[FSUZeta]

stl kappa, i'm not from missouri, but i find this very interesting. and i agree with you-i am always saddened when any chapter of any sorority or fraternity closes. i do know that during the "hippie"(viet nam war) era, membership in most greek organizaitons suffered. guess everyone was "stickin' it to the man." that might account for the demise of some chapters on your campus, i.e.,membership drops as a whole as fewer girls participate in formal recruitment, the strong remain strong. even though quota figures may be down, the stronger chapters reach the lower quota figure. the mid-sized chapters begin to struggle or do year round cob and the struggling chapters have to close. now please understand that i do not know the reputations of any of the sororities on your campus, now or in the past ,so i am just speculating. i also realize that few of the closed chapters at mizzou left in the 70's, but lower recruitment numbers from that era might have caused problems that carried on into the 80's and 90's.

i went thru formal recruitment at florida state in the fall of 1975. at the time there were 17 sororities, all housed. after formal recruitment two chapters left campus, one the following year and one that tried to recolonize was not successful.all the chapters that left had lower membership numbers and that 1975 recruitment was a make or break for them. this was near the end of the above mentioned era. one bad recruitment can have a huge impact on a chapter, and in some cases they are not able to recover.if they do hang on, it can take them many years to recover. i do think that all of the npc sororities understand better how to help their chapters who may need a bit of help, so maybe fewer chapters will be closing.