Introduction and looking for Help!

[KristinaA]

Hi Everyone!

My name is Kristina and I am an alumni out of college for about 4 years.

I am currently very involved with my undergraduate sorority as a member of their Alumin Advisory Board, and we are coming to some difficult times.

My sorority is a local sorority on a small campus. There are only 5 sororities with 10 greek houses total. Three of the 5 houses are local. We recently in the last 5 years had a second national house join, which forced us to become part of National Panhellenic.

My sorority is very close to dying off, as we only have 9 active members and this past semester's Formal Recruitment did not go well at all.

I wanted to see if I could get some help with ideas of what to do at this point. I have ideas to discuss with my girls and my fellow Alumin that some options may include us going National itself, but I am not sure how feasiable and realistically possible it is to do this so late in the game. They are not financially stable and do not have the support being all 9 active members are upper classmen.

Can anyone give any assistance on what you think we should do? This local house is the 2nd oldest house on our campus, being around since 1981, and there is lots of history here. Its a shame the school itself isnt trying harder to help us survive, but we dont have very many options left.

Thanks!

[FSUZeta]

"Its a shame the school itself isnt trying harder to help us survive, but we dont have very many options left."
it is not the schools responsibility for your(or anyone's) sorority to survive. it is up to you and your fellow alumnae, and your collegiate members.

"We recently in the last 5 years had a second national house join, which forced us to become part of National Panhellenic."
I would guess that you became a part of your college's panhellenic council;if you are a local you are not a member of the National Panhellenic Conference(NPC).

There is an entire forum dedicated to local sororities and fraternities and if you look thru that forum you may find something that would pertain to your problem. In addition, you might find helpful information by looking in the recruitment forum threads.

i would imagine that you wouldn't be able to "go national" unless your campus was open for expansion, and the sorority that was invited to colonize agreed to accept your sorority as a group for membership.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by KristinaA

My sorority is a local sorority on a small campus. There are only 5 sororities with 10 greek houses total. Three of the 5 houses are local. We recently in the last 5 years had a second national house join, which forced us to become part of campus Panhellenic.

Fixed your post slightly.

When there are two national (NPC) groups on a campus, it IS a rule that a campus chapter of NPC/Panhellenic must be formed encompassing those two groups. It does NOT, however, compel any non-NPC group to join. Is your school administration forcing you to do this?

Consult the other two local sororities (and the local fraternities) about forming a separate local Greek council if you feel that some of Panhellenic's policies on rush and such have a negative effect on the local groups. How many members do the other two local sororities have?