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Originally Posted by Ilaria Ame
I need some advice if there is anyone willing and knowledgable. Some ladies on my campus would like to bring a new NPC sorority to Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Louisiana. They are particularly interested in Chi Omega, but understand that they don't pick like that. They have met with the council on our campus and were voted down. There are three current NPC sororities on our campus now, and it's a smaller school but not tiny. Probably around 15,000 students. Not a huge greek life, but I personally feel there is room for another group. I was wondering if it's really up to our campus' council or if ya'lls national/regional council make those decisions. Also, if they do, what kind of action do the ladies need to take to initiate something like that? I know that they'd hate to "go above" the campus council's head, but they are very passionate about having something different. Please forgive me if any of my details are wrong; I'm going on what one person with the group told me.
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Something very simliar happened at our school about 15 years ago. We had (at the time) 5 sororities and we really needed to add a 6th. One of the main reasons were that as recruitment efforts were gaining each year, and we were faced with only 20 to 30 students, who could not be accepted into another sorority during each recruitment, because all of the sororities were at-capacity, so there was no room for snap-bidding, etc.
The campus Panhellenic, like yours, did not want to expand, and this went on for about three or four years before we had to have a meeting with them and gave them the gravity of the situation. If it's time to add, then it's time to add.
We gave them the option of either increasing their current numbers (which they didn't want to do either) or adding another sorority, but we had to make it clear that one choice or the other needed to be made.
I'll admit...they hit the breaks on it, but we reminded them that the administration of the school and the sorority's had always had a great relationship, and we "didn't want to see that changed." We got up, and walked out of the room.
They voted to add another sorority, and Phi Mu came to our campus the next year and quickly rose to one of the top sororities we have on campus.
I know that not everyone cannot be given a bid, and there is always a few girls each year that are not accepted. Our situation was that we had extremely qualified ladies who could not find a sorority home due to space, and we wanted to create that space for them.