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Hayden 83:
You listed 19 interest groups in your February 21st posting on this thread. HQ may well "expect" 14 of them to petition for colony status "by the end of the year" [does "year" mean the end of the academic year, i.e, say the end of April, or the end of the calendar year, i.e. by December 31, 2008].
However,
1. I seriously doubt that 14 WILL actually end up petitioning. Although I'd love to be wrong, I'd bet the number will be closer to seven or eight. At least one out of every two interest groups folds for some reason or other. For instance, I was advised a couple of days ago that interest groups which we had as recently as less than a month ago Drexel, Seton Hall, and Towson have all since collapsed.
2. Just because an interest group petitions, does not mean that HQ (whoever that includes) accepts the petition. HQ may feel, correctly or incorrectly, that the group is not yet strong enough to succeed as a colony ... although that has not stopped HQ from granting colony status to at least 10 colonies in the past two years or so that any outside observer would say had NO CHANCE WHATSOEVER of succeeding, and all of which did subsequently fold.
The Fraternity website had a big announcement a few months ago, complete with a picture of the campus, that an interest group at Florida Atlantic University was preparing its petition for colony status. That was the last mention of that group; not a word about it since on the Website, in The Caduceus, or anywhere else that I have seen. Do you know if that group did submit a petition, which was not accepted? Or did it not get that far, and folded?
I would be very pleased indeed if 14 of the aforesaid 19 interest groups you have identified DO petition, and even more pleased if all of those petitions are accepted. But I'll never know, because the Fraternity is absolutely terrible about reporting to its membership about expansionary matters (or much else, for that matter). Colonies suddenly appear on the list of active chapters and colonies (like Dickinson did in the list few days) without any prior mention of our having an interest group there. Likewise, colonies and chapters simply
disappear from the same list, without any announcements or explanations ... most recently, in terms of colonies, Academy of Art University, University of Texas/Brownsville, and Troy University, the first two of which are among the aforementioned 10 or more colonies that had no chance whatsoever of succeeding and should not have been colonized in the first place. But unless one is paying close attention to the list, one would not even notice such disappearances ... which I suspect is the way HQ wants it ... trumpet the big rush numbers, don’t mention the failures.
Furthermore, we presently also have the opposite and completely ridiculous situation of a colony that is to be receiving its charter on March 8th that is NOT EVEN INCLUDED IN THE LIST OF CHAPTERS AND COLONIES. Until two days ago, the only reason one would even know the colony exists is because a notice of its chartering has been posted on the home page of the Website!! And that announcement does not name the colony or the school at which is located, just that it is in Charlotte, NC. Really now, how goofy is that!! Does HQ seriously think that the administration of the school at which the colony is located (the Charlotte campus of Johnson & Wales University) does not know the colony exists, and will not know if it is not mentioned on the Website??? In the last two days, the situation has been made even more ridiculous in that the colony is included in the list of top 25 rushing groups for 2007-2008, but again does not name the school in the list ... just an empty space where the Johnson & Wales, Charlotte should be! Will the school be added to the chapters and colonies list AFTER it has been chartered, or will it continue to exist in anonymity??? The whole thing is a complete farce.
In any case, my point is that neither I nor anyone else "outside of HQ" will ever know how many of those 19 interest groups eventually petitioned for colony status, because the Fraternity does not announce when such a petition has been received or from what interest group. We can only see which interest groups eventually become colonies when they are added to the chapters and colonies list. The others just disappear without a mention.
If it were not for people like you who clearly do have some knowledge of the Fraternity's affairs, posting on sites like this, those of us who are interested in such matters as expansion would know nothing other than the bare minimum that is posted on the Website. So please do keep posting!
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