want to bring a Tri-Delta chapter to my university!

[FSUZeta]

Originally Posted by HelloKitty22

I wasn't going "OMG EXPANSION." In fact, nowhere did I say that I thought this was a great expansion opportunity for DDD. I also never said that starting a chapter was easy or likely.

I do, however, think that when we are answering a person's question, we should be helpful. Saying, "forget it, it will never happen" in post after post is not helpful. Even if something is difficult doesn't mean you shouldn't try and doesn't mean that we can't give her the best advice we have. Especially since the OP never asked us to weigh in on whether starting a chapter was a good idea, she just asked us to give her our best advice and to tell her our experiences, if we have any, with this situation. Is our best advice really don't try it's too hard?

my best advice based on experiences i have had........a campus has to have a need to expand if there is an already established greek life on campus. the campus panhellenic usually does a study based on several years worth of statistics, has a meeting where they submit their findings and then the officers and representatives vote whether to open the campus for expansion or not. if they open for expansion, they notify the NPC of their decision to expand and the NPC in turn notifies all of the NPC sororities not represented on that campus that state university is open for expansion. sororities that are interested in colonizing there submit an information packet to the college panhellenic and after much perusal usually 3 sororities are invited to come to campus to give presentations. the sororities accept or regret the invitation and dates are set for the presentations. if one of the sororities regrets the invitation, panhellenic might go to the 4th choice and invite them to present. the sororities bring in national officers & local alumnae to participate in the presentation. the presentations are usually done on separate days. after all the presentations are done, the committee or the panhellenic officers and representatives vote on who will be invited to colonize-they notify the sorority and the sorority either accepts or regrets that invitation. SOMETIMES(but not very often) there is a pre-existing interest group that has a preference, and SOMETIMES that groups wishes are taken into consideration, however sometimes they are not. in addition, there is no guarantee that any or all of the members of the interest group would be invited to be members of the colony. that is a decision that the sorority would make(most often its national officers). the whole process can take as little as a couple of semesters or it an be longer.

that is the reason everyone is saying to look a little closer to home and give the existing groups another chance. the chances are slim to none that everything would work out in her favor-heck, she would probably stand a better chance transferring to a school that has an existing tri delta chapter and taking her chances going thru recruitment-and there is no guarantee in that either.

[KD4Me]

OP - I would like to reiterate that many of the replies that you have received on this board are not intended to be negative, just realistic. If you read old posts about people trying to start new chapters on their campuses, you will see that it requires a campus open to expansion, national sororities also open to expanding on that campus (which may or may not include Tri Delt), often much work convincing campus administrators of the benefits of expansion, and much time (usually years). The reality is that unless your campus opens for expansion very soon, it will likely be so long for all of those things to occur that you will have graduated.

I suggest that you heavily consider whether you really, really want to be in a sorority or not. If you do, then reconsider membership in the groups already on campus. Otherwise, you are taking a big chance that you will never be in a sorority. Only you know if it's worth it to you.

Incidentally, I love my sorority and was very involved as a collegian and still am, as an alumna. If I were choosing between all of the philanthropies in the world in which to invest my time, I wouldn't necessarily choose those that my national organization supports. But I do support them, because they're worthy causes. The friendships and relationships with my sisters is what I really love about my sorority.