In what circumstances would you support reorganization or closing?

[FSUZeta]

but if seniors graduate in december or members drop due to hours, or grades or financial reasons and the chapter goes below total, the chapter could pledge new members (up to total) in the spring.

why have pnm numbers declined? has the female enrollment at your college declined?

i am not targeting your campus per se, because as i said i see this at my daughters campus(and other campuses)too. it is tiresome to feel that you are continually planning and holding recruitment events-you get burned out on recruitment. believe me i know! since no one on your campus is at total, it is not as big a deal right now. but i do think that panhellenic should re-evaluate the total figure and possibly lower it.

the chapter i advise went thru cob as a colony and i was with them as an advisor then. they had x amount of girls pledge the colony and our international office wanted us to maintain that number. girls would drop out and we would have to hold a series of recruitment events. they would pledge back up to the number they needed, a few more girls would drop out and we would have to hold some more events. even after the colony was installed as a chapter, they had some girls drop their membership , which put the chapter below total and we had to pledge back up to total. this went on for the first 2 years of their existance, but due to their hard work they have been over total their last two years. they are 4 years old.

now granted, there are only 2 npc sororities on campus and the campus enrollment is growing every year, but fgcu started out as a mainly commuter campus, there is no greek housing or suites or lodges, and both sororities overcame those obstacles. a third sorority will be coming on this fall.

the point i am trying to make is that when sororities first fall below total and do not get back up to total, and this is allowed to continue, they will find themselves falling farther and farther behind in the membership game, while the bigger sororities go that much more over total. then it becomes almost impossible for the smaller chapters to catch up.

[FSUZeta]

wow dee!! i love to hear stories like the osu agds. we alums know how hard it is to restructure/reorganize a chapter successfully-there are so many obstacles to overcome. i hope that they continue their successes!!

good luck to your other chapters(and everyone elses) who are going thru the process right now!

[33girl]

Originally Posted by FSUZeta

i am not targeting your campus per se, because as i said i see this at my daughters campus(and other campuses)too. it is tiresome to feel that you are continually planning and holding recruitment events-you get burned out on recruitment. believe me i know! since no one on your campus is at total, it is not as big a deal right now. but i do think that panhellenic should re-evaluate the total figure and possibly lower it.

My campus was much the same way. We had formal in spring and a structured informal in fall. In between times, some of the chapters held open bid parties. We had them about once a month. Usually, the women waited till the next big pledge class to begin pledging (until the dumbass who I referenced in another thread disallowed that).

If you've never done it and you're used to thinking rush = big parties, skits, huge effort, takes up every minute of your time - of course it sounds horrid. COB parties are usually nothing more than a light theme, girls over to the house or suite - kinda like a house party with no boys and no booze. It's NOT the same as formal rush and that is why so many chapters moan and freak out when they're told to do COB. They've never done it and think rush party = all the things above. Part of recruiting rather than rushing means knowing the difference between the two.

At places where there isn't huge Greek interest, it's really the better way to do it, I think - rather than put all your eggs in the formal rush basket. There are women who would be great members who just don't want to go through the hype of formal - not to mention the upperclassmen who know "I want to pledge ABC or nothing" and IMO, they've been there long enough that if that's what they want to do, they should be allowed to do it if the chapter has spots.

I do agree with you that this campus needs to lower total if no one is at it, but I've heard of regional/national officers making a stink about that or saying things like "you don't need to lower total, you just have too many sororities. Get rid of one and you won't have that problem." susan314 also referred to this in her post above.

[ΑΓΔSquirrelGirl]

Originally Posted by FSUZeta

but if seniors graduate in december or members drop due to hours, or grades or financial reasons and the chapter goes below total, the chapter could pledge new members (up to total) in the spring.

It's very much easier said than done. The pool of women who are at all interested (or can afford it...very many are on financial aid) is small. Many times during COB all sororities are interested in the same 30 women. I know we all attempt to pull from different areas to avoid this, but it's usually these same 30 or so that end up accepting bids somewhere.

And I think we ALL agree that none of us is willing to take quantity over quality...that has just caused so many problems and so much heartache that we don't.

why have pnm numbers declined? has the female enrollment at your college declined?

Actually freshmen classes have been progressively declining...as I understand it the decline of applicants to both NPC and IFC recruitment/rush has been decreasing accordingly. Only 30-odd guys rushed last fall.

i am not targeting your campus per se, because as i said i see this at my daughters campus(and other campuses)too. it is tiresome to feel that you are continually planning and holding recruitment events-you get burned out on recruitment. believe me i know! since no one on your campus is at total, it is not as big a deal right now. but i do think that panhellenic should re-evaluate the total figure and possibly lower it.

the point i am trying to make is that when sororities first fall below total and do not get back up to total, and this is allowed to continue, they will find themselves falling farther and farther behind in the membership game, while the bigger sororities go that much more over total. then it becomes almost impossible for the smaller chapters to catch up.

Maybe eventually. Right now even those that are very significantly smaller are not in danger of "losing the game". They are very strong chapters with just the women they have right now. There's just not much to be done and we all know it. All our HQ would like us to make total...some are pushy. Some are very, very pushy...but what they sometimes don't realize is if these smaller chapters choose quantity over quality they WILL lose out to the three larger chapters.