter Advisor too! She ended up running again and she was an amazing Chapter President!

The woman about whom I spoke went on to a Panhellenic Executive Office, although I forget which one. It's a great way to fast track someone to Panhel!

My chapter actually had two presidents in a row who served for two years each. It worked out so well the first time that they did it again! Actually, the first of these women went on to be very active in our international organization.

I know one group on campus had a girl as president when she was a sophomore and the feelings about her were mixed. I really don't think the age thing matters, I've known some 18 year olds to be more mature than some 22 year olds. I do think it helps that the person has had some sort of prior exec experience. We had a girl go from having no responsiblities in the sorority to being president and she didn't do a great job. It all depends.

At my school it was generally looked down upon for sophomores to be GLO presidents but it happened sometimes. In my chapter, about 3-4 years before I got there there was a woman who was President as a sophomore and served a second term as President as a junior. It wasn't necessarily the best situation...

We do officer transition in November, so a president would typically be a junior and her term would extend halfway through her senior year. We require that a president hold an executive position before being president, so it would be almost impossible to elect a sophomore.