Help, expansion is scary.
 

Basically, I'm the current president of a local sorority on a campus that does not have any sort of national councils, and plans to open up for expansion in 5 years

Some background on how my campus works. There's three sororities, only one NPC sorority, and the other two are local. It has been this way since the late 90's. So we have a joint council, with both the fraternities and the sororities getting a voice in its decisions. This means that we have been functioning as a community, and a sorority, in a way that is not in line with a lot of NPC regulations (especially with recruitment).

What's scary about this is that none of us really know what to expect from an expansion. How will my sorority be treated as part of a national council when we have no plans to go national? How does a local chapter function inside of that sort of system? Do we have to do frills formal recruitment?

In summary, I only have a vague clue as to how any of the national councils function. Yes, handbooks are great, however I'd like to hear from people in those systems about how they work. Change is scary, but instead of ignoring it I want to learn and plan on how my sorority will handle it. Has anyone out there been in this situation and come out on the other side?

No, you do NOT have to do a frilly formal recruitment. NPC has become much more cognizant in recent years that one size does not fit all. There's a post on here about the different styles of recruitment (can someone linky please? I'm typing 1 handed right now) that should allay your fears a little bit. The thing you would most likely be compelled to change is if the fraternities have any part in recruitment - no boys allowed! Oh, and no booze allowed, either. But those are things that even rock-ribbed old school me doesn't think belong there anyway.

Also, if this is 5 years down the road, it might not ever come to pass anyway. A campus sometimes opens for expansion but none of the NPCs want to go there. As long as there is only one NPC there, a national council won't exist there.

And in 5 years, your group may want to go national. You never know.