Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!
 

Hi!
I go to a small, co-ed university of about 4000. Right now we have no greek life on campus, besides what we call an "underground frat". They are a fraternity, but they are not recognized by the school, although all their members attend our school. Our school is 65% female, and there is a demand for a sorority at our school. I'm taking summer classes at a school with an active greek life and understand the benefits that we could see with a sorority. We've discussed this with our school's administration, but they seem to believe that one of the appeals of going to our school is the lack of greek life.
I'm interested in starting a sorority at my school. I know very little about the various kinds, but I do know a lot of being in charge of an organization. Do any of the NPC sororities colonize at schools where there is little to no administrative support? What are my other options? I know that if we could create a sorority and build on the success that the fraternity has shown with the school, we could eventually convince our school to fund/recognize greek life. I could use any/all advice, especially if you know of another school that has been in this situation!

Thanks :)

before a national panhellenic conference sorority would consider colonizing,the school would have to be supportive of the colonization.

The adminstration would have to be receptive to it, otherwise, it's a no-go. Try to get someone on administration on your side.

You might see if you can find any sorority members IN the administration. They might be better able to help you pitch the benefits of having a Greek system with university approval and oversight. Right now, they have NO control over the fraternity - and I'm not sure the "benefits" of having no Greek life; what you have to do is basically launch a p.r. campaign to convince the administration that it will benefit the university to offer their student body choices - to be Greek or not.
Check out the NPC website for ammunition about the benefits of sororities.
Good Luck!

Don't a couple of the Ivys have greek systems that aren't recognized by the university? I think most groups want university support but I don't think it's unheard of for a chapter to be colonized without a blessing.

An NPC chapter isn't going to be colonized without a blessing. You'll HAVE to get support to get an NPC organization to consider colonizing at your school. You could possibly begin a local without support, but I wouldn't, personally. I would try to convince the administration that Greek life can be a positive addition to the school. If you go to a school where it is viewed as a positive to not have Greeks, you could point out that a school can have Greek life without it being in the forefront. It doesn't have to take over. You'll have a hard time expanding and having other chapters come to the school later if you're underground. It might also make it hard to recruit new members...knowing that they will be on the administration's bad side from the start. I think the suggestion to find a greek in the administration is a good one. Have someone who understands basic PR help you make a full presentation to the administration. Use good persuasive paper technicques...don't just talk about the positive-refute the negative. Talk to alums and actives at other schools in the area and have them share their experiences. Maybe even bring them in to help you with your presentation. It'll take hard work, but I think it will be worth it.

If you choose to start your own instead of going the NPC route there's a forum of locals on this site. I'd go there and see if you can find founders and ask their advice about beginning a new organization.

That's not always true at least it isn't at the University of Toronto. GLOs in general are not recognized by UofT even though there are at least 10GLOs. There is also 5 or 6 soroities there are under NPC and were colonized at UofT for a long time now. Though none of the GLOs are recognized, all GLOs on campus are active.

BlondeSurferChk, you can download some materials that will help in understanding the NPC extension process. http://www.npcwomen.org/college/c_extension.php I am sure that Deanna will answer any questions that you might have.

As others have mentioned, try to find someone either on staff or faculty who is willing to assist you. An ideal situation is to have university support but it isn’t unheard of for NPC to colonize without it. In those situations, NPC constitutes the “Proper Authority.” Things just may take longer since the university might not allow you to advertise on campus or to utilize their services.

I believe Princeton and Harvard don't recognize the greek systems on their campuses. However, other Ivies and their peer institutions -- Cornell, Penn, Columbia, Stanford, Duke, and so on -- do recognize greeks. I'd say it's highly unusual for GLOs (especially NPC organizations) to establish colonies / chapters without college / university recognition. The situations at Princeton and Havard are probably not applicable to the vast majority of colleges in the U.S.