Special Circumstances?
 

I have a friend who is basically like one of the sisters in my sorority. She hangs out with us all of the time and she also comes to almost all of the events that we sponsor. The only problem is she does not go to our school. A couple of days ago she expressed interested in becoming a member. She is 22 years old and would have a lot to contribute. My question is do organizations have any special circumstances that allow someone who is not attending school to become a member and have all the priviledges?

Thanks

Have a nice day :)

Yes, LXA has Honory Memberships! But it is a person that has done outstanding work as an individual or a Faucalty Member who is willing to be an advisor!

We have 5 Honory Initiates who then become full fledged members with voting status! They do not go through the Ritual but sit as observers. Much as a Candidate would.

These are men who have contributed to the Local Chapter and are very deserving to be called a Brother!

If someone who desires and works for us, they should become a True Member!:)

Check your sorority's procedure for alumna initation..

AOX81,

A lot of the national sororities have alumna initiation or special recognition/mother patroness programs. If your sisters think she would be a great "official" sister, you can start one. Just be sure that you lay out exactly what the guidelines are and what % of the chapter would have to approve it. You might want to ask your alumnae board their opinion too.

AGDLynn - AOX81's sorority is local not national.

It sounds like you're looking to have an active sister, though, not an alum, am I correct? You want to give her a vote in meetings, etc.?

I would proceed carefully with that. Presumably your chapter has membership requirements such as "must be a student at X college or one nearby" and "must have a Y GPA." If you remove those standards even for one wonderful girl, other members might say - well, why not remove them for all kinds of people? If university enrollment is not required, it might affect your status with the school - they might be reluctant to consider you a student organization.

I'm not saying don't do it, I'm just saying proceed carefully. You'd probably be best initiating her as an alumnae. She can attend meetings and socials then, but she just won't have a vote in chapter affairs.

The best thing (IMHO) is read your sorority's constitution and see if there is anything in there preventing your friend from another university from being initiated.

If there isn't, then maybe bring up the possibility of her being initiated at your next meeting and see what the others say?

If there *is* something standing in the way (i.e. something in the Constitution states this), check and see if your Constitution has any sort of "special exceptions" where the President and Vice President can vote to take on a new member with special circumstances.

Since your sorority is not an NPC group, I'd start with the constitution; read it and see if there is anything in there barring your friend from becoming an AOX?

Good luck!

Lynn, you read my mind!

I guess I should have explained my sorority and situation a little more. My sorority is local, we have been around since 1989, and because we have never encountered a situtation as this we have no procedure or guideline. But because we are local we can change our constitution.

Most of my sisters already think of her as a sister and we would like to make it official. She is so close to us but because she is not a member we have to leave exclude her from a lot of events. And we are always saying, "I wish Jen were here."

We don't have an alumnae board but she is friends with a lot of the alumnae so I don't think that any of them would have a problem with it. I'm thinking that we should initiate her as an alumnae.

I just wanted to know if and how other organizations might handle as situation like this. Thanks for all of your feed back...if you have anymore advice please send it my way.

Have a nice day :)

I don't know "legalities", but if you are a local, wouldn't it be easy to make an amendment to your Constitution? After all, the U.S. Constitution has a few!;)

1989 isn't that old so it would be a great time to adopt something that may strenghten your bonds "with the outside" world.

If you are thinking about going national someday, the alumnae initiation eligibility might be one of the factors that may influence your decision on one group or another.

Best of luck!!

yeah, I did mean to say initiate her as an alumna. That way the college cannot give you any crap about it...you can simply point to the alum initiate programs of the national sororities.

That way she could come to rituals and mixers, and she can come to meetings but not vote. (Alums don't vote on collegiate chapter business anyway.)