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Just to be clear, I'm not talking about southern versus not southern. I shouldn't have used SEC as an example. I think that was misleading of what I'm trying to express as the type of chapter/environment we/I see as our model.
I DO think what I'm saying is accurate.
I understand what you're saying - if I say west coast greek systems suck then I'm implying your chapters (and mine) in those states suck.
I get that if you read what I wrote out of context that you can interpret it that way. The key contextual difference is that it's posted in an ATO area.
It doesn't matter if it's available to everyone. What matters is it's an opinion about what works best for ATO only.
I know this is preaching to the choir, but... All our orgs exist for some higher purpose in our rituals. Undergrads are just in training to become tools for that change the world mission as alumni - just like pledgeship is training to be an active. Rush is to evaluate what a potential member offers & selectively pick what's best for OUR objectives. Picking where to expand is really the same as rush on a national fraternity level; developing and sustaining a chapter is like pledgeship.
If some hypothetical fraternity had a ritual about supporting illegal immigrants, I'm sure the southwest border would be superb territory for them.
My fraternity has a VERY Christianity based objective. It doesn't require members to be Christians, but they aren't going to mesh well with our purpose unless they strongly subscribe to a Jedeo-christian belief system.
We don't exactly look at stats on church attendance of demographics most likely to go greek. That's a huge oversimplification. But, you can imagine a region with less would statistically tend to feed chapters that drift from our ritual & thereby require a lot of extra resources for less pay off toward our mission.
From our perspective, I think you can see where places like Tennessee or Texas might provide a better foundation than a lot of California.
If you look at our map, you'll also see some chapters that seem to completely defy what I just said - places like Berkley.
We're supposed to be spreading this belief system out there to the world. There's a couple philosophies on how to do that. We can go where we can be strong to maximize our resources and produce the most alumni strongly dedicated to our purpose, &/or we can cast a line into the abyss with a few chapters. It's like pastors here versus missionaries overseas. Both concepts co-exists. You just have to make a judgment on the best mix between the two.
That's one aspect. I could talk about a few others that are important. None of them support very much on the West Coast versus dozens of other alternatives.
So, for us, west coast greek systems suck. I don't think they have enough to offer us. I'm saying that with fairly good knowledge about the region and my organization. Maybe you have excellent chapters out there, and good for you if you do. I don't care. It doesn't have anything to do with us - just like everything I've said doesn't have anything to do with your org. Which is why it's in an ATO section and not a general section.
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