NIC Fraternity Colonization Question
 

I am specifying this to NIC men because I have already seen how this works among NPHC and NPC orgs (as well as APO).

If a group of men at a university are interested in chartering a chapter of your organization, how does your organization decide who will be initiated?

I ask because it seems almost unfair if a group of men all gets initiated just because they happened to be first. How are they taught how to be "exclusive?" (Not as in "elite" but deciding who is the right fit.)

Well I think a lot will depend on the fraternity you wish to charter. That being said, the ones on my campus, DTD and TKE, that have done so recently, have had a good bit of trouble being at all exclusive. I don't know if it is just the mindset of those guys, or if it is pressure from nationals, but they bid just about everyone. This may not answer your question about the colonization, but the next semester rush seems to be pretty open to anyone. They both have been targeting out of state guys, because they have had trouble getting any people from within the state. But thats just my experience, I'm sure it is different based on which fraternity, who the guys colonizing are, etc.

Thanks for responding so quickly..... and yes, posters can feel free to tell me about their own fraternity or other fraternities (without naming names of course) :). I'm sure there is variety.

If in My instance as a Local, We formed a Group of Men with the idea of affiliation with a National NIC Group.

We did this on our own with no College sanction.

We as a local were refered to by no less than GC Erik Conard who I had come to know and knew I did not want to go with any Local National Chapter. He did some behind the scenes with The College and LXA unbe knownst to me till many years later.

The local group then petitions the National they are interested in.

If and when a decision is made by Said National, then each and every Local Member can and will be Initiated into that National.

Our Chapter at FIT (Fl.) had a Local Founder who was not initiated at the transfer as it were, but many years later He was. I was there to see it and He was just as proud if He had been there in the Affiliation!:)

Every Member of said Group can become a Member! They should be of course!:cool:

Re: NIC Fraternity Colonization Question
 

IHQ oversees pledging. Those worthy of membership will be initiated.

Can't tell you that. ;)

Re: Re: NIC Fraternity Colonization Question
 

Thank you! Your first answer negates the need to know the second anyway. ;)

Re: Re: Re: NIC Fraternity Colonization Question
 

I figured as much. But I wanted to use the winking emoticon. :D

depends....
 

as a rule, the national takes all the petitioners, warts and all. The
Betas, I am recently told, had several hundred applicants at OK
State for their return...but they had their "old" house across the
street from the union, a super chapter at OU, good rep and had
been a good chapter before they were kicked off. Over 2,000 alums including rich farmers and oil men. But this does not happen often. Beta will succeed no matter what...at OSU
Rarely does a new groups have the adonis or the rich boy or the
scholar (unless he's a gnerd)
Starting a group is tough and you MUST have presence (size to all you bleeding hearts dummies) and you must be prepared for the post-charter fallout (buyer's remorse)
While the work is hard and the honors lifelong, even Abe Lincoln
could have been a Teke, and not everybody can be a Beta.
Kappa Sig has a neat saying "Not every man can wear the pin."
If you are so hell-bent on being selective, you will likely die. If you
are indeed selective and survive, you will be the largest on campus--and soon. But if all you do is bitch and moan and criticize all of us who strive...then you'll likely be like Frau Brüher
and share your views with us healots whether we like it or not.

Re: depends....
 

In terms of Beta, most colonizations commence with a Recruitment through Scholarship program that yields many applicants. A rule of thumb, is that about 1 in 5 applicants will be interested in the fraternity. The men are then explained the mission, vision and goals of the Men of Principle initiative. If they are worthy, then bids will be extended to the men. The GF will then provide many resources for the men to succeed.

In some instances the fraternity already has plans to begin/re-instate a chapter at a college.
I heard earlier this week from a friend that he approached an organization two years ago. The organization told him to find 20 men that would be interested and then they would approach the university.

I really appreciate the responses.... it's interesting to see how different organizations do it.

As far as my organization (APhiA) goes, although it is not NIC, the aspirant basically applies the same way that any other aspirant applies. In terms of the process to charter -- that I don't know. But I do know that not everyone who shows up necessarily gets initiated.

our chapter was started by an alumnus who transferred to our school. so it was already decided which national organization was to colonize. he basically recruited guys himself for the 10-15 man interest group. i think it took us about nearly 1.5 years until we became a chapter. those who did not meet requirements (grades, dues, pledge, etc.) throughout the colony process did not initiate with the group.

Re: Re: depends....
 

Just to add to this.

Beta's current expansion policy is NOT to colonize via pre-existing groups, pretty much for the exact reasons you are bringing up in quality. Further, our expansion is currently focusing on re-chartering chapters that existed reletively recently (a la Ok St., IU, and Iowa). Any expansion to a new campus has coincided with requests from the administration of that university. Surprisingly, that has been more successful than one would imagine.

From there, our Leadership Consultants lead the recruitment process of info sessions, interviews and bidding along with alumni in the area - in some cases nearby undergraduate chapters help. Obviously if it is a recolonization, then alumni of that chapter are usually interested in the efforts.

Beyond that, I will say that Beta "babies" our expansions. It will often take 2-3 years before they will have reached the criteria necessary for a charter. Recent trends have had some chapters that were very close, close enough that their petition would have been accepted, deciding to wait one more year to really sure everything up. I know that when I was at UIFI and talked to some to the facilitators there about how their org colonized, most were semester long colonizations, or even shorter.

If you don't mind, what campus are you on? How competitive and prominant the greek community is on your campus will be very important in judging how a colony will do.

Although we're not NIC anymore, I thought I would chime in with our process...

Generally, if a group is interested in becoming a colony (and later a chapter), they will get in touch with someone at the Fraternity's international offices. A regional officer will be sent to meet the interested men and decide whether there is potential for a chapter. The officer will then help with recruitment - I think that 25 is the magic number for getting things going.

There's a process to chartering, with a number of goals and achievements that must be met before gaining chapter status.

This is a link to more information:
http://www.kappasigma.org/startChapterHow.php?ref=start

James could probably provide more info, as he is a founding father of a Kappa Sig chapter.

Re: NIC Fraternity Colonization Question
 

pretty much everybody said it all in this thread. Last year, we had two new chapters that started out as a group of men who wanted to join a fraternity outside of what they see on their campus. those two chapters are : Monmouth University ( New Jersey) and St. Louis University ( MIssouri).