National fraternity to local fraternity....
 

I am part of a national fraternity on a small campus. Long ago we were a single chapter local fraternity, but joined this national fraternity because of the cost of insurance. Recently, we have kicked around the idea of dropping our national fraternity and returning to our local chapter, for vareous reasons I won't get into here. My question is, assuming we could afford insurance, what other obstacles would we run into? Both with things like insurance, etc. And, while I know each campus is different, what road blocks would we run into with campus? And would there be any gap in time involving the switchover?

PS: we have a house, which is owned by our chapter housing corp(who would be on board with the switch), the house is on private property, NOT campus property. Thanks in advance for all input!!!

Look at your school's policy on locals... it may have changed since you went national. Some IFC's don't allow locals period, which could be your biggest obstacle. Another would be how this affects rush. I know, for instance, that I'd want to join a national organization for a variety of reasons and not a local, because I like knowing I could run into a Teke in Florida, California, etc. Also, some alumni of the national fraternity could decide not to donate money to the new local fraternity.

I know it depends on the school, but couldnt we for instance register as just a student organization, not join IFC, and operate outside their rules? The only downside to that at my school is formal rush, but we could operate an informal rush ourselves at the same time. Our IFC does absolutely nothing for any fraternity on campus anyway. In fact, they do everything they can to restrict fraternities. We don't need them, but can we operate without them?

If you are just a "student organization" and don't rush with the other fraternities then some people may look at you (not now when everyone knows the deal, but a few years down the road) as an underground or "fake" fraternity.

Your best bet is to go to IFC and student affairs with your house corp and a group of alumni (all age groups, the more diversity and the more old dudes who donate to the school regularly the better) and explain the reasons why you want to break away from your national. Assure them that it is NOT because you don't want to obey your national's rules on hazing or alcohol or to run wild, but because you don't feel that the dues you pay to the national are getting you anything useful and/or because they do nothing to assist you. Assure them that you have older alumni who will kick your asses if you mess up.

Just because you think your school IFC sucks, is that worth giving up national status? If you go local, then once you graduate, you can't be an Alum of the national organization. College is only four years (though a few more for some people). Like SouthernTKE said, why would you do that to yourselves? If my national sorority on my campus said they wanted to go local, I would have taken alumna status and walked out. You need to really think about the implications of your actions for future members or even current members.

I don't think that is their primary reason. It's just a sidebar.

Assuming that's the reason they want to return to becoming a local...

Well, if they're too silly to even pretend that it is, and they're going to go into a meeting and bitch for days about their national's dry house policy or something, then that's their own fault and they probably won't manage to carry it off anyway.

In short, the IFC thing is a side issue...just wondering what our options are, and what exactly we would be getting ourselves into. The main reason we are thinking about it has nothing to do with hazing/alcohol. It has to do with the fact that we feel we don't get anything out of our nationals. They treat small chapters like ours differently than larger chapters. Our "old guys" that donate money were all a part of that local fraternity. They were honorary initiated into the national fraternity around 15 years ago. Long after we made the switch. Our chapter always has seen ourselves as separate from nationals. We don't care much about the idea of no other chapters and alumni. We take pride in our chapter and our letters as it has to do with our chapter, and could really care less about other chapters. I think that comes from the years we were a local fraternity.

What have you asked of your national organization that it has not provided you? How does it treat your chapter differently than other chapters. You said you don't care about other chapters or know about other chapters, so how would you know they are treated different?

Does your chapter teach about the national organization and its history during new member education, or is your new member education all about the local group? Do you have much contact with representatives from the national organization?

Like others have said, if you want to become a local again, make sure you can get insurance (most likely required by the school) and your school allows local groups still. Even if you try to become a student organization on campus, your school might still say no.

(Example: The KBG (non-NPC sorority) chapter at my school affiliated with KKG (NPC sorority). Alumni of KBG weren't happy and tried to recruit for a new KBG and were told non-NPC groups were not allowed on campus anymore, thus KBG has no chance of ever returning on campus)

He said they don't care about having that network, not that they don't know anything about them, or haven't ever talked to them and compared notes. Not that you really have to do that - it's kind of blatant sometimes.

CLG2010 - I'll give you a quote from a sorority that was local, went national, and then turned local again. "One sister argued that the vote was not really to become a local, but whether or not to become a national, coming into compliance with the rules and expectations of the national we'd ignored for years." If you feel that your national is asking things of you that are unrealistic given the campus that you're on/Greek system you're in, that they aren't giving you support to try and accomplish those things, and that you'll always be the "black sheep" no matter what you do - make sure the school/alumni will support you and you can stay recognized, and then get out. It sounds as though your decision to become national in the first place was made under duress and for the wrong reasons (i.e. insurance purposes). Your hearts were never really in it.

Sidebar: I think there have been quite a few instances in the last few years of some fraternities expanding to smaller schools because Greek interest in general has been down. The problem is, some fraternities are quite homogenous in their chapters, and a group whose chapters are all, for example, in private church-affiliated schools in the Midwest who then colonizes a group at a commuter-heavy public college in Florida is going to have problems if they try to run that Florida chapter in the same way or expect the same things of them. It's not fair to the national fraternity or to the chapter.

1. I know of two local fraternities that have prospered within strong systems where every other chater was National: Adalente fraternity at Iowa State and KOT at Baylor.
2. If yours is a private school, they can require you to reamin the in IFC. If you are located at a public institution, then you can just be a student organization. Greek Life may try to bully you, but you are well within your rights.
3. National chapters going local is more common now than it used to be. Another recent phenomenon is chapters switching nationals! One example of that just happened on my campus where a TEP chapter petitioned IFC to switch to Alpha Delta Phi, and that change took place.
4. It would help us give you good advice if we knew your school and the national fraternity with which you are affiliated. I know something about the fraternities and they each have a different attitude.

I didn't know that a chapter could do that (other than a merger between the two groups).

TEP is kind of over a barrel right now (although I think they're making their way out of it) so that's kind of an uncommon case.

I'll have to do some research but I know that it happens. It's generally kept quiet. Things have changed in the last twenty years. National fraternities drop their memberships in the National (North American) Inter-fraternity Conference and then re-join (mine did; I know of three others that did as well). It's not common but once in awhile, fraternity chapters switch allegiances.
It's not the same thing, but several years ago the SAEs got kicked off at Duke. The alumni were pissed off and they took the undergrads and became a chapter of Alpha Delt. Now the SAEs are back on campus and the Alpha Delts exist off campus.