Delta Zeta Reportedly Sues DePauw

[KillarneyRose]

Originally Posted by texas*princess

I might be speaking out of "school" so to speak, but considering I was just in grade school in the late 1980's, wouldn't it be strange to compare something that happened almost 2 decades ago to something going on very recently?

Way to make me run out and get a Botox shot! lol

I was just replying to Sandy's post and she didn't make any mention of dates as far as I saw.

[AchtungBaby80]

Originally Posted by OTW

I'm curious...besides AGD at Ohio State, have any other chapters been successful with re-organizing? I hate using that chapter over and over again, but they're proof that it does work and it can be a good thing. DZ HQ just didn't know to do it, I guess.

My chapter recolonized in '99, the year before I pledged. All the members were given alum status as far as I know, but HQ waited only a year before restarting the chapter--there were still some of the "old members" on campus when I joined. Of course there was drama, but it appears to be a successful effort because they usually get quota each year during formal rush.

[texas*princess]

Originally Posted by KillarneyRose

Way to make me run out and get a Botox shot! lol

I was just replying to Sandy's post and she didn't make any mention of dates as far as I saw.

haha sorry

[UGAalum94]

I found the 20 year old example very helpful because I had been wondering if re-organizations ever work long terms.

I would expect any group to get a big boost by having a colonization type rush, but whether they could sustain that long term is a little different.

In the south, twenty years ago might be pretty recent activity. I think that it was about the same time ago that UGA expanded for the last time, and it was a DZ re-colonization, if I'm not mistaken.

ETA: I'm nearly positive that DZ was off campus and came back, (a lot of girls from my town were early members after the recolonization) but there doesn't seem to be a record I could verify. Is it just standard practice to report dates on campus as continuous since the chartering? Edited Again: An online UGA factbook gives the DZ date as 1987. 20 years later, they are doing very well.

[ASUADPi]

Okay confused, shouldn't re-organization and recolonization be two different things? I ask because it seems like people are saying they are one in the same. Recolonization, to me, signifies that the chapter left the campus and came back.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by ASUADPi

Okay confused, shouldn't re-organization and recolonization be two different things? I ask because it seems like people are saying they are one in the same. Recolonization, to me, signifies that the chapter left the campus and came back.

It confuses me too.

Unless you can see when a chapter left and see a break of more than four years, which would clearly be a re-colonization, then I think it's going to be hard to tell the difference between the times a GLO has ALL current actives go alum and then starts with a new group vs. telling some actives to go alum and starts with a new group, which both might be re-organizations.

I think part of what causes the problem it that no or few groups really openly talk about doing these things at all. It always seem to be presented as if the old actives are long gone.

Originally Posted by ASUADPi

Recolonization, to me, signifies that the chapter left the campus and came back.

And that's what it is. They are different in the sense that recolonizing means the chapter officially closed and came back.

When chapters re-organize they don't leave campus. I know that HQs have different procedures when handling re-orgs, but from what I've seen -- the collegians are granted alumnae status and HQ decides when would be the best time to hold a special recruitment.

I was kinda wondering why people were talking about successful recolonizations when clearly they are different.

[UGAalum94]

So, even when it's a totally new batch of members with no initiated members in the re-formed group, it's a re-organization?

I'm not challenging your knowledge. I know that I don't know anything about it. But for some reason I was thinking that having the old members as part of the new group made it a re-organization.

How could an outsider know when the group officially closed and re-colonized nearly immediately ( as DZ at DePauw apparently originally intended to do) as opposed to a re-organization in which all the old members went alum but the chapter didn't close?

Originally Posted by Alphagamuga

So, even when it's a totally new batch of members with no initiated members in the re-formed group, it's a re-organization?

I'm not challenging your knowledge. I know that I don't know anything about it. But for some reason I was thinking that having the old members as part of the new group made it a re-organization.

How could an outsider know when the group officially closed and re-colonized nearly immediately ( as DZ at DePauw apparently originally intended to do) as opposed to a re-organization in which all the old members went alum but the chapter didn't close?

I'm no expert either, but I see the chapter as just being dormant. In this post, AXOBuckeye provided some info about AGD at Ohio State. To be honest, I didn't even know about Ohio State being re-established until it was posted on the IHQ website and I know many were surprised because they didn't know of Alpha Lambda's situation.

As far as your last question is concerned, I have no clue. To an outsider, I wouldn't think that it would matter too much as the terms are more internal based.

