Quote:
Originally posted by PhiSigCoco
I too have been lurking...
The thing is that Central Office has a way to deal with these things, as I am sure all your organizations do. There is a process. In the articles, Central Office states that the chapter was not on a Discipanary Action Plan (our way of dealing with low numbers).
Even when a chapter is on a DAP... like we were last year b/c we had one member in Fall... they give you as much time to rectify the situation as you need. Of course, you need to make some progress every term. But progress can be one member.
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Sorry, I just read through all these posts, and I had to comment.
Yes, our chapter was known to be a great option for wonderful women that is completely different from our stereotypical Penn sororities. At a recent freshman leadership dinner, our seniors made up a full quarter of the women leaders meeting with the freshmen. We are seen all around campus doing great things for the community, for Penn, and for Phi Sig.
Unfortunately, the chapters who were most concerned with their own reputation chose to knock down our reputation instead. When I joined in the spring of 2000 (we have spring formal rush), I remember another sorority in particular telling me during rush that I should not join Phi Sig. Luckily, I already knew how wonderful the girls were and became disgusted by the chapters that were knocking it down, so I suicided and put only Phi Sig on my bid acceptance sheet.
A few years later, and the badmouthing and lack of National support had left us in a lose-lose situation. We as a group were stronger than ever. But no, national had no intention of accepting any sort of progress. Their expectations were clear monitarily and numberswise, and yes, we did talk to them trying to come up with creative solutions, but they were not receptive to helping us out. Frankly, we had full plans in effect to make formal recruitment the best ever and save our reputation. The reaction at Penn has been one of loss for most of the campus (with the only exception perhaps being the sorority that was trying to put us there... they're next in line for bad reputation, unfortunately). But national coming in ended all our hopes of saving our chapter... we STILL love our group of women and what we have become. The girls living in the house still happily live there together, although all of our Phi Sig composites and insignia will be carted away while we are home for Thanksgiving. Another sorority will be living in our house next year, and there is a consensus on campus that Phi Sig will not be able to successfully reaffiliate (perhaps if National had worked WITH us, we would not have ALL had our hearts broken as we realized we were in a lose-lose situation). Sorry this is so long, but there have been a lot of comments hypothesizing about our character, our values, and our choices. We are still a sisterhood, and the values we held, we still hold. It's unfortunate we were unable to continue to hold them as Phi Sigma Sigma.
Thanks.
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