Too fat to recruit: or, DePauw, the Sequel

[kathykd2005]

Originally Posted by PM_Mama00

GPA and being put on probation is WAY different than being told to hide in the corner during rush. I was once on academic probation and I think it was the best thing possible because the sorority motivated me to do better and study my ass off. Telling someone they can't be in view during rush hurts and is subjective rather than looking at someone's GPA which is objective.

I agree with you, PM_Mama00, but as someone else said, this thread is going nowhere. There are, I guess, people that view being cruel to their sisters necessary in attaining numbers during Recruitment, rather than taking an objective view of the situation, and orchestrating positive action. In short, many women, I fear, feel that instead of rectifying a situation, they should just push it to the background. Sadly, however, no matter how much you push a situation out of view, it's bound to come out at some point, most likely with dire consequences.

[FSUZeta]

the thing is that "hiding" the fat members is not going to change the immediate reputation that the chapter has. for instance, i know of a chapter that has the fat girl reputation on their campus.. i was very surprised when i saw all the campus sororities in a competition-each chapter had some fat girls, but the aforementioned one has the "fat girl" rep. this chapter also has the fewest members.

it seems to me that if a chapter is socked with a bad reputation, it takes practically an act of God to change the rep. closing the chapter and then trying to recolonize in a couple of years is not time enough for the reputation to die down.

[SydneyK]

Originally Posted by FSUZeta

it seems to me that if a chapter is socked with a bad reputation, it takes practically an act of God to change the rep. closing the chapter and then trying to recolonize in a couple of years is not time enough for the reputation to die down.

Sad, but very true. Admittedly, I don't have personal experience with what really happens when a chapter is closed then recolonized. But, I've seen a too-recently-recolonized chapter struggle for its entire existence. And it's not pretty.

Just from having witnessed that, I'm of the opinion that the general response to a recolonized group should be, "Wow - I never knew there had been an ABC chapter here!" before deciding to try again.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by SydneyK

Sad, but very true. Admittedly, I don't have personal experience with what really happens when a chapter is closed then recolonized. But, I've seen a too-recently-recolonized chapter struggle for its entire existence. And it's not pretty.

Just from having witnessed that, I'm of the opinion that the general response to a recolonized group should be, "Wow - I never knew there had been an ABC chapter here!" before deciding to try again.

Yes!

I also wonder if thinking that every chapter can be made strong is in itself faulty. With a couple of rare exceptions, even when my recruitment thread reading experience is added to my SEC experience, most campuses have a group or a couple of groups that struggle to maintain the membership that is expected.

Why not change the standards for those chapters so that their goal rather than quota and chapter total was financial solvency? And if they are financially solvent, even living on a dorm floor where most groups have houses, then concentrate your efforts on helping those sisters have an excellent experience rather than making the experience all about how unsuccessful they are at recruiting?

Or have a hard and fast rule about pulling charters of groups whose membership is below a certain point for more than X number of years relative to the rest of campus and then stay the heck off campus for long enough that people forget what your problem was.

I don't understand, I guess, why we have to be so different from IFC groups when it comes to our attitudes about chapter size, and as a result we do some weird stuff, and one of things we do is over-focus on the physical appearance of members during recruitment.

[33girl]

The problem is that if you stay off campus, you might not be able to get back on. There's room for another sorority, it's just that your sorority isn't able to attract women. How many times on here have we read about a chapter closing at State U, and then 2 years (or less) later, the Panhellenic is open for expansion, a new group comes on and does fabulous?

It's kind of like staying in a marriage you know is messed up for the sake of the kids or your lifestyle. You (the national HQ you) have to figure out how much that marriage/chapter means to you, and what you're willing to do to keep it. There are women who put up with their husbands cheating so they can have the perks of being "Mrs Important." There are sororities who put up with their chapter being at the bottom of the totem pole on large campuses because they feel that chapter is important to have there, for alum support or whatever reason.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by 33girl

The problem is that if you stay off campus, you might not be able to get back on. There's room for another sorority, it's just that your sorority isn't able to attract women. How many times on here have we read about a chapter closing at State U, and then 2 years (or less) later, the Panhellenic is open for expansion, a new group comes on and does fabulous?

It's kind of like staying in a marriage you know is messed up for the sake of the kids or your lifestyle. You (the national HQ you) have to figure out how much that marriage/chapter means to you, and what you're willing to do to keep it. There are women who put up with their husbands cheating so they can have the perks of being "Mrs Important." There are sororities who put up with their chapter being at the bottom of the totem pole on large campuses because they feel that chapter is important to have there, for alum support or whatever reason.

Well, not getting back on campus would be the risk you took with a keep-membership-this-high-or-we'll-drop-you kind of policy.

Personally, I favor just letting some chapters be small and figuring out a way for them to do it without running in the red. But letting them exist isn't enough: GLOs need to figure out a way to keep the programming for the women who join at that chapter strong so that it's a chapter worth being in from a ritual and campus activities point of view.

What I think happens a lot at smaller chapters is that the experience can start to stink all the way around.

Within the campus PC community, the group is looked down on or pitied because they are so far from total or quota. Formal recruitment is kind of doomed no matter how hard they work if reputation and current size are the issue. Alumnae support may not be that great, so there's not much immediate help. The group is small enough that the officers are already working pretty hard just to exist, so the group ends up actually doing less in terms of activities. The average member makes a commitment of time and money for an experience that might be less fulfilling than being in the glee club.

And rather than saying, "we need to make sure that we put something in place so those members have a great experience," everything the chapter hears from the national or international group is likely to be negative about recruiting.

So, I'd first like to see a commitment to support all chapters, but if we're going to narrowly define what a successful chapter is, then a resolution to close chapters who hit a well-defined membership level is the only option that seems fair to current members. Any form of the "we are going to dump you for someone better" kind of stuff, which was the connection between the DePauw thread and this one, always seems to backfire from a practical point of view in addition to its betrayal of the ideals of sisterhood.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by FSUZeta

the thing is that "hiding" the fat members is not going to change the immediate reputation that the chapter has. for instance, i know of a chapter that has the fat girl reputation on their campus.. i was very surprised when i saw all the campus sororities in a competition-each chapter had some fat girls, but the aforementioned one has the "fat girl" rep. this chapter also has the fewest members.

it seems to me that if a chapter is socked with a bad reputation, it takes practically an act of God to change the rep. closing the chapter and then trying to recolonize in a couple of years is not time enough for the reputation to die down.

Amen. FWIW, I googled and I think I figured out the school and the sorority. It's the newest in an area where new = bad and they had the smallest pledge class this past year.

The majority of girls going through rush here know about the sororities' reputations before they even get to campus. The national office probably should get a clue on that, and realize NOTHING they do will fix this (much like Tippie's example). So, either 1) accept being the smaller chapter on a big Greek campus and go with being the "unsorority" and get a smaller house or 2) close the chapter.

There are places I would love ASA to be because I would love to have a chapter at a school with huge Greek traditions. But I'm not going to push for it because I wouldn't want any of my sisters to have to suffer with being "that sorority" just because all the other groups have been there for 100+ years. It's not worth it.