starting a local on a non-greek campus

[RACooper]

Originally Posted by lemons232

All of the rules at my school are so strict and non-negotiable that we knew going into this that suing the school could be an option for creating a sorority. Needless to say that's a little too messy, so we're trying to work with the admins.

Trying to work or negotiate through the process should always be the first and heck last choice - it's only when there isn't anymore choices or avenues open should you consider formal legal action... basically because if you go the litigation route you are more or less forcing each side into adversarial roles that can last a loooong time.

While I did say I wanted the organization to be about sisterhood and women, I have done some re-evaluating of my motivation. Since my campus is 66% women, I don't feel like there would really be a strong male presence. To ensure that we have female leadership (which surprisingly is a problem on my campus) I'm going to ask if we can have a rule of only women in the executive positions.

That last bit will no doubt be a conflict issue again with the school - if the school is adamant that your Local be Co-ed I can't see them agreeing to any sort of clause that is then exclusionary within the group itself...

However you could mandate a rule that say mandates an even split of the executive between the sexes with a conditional clause creating an exception if the "quota" isn't filled in the first round of elections/nominations (or something like that) that the "quota" is removed in the interest of filling the positions.

I really want to make a group on campus that brings together people from every dorm, every major, with any interests. I think creating such an organization would be a positive impact on my campus which has always been my number one goal.

See now if you market yourselves to the school like the above they'd buy into it - the school is opposed to the idea of a single-sex only org. I'm guessing on exclusionary grounds so the more you down play the single-sex aspect and play up the service and community aspect the better your chances...

However you could always go for the long-term in founding a Co-ed that could then split into brother and sister orgs. once membership gets "too large" in the future