Delta Zeta Reportedly Sues DePauw

[KillarneyRose]

Originally Posted by OTW

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

There was actually an extremely successful recolonization at the University of Pittsburgh in the late 1980s. The chapter had about a dozen members, their National gave alum status to the majority of the sisters and they worked very hard to recruit some great girls.

I understand they're still doing very well today.

[texas*princess]

Originally Posted by KillarneyRose

There was actually an extremely successful recolonization at the University of Pittsburgh in the late 1980s. The chapter had about a dozen members, their National gave alum status to the majority of the sisters and they worked very hard to recruit some great girls.

I understand they're still doing very well today.

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?

I would think that the campus climate might have been very different back then, and I would think NPC would have been also. A lot of things that happened in NPC-Land back then are no longer tolerated in NPC organizations. NPC seems to be more 'politically correct' in recent years based on some things I've heard (can't really compare because I was in grade school back then, but we are no longer allowed to call "new members" "pledges", we can't go on scavenger hunts, and we have 'equal opportunity type clauses on every NPC website... I would imagine that "back then" things were way different)

[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.

[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.

[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.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by texas*princess

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.

I think reorgs/instant recolonizations went over much better 20 years ago, just because Greek life was more popular. People wanted to be Greek a lot more than they do now and they weren't going to really delve into the "why" of what was happening.

The thing is though, the smaller the school, the more quickly what happened is going to get around to all corners. That was true before and now with the internet it's even more so.

[UGAalum94]

I don't think have changed as much on campus as far as Greek life in the last 20 years as you might think, especially at a school like UGA. Of course I can’t speak for DePauw.

1987 may seem like the dark ages to you, but having lived then, I can assure you that many of the restrictions that we see in Greek life now were in full effect by the early 1990s, and it's likely would have been being implemented by 1987. I suspect there were some radical shifts in Greek life about the time that the drinking age was raised from 18 to 21 in 1984, but by 1987, the only areas that have probably been more regulated now than then are rules for new members and some groups adding sexual orientation to their non-discrimination clauses.

Kicking girls out of their housing mid-semester would never have played well, and I don’t think we can assume that it has happened in other re-organizations unless we have evidence that it did. It’s one of the most remarkably callous elements of the treatment of former members in this case.

I think that the new media that the former members had access to, maybe more than any other aspect, may have changed how the re-organization played out. Previously we would have been at the mercy of the traditional media alone for information on the story, and here, we had social network sites, GreekChat, the official university and GLO websites fanning the flames of public interest. The “officials” can’t spin as effectively as they used to, and GLOs are going to need to keep that in mind.

There’s one other aspect I think may contribute to conflicts like this, but I don’t think it falls under the idea of PC and it didn’t seem to be an aspect of the DePauw situation: college students today are more likely than ever, if you believe the media reports, to continue to run to Mom and Dad with their problems. I think this behavior, more than any Political Correctness, maybe what causes colleges to start thinking in terms of “protecting” members from their groups.

I want to emphasize something: DZ at UGA in 1987 was a true re-colonization; they were closed and re-opened. They’ve done very well and remain a strong chapter. I wanted to emphasize this because I didn’t want anyone to think they had some kind of history of unpleasant re-organizations.

[33girl]

I'm as old as you are, silly

I think we were just answering questions about reorgs & recolonizations in general. I agree that forcing people to leave housing w/out RM issues, at a small school where everyone knows what's happening, would never have gone over well.

Who knows how things would have gone if DZ had made everyone alum, gone along with the chapter's vote to self-close at the end of this school year and recolonized at DePauw in 2008-09, as seemed to be the original plan? Do you think it would have worked out?

[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.