I don't know, I may be presumptious in saying this -- but as far as re-orgs and re-cols go, maybe things really do work out better when efforts are kept quiet?

[I've been up for almost 30 hrs with little to no sleep so my apologies if I'm not making sense at the moment]

[UGAalum94]

Your post makes sense, and I think you're right.

I'm afraid that the only differences between the right way to do reorganization and the wrong way are that in the right way, you give everyone alum status and while you try to make sure the alums are treated well, you try to keep them out of the media and the university president's office. Focus on the future and the new girls.

Generally, I'm not sure that I like policies whose success depends on keeping them quiet.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by KillarneyRose

"If" these sisters were put on alumni status because they way they looked/acted didn't mesh with the direction National wanted it to go, why are people so shocked about that?

Two NPC chapters recolonized while I was at college and when the process was over every sister adhered perfectly to the idea of how their National thought a XXX or ABC should look and act. Both chapters, I recall, were an instant hit inside the chapter room and out. That is what I grew up believing recolonizing to be. Not a warm and fuzzy "oooooooooh, we wuv each other" weekend but rather a "You ladies are not holding up your end of the bargain and so we're going to come and find ladies who will." In the People article I read, one alumni sister was quoted that she wasn't willing to change anything about herself in order to stay in the sorority. So now, how can she bitch?

Seriously, what were after rush party meetings like in your chapters? You never mentioned an outgoing personality, a pretty face or a good body? Those things didn't matter to you? It was all about the philanthropy, right??? Um, yeah, that's how we did it too

I think that (speculation) DZ didn't want to do a membership review initially, they were just going to close the whole chapter and start fresh when they recolonized. Then when the school told them they couldn't let the chapter lie dormant, they had to think of a way (quickly) to get rid of the sisters they didn't feel were beneficial for the chapter, yet keep the chapter on campus. To do this, they had to have some active sisters. It seems as though there was a lot of last minute changes and confusion.

There wouldn't be all this mess going on if they had closed the chapter period, or closed it and completely recolonized. That happens all the time and none of it has ever made the NY Times. It's the picking and choosing, plus the timing of the notifications to the girls given alum status, plus the different info coming from all corners (collegians, alums, housing corp and HQ) that has made this such an issue.

[AchtungBaby80]

I'm not quite sure where the distinction between "recolonization" and "reorganization" is, either. I was under the impression that it was a recolonization if everyone was given alum status and then a new batch were chosen, and I have always thought of reorganization as an interchangeable term. However, I guess a reorganization happens if only some members go alum. I'm only familiar with the scenario in which everybody goes alum and then new ladies are recruited, though--before this DePauw incident, I had never heard of some members going alum while others stayed active during any kind of reorganization/recolonization attempt. We always referred to what my chapter did as a recolonization, but the chapter didn't stay away for years and years before it came back...I'm pretty sure that recruitment for new members started the year after the previous members were granted alum status.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by OTW

And that's what it is. They are different in the sense that recolonizing means the chapter officially closed and came back.

When chapters re-organize they don't leave campus. I know that HQs have different procedures when handling re-orgs, but from what I've seen -- the collegians are granted alumnae status and HQ decides when would be the best time to hold a special recruitment.

I was kinda wondering why people were talking about successful recolonizations when clearly they are different.

I look at it the other way - a recolonization is when there is a whole new group of members and all the old members become alums, whether the chapter went dormant for a time or not. Reorganization is when you keep some of the old girls, or merge with a local group and give them all status on the same level of the old girls or something.

[irishpipes]

Originally Posted by OTW

I'm curious...besides AGD at Ohio State, have any other chapters been successful with re-organizing?

Last fall Kappa Kappa Gamma reorganized at Georgia Southern. I heard it went well.

[texas*princess]

Originally Posted by Alphagamuga

I found the 20 year old example very helpful because I had been wondering if re-organizations ever work long terms.

My point wasn't really that the reorg worked even 20 years later - it was more of a "it might have been OK to make the majority of the chapter leave in the middle of the semester back then, but since the NPC (not really just the governing org, but the invididual groups) are a tad bit more PC nowadays, and always trying to cover their bases, something like that might not "fly" like it used to."

Schools were probably very different back then too... in a make-believe world, maybe it would have been OK for the DZ HQ to do this at DePauw 20 years ago, but something like that is no longer acceptable. At least not at DePauw.