Has there ever been a sorority system started from scratch?

[PeppyGPhiB]

Originally Posted by APhiAnna

I was talking with one of my friends about this recently and we were both pretty curious. Has there ever been a case (in modern times) where a university opened up its doors to sororities and multiple groups expanded at the same time? I'm 75% Pepperdine did this, was wondering if that was true and if this has happened on any other campuses. How did that work? Was it like rush or did they all do separate expansions? It would be really interesting to see a full scale recruitment WITHOUT any tent talk, preconceived notions, etc (although it's likely that groups of girls joined up to pursue one over the other).

In 1995 Pepperdine told its local sororities and fraternities that the system would be going national, apparently due to risk management reasons. So the campus was flooded with info. packets from, what I'm told, nearly every NPC.

From what I know, the local sororities were told to choose a few sororities (each) that they wanted to present. In the meantime, one or two interest groups popped up in addition to the local sororities that had been there for years. I'm not sure how the matching went, but when all was said and done, 7 NPCs were chosen:

- Alpha Phi
- Delta Delta Delta
- Delta Gamma
- Gamma Phi Beta
- Kappa Kappa Gamma
- Pi Beta Phi
- Sigma Kappa

I was later told by older girls that for our local, it had come down to Gamma Phi and Chi Omega.

Fast forward to fall 1996, the first NPC recruitment for the campus (which was in November that year), and my rush as a freshman. At this point all of the 7 NPCs had established their colonies, some with more members than others. Recruitment was formal, with all rushees set to join colonies at the conclusion - they would be initiated with the original colony/local members.

It was also the only year that had FRILLS. I remember a lot of fabric and painted paper up on the walls, a ton of balloons, and hideously cheesy skits that you could tell the girls were being forced to do by their national consultants. I also remember that alumnae consultants and advisors were allowed in the room and could talk to rushees - I asked a couple of them questions, including one that was in the org. I joined. A couple of the groups had also brought in girls from nearby chapters to help out. I had a fun recruitment, and I can't remember many girls dropping - everyone seemed to have their favorites, but I remember most girls liking several of the chapters. There wasn't really any gossip beforehand, because frankly I think the older students were still confused about which local had affiliated with which national and therefore couldn't really spread rumors and stereotypes. Plus, some of the chapters were brand new. I only remember hearing things about two of the groups beforehand, and that was because they wore their letters all over campus. Anyway, if I recall correctly, everyone's pledge class was around the same size at the conclusion of bid day.

Our new member program was really interesting. We learned about Gamma Phi Beta from the national team, but the girls who had been in the local taught us about their symbols, motto, songs, etc. too, and Gamma Phi was supportive of that. In fact, the candle pass song my chapter sings to this very day is a song that was written by the fiance of a local member for her sisters to sing to her at her candle pass long ago. Our "chapter colors" became blue, green and silver (the colors of the local), and our chapter motto took on the local's motto.

A month or two later, the last local finally completed the process to become Pepp's 8th NPC colony - Kappa Alpha Theta. The local had been informally seeding/rushing girls all semester, so some girls opted to hold out for Theta rather than go through formal recruitment.

Come January, all of the colonies held their installation and initiation ceremonies within a couple weeks of each other. Very nice installation ceremonies, btw! Ours was at the Bel-Air Bay Club and we had many members of International Council and nearby chapters present. Initiations were performed for the mostpart at our "sister chapter" houses at USC and UCLA.

All of the chapters had live-in consultants for the next year or two, and I know at least in my chapter's case, we had many visits from province/regional officers and advisors.

The next year, we moved to no-frills rush, and I think everyone was relieved. When rush is done in classrooms, decorating is a pain in the butt...there's just no time. And since our rush was after school had started in the fall, the last thing we needed/wanted to focus on was skits and painting construction paper. We kept the songs and some balloons, and went all-out on decorating for pref, but the other stuff went away.

The year after that (my junior year), rush was moved to late September, which helped minimize some of the gossip and stereotypes that had already formed for each of the groups. One of the chapters was significantly smaller than the others, and it was forced to leave campus a couple years later.

Now fast forward 12 years after I rushed, those 7 groups are still there - coincidentally, the 7 founders of NPC! The campus is still no-frills, chapter sizes and reputations have shifted, but all of the chapters appear to have found their niche. Gone, however, are all illusions to the local sororities who were there before.