NPC chapters at HBCU schools

[DSTRen13]

Originally Posted by ladygreek

In my experience it takes less time.

Less time to form the group, yes. (I should have mentioned I wasn't necessarily talking about official interest groups ...) But certainly more time to form the interest - you've got many more students coming onto campus who already know they want to pursue [insert BGLO of choice here] than students who have a particular other GLO in mind. So there's not as strong of a drive to get an NPC/IFC as an NPHC on a newly developing Greek campus.

[ladygreek]

Originally Posted by DSTRen13

Less time to form the group, yes. (I should have mentioned I wasn't necessarily talking about official interest groups ...) But certainly more time to form the interest - you've got many more students coming onto campus who already know they want to pursue [insert BGLO of choice here] than students who have a particular other GLO in mind. So there's not as strong of a drive to get an NPC/IFC as an NPHC on a newly developing Greek campus.

Oh I misunderstood. I thought you meant it took more time for BGLOs to garner the interest. We are now on the same page.

[breathesgelatin]

The other thing with commuter campuses is that even if there isn't a chapter based at the university, with NPHC groups there would be the eligibility to join a city-wide chapter or a chapter at neighboring university. So there could already be members on the campus who might assist in getting an NPHC chapter founded.

Whereas with NPC, there is no city-wide chapter and no joining another university's chapter, so you just have to wait until resources are allocated for those groups to come.

[tld221]

Originally Posted by DSTRen13

In my observation:
If you have a school that is becoming a more traditional campus versus a commuter school, or just converted from a 2-year, or whatever the situation may be that opens it up to Greek life, you often have the D9 groups coming on first versus NPC/IFC. There's more desire to bring particular BGLOs onto campus within the student body than for any particular other group, so it often takes more time to develop those interest groups.

that's interesting. when a college goes from commuter to residential (or non-traditional/2 year to traditional/4 year, or whichever you see it in your head), the makeup of the student body changes. NYU was a heavy commuter school (with no surprise as its in the middle of the city) up until the 90s - i believe it was 65/35 commuter/residential. I'm not sure what came first, the surge in property to house students or student applications, but one certaintly feeds the other. so i'd say over the last 15-20 years, NYU's population went from heavily commuter/students from the boroughs (especially as they had a campus in the Bronx) to students from everyfreakingwhere and from lots of money. surely that changed the student body, racially and economically.

i would even stretch to say this is happening at St. Johns, as they have recently (past 6-8 years) become a heavily residential campus.

my point, back to greek life, is that i got the impression that greek life at NYU lived a great life back when it was a commuter school - they even had their own building (i dont know if it was for housing, or for recreation). then they got downsized to a tower of a dorm, and now to a couple of penthouses in a dorm. chapters that once were there are kaput now. on the NPHC side, i was told that while there werent NYU-only NPHC chapters, the school was on a few charters and it was more likely for black students to pursue an org then than now.

of course that could be reflective of the overall pattern of going greek over the years. as far as st john's goes, well im not a student there, but their greek life seems to be doing great (in terms of what greek life looks like in these parts anyway).

to bring this back on-topic, i wouldve guess that as a campus moved more towards traditional (and with that, more housing/campus community) that NPC/IFC would jump on that quicker than NPHC, if we as a council would even be affected by that.

[ladygreek]

Commuter schools are not just two-year schools. Many are four-year, so yes they may already have Greek Life. They are non-traditional, because of demographics, e.g., average student age is higher, they have families, etc.

[Blade118]

Originally Posted by tld221

of course that could be reflective of the overall pattern of going greek over the years. as far as st john's goes, well im not a student there, but their greek life seems to be doing great (in terms of what greek life looks like in these parts anyway).

St. John's is still a heavily commuter based school, but they are phasing it out. When I started school, res life was only 2 years old. I believe res life is 8 years old now and the residential population has grown tremendously to the point where no one (besides incoming freshman) are guaranteed housing. Greek life is doing quite well at St. John's and definitely has grown since I started back in '01. There are more groups on campus now and ALFSA (African and Latino Fraternal and Sororal Alliance) has more groups than they have in the past and more members in the groups. A lot of those groups still remain smaller in numbers as compared to the NPC/IFC orgs, but overall they have more activities and events then groups from the other two councils. I would say the growth of the res life program has helped Greek life grow and in turn benefited all the orgs on campus.