|
I went through a similar situation back in the stone age. My chapter was only 4 years old when I joined. It was seen as "the non-sorority sorority", "the diverse sorority", "the girls who don't care about their image sorority", etc. compared to the standard labels, which is what you heard as freshmen. My pledge class was the first to be over quota and the older girls didn't quite know what to do with us because we pushed back. They only wanted to mix with 2 fraternities - which had the chapter hotly divided, and they wanted to keep the "non-sorority sorority" label. My pledge class did not and later we found out that some upper classmen felt the same. There were a lot of growing pains, some of the seniors and juniors rejected us because we went against what they wanted, but as they graduated, things became more cohesive and easier. The closed mindset changed - we extended invitations during recruitment to girls that previously would have been cut because there was an assumption that they would want to go with a different chapter, we mixed with every fraternity, we had philanthropy events with fraternities and sororities, we made ourselves more open. By the time I was a senior, the chapter was flourishing, the "label" had changed to the "fun easy going girls".
It sounds like what you are going through are growing pains. We were lucky because during our growing pains we had an incredible ELC who got us additional support from our National Organization. You don't need a marketing campaign, as a group, you need to change the way you are thinking about your chapter. Open yourselves up and things will change.
|
Hybrid Mode
