After Initiation Chapter Shut Down... Now What?

[melindawarren]

May I ask a really odd question? I'm sure someone here has had this experience (the one I'm about to describe, not the OP's!): what happens to the girls who still attend the school when the chapter closes? What do they usually do? This scenario came up in my novel, and I'm having a difficult time figuring out what to do with the characters who haven't graduated.

[ree-Xi]

Originally Posted by melindawarren

May I ask a really odd question? I'm sure someone here has had this experience (the one I'm about to describe, not the OP's!): what happens to the girls who still attend the school when the chapter closes? What do they usually do? This scenario came up in my novel, and I'm having a difficult time figuring out what to do with the characters who haven't graduated.

There are two paths I have observed from when I was in school.

1. They take things underground. One of the sororities at my first school was shut down a few years prior, and has/had been operating underground and actually getting women to drop out of Formal Recruitment and just rush them, because now they don't have to abide by National rules and only pay $$ for dues.

OR

2. They cease all sorority-related activities, including holding meetings, sponsoring events, and on some campuses, stop wearing their letters. There's a Myth (I say myth bc I don't know if it's true or not) prohibiting two or more people of the disbanded organization from wearing letters at the same time because then they become "Gang-type" behaviors, but I have never seen absolute evidence of this.

When I first got on campus freshman year, I had seen one girl wearing letters to a sorority I didn't know existed on campus. Turned out the chapter folded a few years prior and she was the last one to graduate. So it was really odd seeing her wearing those letters.

Just my personal experiences.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by ree-Xi

2. They cease all sorority-related activities, including holding meetings, sponsoring events, and on some campuses, stop wearing their letters. There's a Myth (I say myth bc I don't know if it's true or not) prohibiting two or more people of the disbanded organization from wearing letters at the same time because then they become "Gang-type" behaviors, but I have never seen absolute evidence of this.

When I first got on campus freshman year, I had seen one girl wearing letters to a sorority I didn't know existed on campus. Turned out the chapter folded a few years prior and she was the last one to graduate. So it was really odd seeing her wearing those letters.

Just my personal experiences.

MYTH. Women who are members of a closed chapter, unless they have been officially and specifically terminated by the national organization, become alumnae. Alumnae can wear their letters any damn time they want.

If the school tells you not to wear letters, tell them to F.O. It's nothing they can police, any more than they can tell you not to wear your Ron Paul or Mussolini or this is what your baby looks like at 18 weeks t-shirt.

If the national org tells you not to wear letters, say, "Well then, you'll have to terminate me, which you probably don't have the balls to do because you think I'll forget about this in 5 years and send you a donation."

And I've heard of underground groups that stayed around for 10+ years. At that point you have to stop saying that they're just trying to piss off nationals, or just want to drink/haze, or anything else negative. There's a real sisterhood there, and obviously it has something that is lacking - as far as the women who join are concerned - in the other groups on campus. Especially with this generation that seems to value order and approval a hell of a lot more than the one or two generations previous.

[33girl]

As far as chapters who aren't straight up with their pledges - i.e. don't tell them they're on probation and may be closed any minute - they deserve to just have everyone dump them and never speak to them again, and the national organization should be compelled to release them and let them initiate elsewhere. A national org that doesn't do that (or that allows a chapter to initiate its class when they've already made the decision to close the chapter) is full of shitheads. Sorry to be blunt, but it's the truth.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by 33girl

As far as chapters who aren't straight up with their pledges - i.e. don't tell them they're on probation and may be closed any minute - they deserve to just have everyone dump them and never speak to them again, and the national organization should be compelled to release them and let them initiate elsewhere. A national org that doesn't do that (or that allows a chapter to initiate its class when they've already made the decision to close the chapter) is full of shitheads. Sorry to be blunt, but it's the truth.

I agree with this. Everyone says stuff like "once you initiate into an NPC, you can never initiate elsewhere". I'd like to think that, at some point, there have been exceptions made, for exactly this reason.

[littleowl33]

Originally Posted by melindawarren

May I ask a really odd question? I'm sure someone here has had this experience (the one I'm about to describe, not the OP's!): what happens to the girls who still attend the school when the chapter closes? What do they usually do? This scenario came up in my novel, and I'm having a difficult time figuring out what to do with the characters who haven't graduated.

This happened a few years ago at my undergrad university - a very large and popular NPC chapter was shut down just days before the initiation of their new member class (which was lucky for their new members, as we see from the OP's troubles). From what I saw, the sisters and pledges went three different directions:

Some of them were just through with the whole business - either they were never very invested in the chapter or they were extremely invested and fought to try to save their charter, and when they finally lost it they wanted nothing more to do with the group at the undergraduate level. They kept the friends they had made but pretty much cut ties with the national org (although they may have gotten involved as alums later).

Two of the new members who were never initiated (out of 40+) eventually joined other NPC sororities. There was talk of a whole bunch of them joining another sorority en masse and making it the "new XYZ" but that never happened - they never rushed and even if they had, I doubt think the other groups would have bid them with that intent. In the end the women who ended up joining other groups did it because they really and truly wanted the NPC experience and leadership roles - one joined my sorority and held top leadership postions in the chapter and on Panhel, and one became the president of a colonizing NPC sorority.

And finally, some members formed an underground group which continues to this day under a different name, much to the consternation of the Greek Life office. A lot of them continued wearing letters for a while but I'm pretty sure the national office got after them because I don't think they were given alumnae status (some got it, but many didn't). Now they have a non-Greek name and they do have "lettered" items to wear around campus. I don't know how large they are at this point, but they still conduct recruitment, collect dues and throw off-campus mixers and formals. I believe they only bring in about 10-15 members per year so they're not competing a great deal with the NPC groups, but since I think they hold their recruitment before the university's deferred recruitment I'm sure a large percentage of their new members decided to forgo formal recruitment specifically to rush this group. I highly doubt this group will ever affiliate with the Greek Life office, which would love to shut them down, or any other national group, since the group seems to be mostly composed of the women who were happy the national charter was pulled because it meant they got to do as they pleased. Shrug. A lot of people thought the group would die off once most of the actual initiated members of the old sorority graduated, but they seem to still be going strong. It will be interesting to see if they're really in it for the long haul.

On a somewhat unrelated note, when I was new member chair we did have a new member who got almost all the way to initiation (or was she initiated? I can't remember.) and decided to drop out. She had payed her full first semester dues and I was in the difficult position of not only asking for her lettered items back, but telling her she couldn't get a refund on all that dues money. She was pissed, as I probably would have been - she didn't even go to any of the events all semester so she didn't get any real benefit out of it. But that was her choice, and at that point the money had been spent, and so it couldn't be refunded. I guess you chalk it up to an expensive mistake.