Starting a sorority through the city
 

Hi everyone,
Here is the situation. Right now my college has a ban on having any Greek life sponsored through the school. As a result most of what we have are secret societies, which are closer to being considered party societies rather then sorority like structures who are involved in the community.

Through the city DKE has been able to establish a fraternity without the need for the school to be involved. A couple of friends and I are working towards contacting National Sororities in the hopes of being able to do the same, however; from all the research I have done, it is seeming to be more of a challenge to find anyone who would be willing to support us, since there are liability issues involved.

If anyone knows of any sororities who have been able to establish a national charter through the city or have any ideas of how I am to approach this please help! We really would like to get the ball rolling as soon as we can!

You may want to be more specific about what you have in mind when you say "national sorority." NPC? NHPC? Multicultural? Other? Any national sorority, regardless of conference affiliation?

It makes a difference to a question like this.

We were hoping to find a NPC sorority to sponsor us. If that is against their agreements however, we are open to considering others.

No NPC will consider establishing a chapter on a campus that bans Greek Life.

We did at one point on campus have Greek life and from what I am told when they were offered a large donation in exchange for getting rid of Greek life they took it. I am not sure if knowing that we once have established Greek life on campus successfully, and how they were banned will help us maybe convince them otherwise. Your point is one of our concerns.

That's an oft-repeated urban legend applied to many schools.

There are instances where NPC groups will keep an ACTIVE chapter open when it's been determined that the school's reasons for de-recognizing Greek life are uber lame and the chapter/system itself has little or no risk management issues. See: University of Santa Clara and Princeton U. However, coming in and starting a new chapter is another matter entirely.

Your best bet is to keep the secret societies going, but transform them from "party societies" to groups which truly serve the campus and the community like Greek organizations would. If you act honorably, the school will look stupid for saying Greeks are awful and may just cave to recognizing national groups on campus. It's not going to happen overnight though.

Oh, and if you are at a very religious/church-sponsored school, none of this applies. You could all keep your noses clean 100% of the time and the school won't cave. This is something everyone knew when they enrolled at this sort of institution.

There are also schools who aren't particularly religious but don't want national groups on campus because it would mean they'd have to cede a degree of control (Grove City College I'm looking at you). The last 2 sentences of the above paragraph apply again.

Tonight one of the girls in our group went and talked to someone who has been involved in trying to ban the secret societies on campus and informed her that the campus only ever had literary societies (ex. one called theta epsilon) Which were supported through the school but fell out of favor. She also informed her that the campus has never had a national sorority on campus after all (like everyone on campus believes there was). The reason the college doesn't want Greek Life on campus is because they believe it will break up the community that has been formed.. I'm not sure that would qualify as a ridiculous reason or not seeing as Greek Life is there to help build community and strong relationships for students. And if it is considered by an NPC Sorority as a ridiculous reason to not allow them to exist that's great.

Again if an NPC group is out of the question we would also love to know other routes and options we could pursue.

If you've never had NPC sororities, it certainly doesn't hurt to try. Contact NPC for information about expansion and colonization. Go to the NPC web site.

You can also contact the non-NPC national sororities on this list and inquire about expansion with them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...and_sororities.

There are also non-collegiate sororities that you could invite to colonize. These are not specific to college students and could appeal to the city at large to include members from different schools or non-students: http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ad.php?t=54756

You can google this stuff. Just do some research and start contacting organizations. Please be warned that in many cases colonizations are a long process that won't be completed until well after you graduate. Getting a sorority started and off the ground is a considerable time commitment.

Respectfully, why start with contacting organizations if the school will not consider allowing Greek Life on campus? I think getting administration approval is where they should start...

Great point. I would add, however, that having a defined interest group would be helpful to demonstrate this is a need and interest on campus. It shows they have done their research and are ready to go. Hence contacting the groups to see what the requirements are. All nationals have expansion materials they can send to give this young lady and her friends an idea of what they need to do. The national group hasn't done anything but perhaps spent a couple of bucks on postage to send marketing materials their way.

If the school is anti-Greek and intends to remain so, your best option is to transfer to a school with Greek Life. I'M KIDDING. No, really, then, your best option is a non-collegiate group. But again, it is a lot of work.

Edited because I was going to suggest starting a local, but if the school won't recognize Greek Life, I don't want to advise students to create organizations that violate university policy and potentially jeopardize their degrees. Some things may not be "fair," but you chose to go to school here and abide by the school's rules.

Our school recently within the past two years lifted a rule that says we would be expelled for being part of a secret society or off campus Greek life, hence forming a local wouldn't be out of the picture. We were just really hoping to have a national one like the guys on our campus have DKE. We really admire the NPC ones because of how well established and run they are.

And we understand that this will take time to establish but somebodies got to start it so that it can exist eventually!

If the school has lifted its ban on secret societies, it may be coming around. The issue is, however, that the DKE chapter is not a fair comparison unless it is recognized by the university.

NIC fraternities can colonize and charter without university recognition; whereas such recognition is a prerequisite for NPC with very limited exceptions. The conferences are separate; they have different rules for colonizing. I don't see the harm in acquiring recruitment materials from NPC, as well as non-NPC national sororities.

Anyway, here is information on NPC expansion: https://www.npcwomen.org/college-pan...sion-info.aspx