Sorority Interest Group

[33girl]

Originally Posted by Barbie's_Rush

Something I have always wondered about the expansion process is how the final group is chosen after the presentations. Occasionally on GC I see things alluded to about how a group aligned with values, goals, etc. and the other groups didn't. Strong presentations and impressive presenters aside, it's hard for me to grasp how one group can prevail because it's not like there are groups that don't value scholarship, are self-proclaimed kitten sacrificers, promote hazing and scoff at community service.

Maybe it's because I haven't been involved with or know anyone who has been involved with the expansion process and everything I know about it I read on GC. It just puzzles me how you go about picking just one.

I think "values" is a random catchall word that really often has little to do with actual values of the sorority (unless, as you said, it's a Jewish/Christian thing). The only expansion I knew anything about on our campus, 2 groups came and presented, one larger and one smaller nationally. The girls picked the smaller one, I honestly think mainly because the larger one was talking about things that just weren't commonplace at our campus like house corps and housemothers, very complicated rush strategies etc. It might be that a group has better national resources, but they're also going to ask things from you that might be more than any other group on campus is asking.

This is hands down the best thread ever about what groups think about when picking a national.

Originally Posted by ASAlamb

Our campus is currently undergoing a two-year expansion process, and though we had a strong interest group last year, they didn't exactly get to pick their national sorority and all initiate together. The decision on which nationals to bring to campus will be made by Panhel, the Greek Life Office, reps from other Greek orgs, and we had some input from the interest group.

In the end, a number of the members of the interest group did not end up with a bid to the first new national to come to campus. This happened for a number of reasons. But the important thing to take away from this is that your interest group may not stay together, and you usually have to interview and go through a sort-of recruitment for new national sororities on campus just like you would more established campus chapters. Expansion is crazy, be ready for it.

So in other words you guys were expanding anyway - the expansion process/timeline was already moving forward - and the interest group popped up independently of that? And then wanted to just basically plop themselves down in the colony?

In Hannah's case, it sounds like they've been working w/ the GLC from the beginning and he/she wants a group to be chosen that will take them all.

Like Zillini said - taking all members of an interest group IS something that Panhel or a GA can ask of a national. The trick is making sure they all get initiated. In the case I was talking about above, some of the strongest members of the interest group didn't initiate. I think they were just turned off by the having to get x number of women to charter and other things like that - in other words I think they would have probably gotten annoyed by that with ANY sorority. They'd been, in effect, running a fraternity AND little sis org for quite a while and doing it very well and I don't think they cottoned to someone stepping in and telling them what to do.

[SthrnZeta]

Originally Posted by 33girl

This is hands down the best thread ever about what groups think about when picking a national.

Thanks - just spent the last half hour reading this thread. Great story!

[ASAlamb]

Originally Posted by 33girl

So in other words you guys were expanding anyway - the expansion process/timeline was already moving forward - and the interest group popped up independently of that? And then wanted to just basically plop themselves down in the colony?

In Hannah's case, it sounds like they've been working w/ the GLC from the beginning and he/she wants a group to be chosen that will take them all.

The group had been around for about a year prior to the beginning of expansion presentations. They weren't a local sorority, but they were a pretty established group, and most of them knew each other outside of their interest to go Greek. They were one of the reasons we decided to go through expansion.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by ASAlamb

The group had been around for about a year prior to the beginning of expansion presentations. They weren't a local sorority, but they were a pretty established group, and most of them knew each other outside of their interest to go Greek. They were one of the reasons we decided to go through expansion.

Did the ones who didn't get initiated - was that by their choice (kind of like the situation I mentioned) or by the sorority's? If the second, then I'm sure that wasn't pretty for a while.

[ASAlamb]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Did the ones who didn't get initiated - was that by their choice (kind of like the situation I mentioned) or by the sorority's? If the second, then I'm sure that wasn't pretty for a while.

Well not to air too much dirty laundry, but I think a lot of the girls from the original interest group didn't like the decisions our campus made in terms of nationals, and the group they were more interested in isn't coming on campus until next fall. I don't know the exact numbers of interest group women going through the extension group's recruitment and accepting a bid.

The extension wasn't the smoothest of processes, let me tell you

[cdnkappa10]

As President of the Upsilon Colony (UVic) of Kappa Beta Gamma, I encourage you to follow your heart and not let others get in your way

[HannahBanana612]

Hey, I kinda disappeared for a while. Just as an update on what's going on if anyone cares to know lol. I underestimated how stressful and time consuming this was going to be because the beginnings were so easy. I discovered that personal crises and work and school all intersect to make these types of activities twice as hard as they might have been. I won't make the mistake of underestimating again that's for sure! I lost many of my beginning members due to personal conflicts and girls transferring to new schools. I lost touch with the girls who stayed because I got so wrapped up in trying to get back on my feet. I almost gave up. Then I remembered why I was doing this, I remembered that there are girls who want a sorority to be in but the sororities here just can't accommodate the amount of girls interested, these girls deserve a place to belong as well. So I went to speak with the director of greek life to see if he was still interested. The timeline was way screwed up but I was still interested in trying if he wanted me too. I discovered that due to the decision to create greek housing the sororities had voted down the idea to expand until they discover if fall recruitment goes well enough to fill the houses. Which ordinarily would seem like a bad thing for me, but projections say that recruitment should go as well as it has in past years filling the housing and reinforcing the need for another sorority to accommodate the numbers. Also, this gives me a whole other semester to get things together seeing as they will re vote based on the recruitment numbers next September. So I am going to work on getting this going again so that come September we have the numbers to look promising to potential sororities looking to expand! I apologize if that was an excessively long update I will try to keep updating as things develop!

[33girl]

Not excessively long at all!! Thanks for letting us know how things are going.

[aephi alum]

Thanks for the update.

I'll share a bit of the history of my chapter, which may give you some ideas:

In the early 1990s, a group of Jewish women at my school got together with the specific goal of bringing a chapter of AEPhi to campus. AEPhi was interested, but Panhel was not - Theta had just colonized a couple of years earlier, bringing the number of NPC sororities from 3 to 4, and bringing in a fifth NPC sorority so soon would have rocked the boat more than they were comfortable with. However, the interest group was invited to form a local sorority - and they did so. I was not one of these women; however, I rushed and joined them. About a year and a half later, we did indeed affiliate with AEPhi. All the existing actives in the local were extended bids, and all but one accepted.

If you can, you may want to take the step from being an interest group to being a local sorority. This may help bring some more coherence to your group. You can go as far as you want in terms of recruitment, in terms of the tangibles (letters, colors, symbol, mascot, etc), in terms of ritual, and in terms of social activities (which may require asking members to pay dues...).

When NPC expansion takes place, IIRC, if there is a known interest group or local sorority interested in affiliating with an NPC sorority, that group is given precedence and is allowed to express a preference of a particular NPC sorority (in our case, the preference was AEPhi, that was the only NPC that presented, and a match was made) - or they can express no preference and listen to multiple presentations.

Best of luck to you and your interest group.