Schools that need to open for NPC expansion

[AZTheta]

Originally Posted by ASUADPi

Virginia Commonwealth- we are still waiting to colonize. Originally we were supposed to colonize, in I believe, fall 2012. It was then pushed back to spring 2013. We still haven't colonized, which means the chapters who were scheduled to colonize after us have also been pushed back.

University of Arizona- one thing standing in the way with expansion there is the housing. All UA chapters have houses. Now it has been 4-5 years since I have been on the campus, but space for housing is a bit limited. Chi Omega and Sigma Kappa weren't housed on the same "row" as the other chapters. Chi Omega got a new house on the "row" in 1998. Sigma Kappa was located quite a bit farther than the other houses, I believe their new house was built around 2008-2009. Alpha Chi, well if they did what we did (renting their house to the university) had a house ready to go.

Now one thing that could possibly be done, if the university does open for expansion, a sorority could buy one of the fraternity house where the chapter has left campus and fix it up and now you have a house, but that is also expensive. ADPi spent a over 1 million to get our house updated for our recolonization in 2008.

Also, what is the deal with Arizona State. I haven't lived in AZ in 4-5 years so I'm out of the loop.

University of Arizona:There is no available (for sale) space on First or Second Streets to build. Not that anyone could afford it if there was a lot. That's the major roadblock to expansion of the NPC sororities. Simply put: can't be competitive without a facility. There are some alternatives being explored and there's nothing to report yet.

Alpha Chi Omega is refurbishing their facility and the chapter can take possession in August 2014, from what I have been told. Alpha Chi's facility is a block and a half further east on First Street and while that doesn't negatively impact the fraternities that are also located close by, somehow it does seem to impact the sororities.

Not sure that any of the fraternities would be willing to sell, all things considered with property on the campus. And honestly, would probably want to demolish any fraternity and build from the ground up. That takes millions.

No idea what's going on at ASU with housing. First I heard of it was here on GC.

[AXOrushadvisor]

Originally Posted by AZTheta

University of Arizona:There is no available (for sale) space on First or Second Streets to build. Not that anyone could afford it if there was a lot. That's the major roadblock to expansion of the NPC sororities. Simply put: can't be competitive without a facility. There are some alternatives being explored and there's nothing to report yet.

Alpha Chi Omega is refurbishing their facility and the chapter can take possession in August 2014, from what I have been told. Alpha Chi's facility is a block and a half further east on First Street and while that doesn't negatively impact the fraternities that are also located close by, somehow it does seem to impact the sororities.

Not sure that any of the fraternities would be willing to sell, all things considered with property on the campus. And honestly, would probably want to demolish any fraternity and build from the ground up. That takes millions.

No idea what's going on at ASU with housing. First I heard of it was here on GC.

I find it fascinating that 2 fraternities are currently building on First Street. Sigma Chi is really humming away on the north side of the street. I can not remember the frat building on the south side. I don't think there are any vacant frats on First or Second Street at this time but there are always rumors.

Alpha Chi will start remodeling their facility right after this semester. It should be good to go for recruitment- which they have changed and added another day to set 2. They should help out a lot but they still need to expand. There were 96 women in my daughter's PC in the fall. That is WAY to big to manage. I had heard that they were talking to some sororities about living off the grid so to speak but no one has bought off on that because they don't think they can compete.

ASU is in a housing predicament. The entire Greek community for that matter. The Chapters continue to grow. Total is now set at 173 and they are expecting a huge recruitment for F2014 1500-1800. In addition, there is really not a spot on campus large enough to hold our recruitment AND they do it during school. I think we need to make some major changes to the recruitment schedule and add those 2 houses waiting in the wings. It will be interesting to see what happens this year with recruitment and how big the numbers are but PC class of more then 70 are hard to manage and having no space to meet makes it challenging. Finding a room for chapter meetings is almost impossible. I could go on and on with the challenges of having a facility that only holds 32 women.

[2013PNM]

As a current chapter member at Alabama, we are in serious need of an expansion. The size of our chapters is getting out of hand, my pledge class ended up being over to 130 girls after the two COB periods that every chapter participated in this year (Fall and Spring).
I feel a new chapter could be very successful with the growing number of PNMs going through recruitment. Alpha Phi and DG are wonderful examples of how well new chapters have done on campus.

[irishpipes]

Originally Posted by 2013PNM

As a current chapter member at Alabama, we are in serious need of an expansion. The size of our chapters is getting out of hand, my pledge class ended up being over to 130 girls after the two COB periods that every chapter participated in this year (Fall and Spring).
I feel a new chapter could be very successful with the growing number of PNMs going through recruitment. Alpha Phi and DG are wonderful examples of how well new chapters have done on campus.

I think a lot of the problem at Alabama is that they have priced themselves out of the market. There are a couple of groups that are not presently on campus that could probably make the financial commitment, but not all 26 groups could. Additionally, some of the groups not already on campus have zero name recognition in Alabama and would be taking a HUGE risk to go on there. I could see maybe 3 additional NPCs taking the plunge there, but that's about it.

(And all of that is totally my opinion, I don't know the inner workings of any NPC.)

[pinksequins]

Agree with Irishpipes that VCU overreached on the pace of stacked expansions. .

[33girl]

Originally Posted by pinksequins

Agree with Irishpipes that VCU overreached on the pace of stacked expansions. .

I third that emotion. It seems they were just super excited to be putting commuter college status 6 feet under. Kinda like someone who loses 25# on a crash diet, buys a ton of new clothes, and then gains all the weight back.

I'm sure some of these schools where Greek life interest seems to increase/decrease super rapidly is a result of new blood and new ideas in the admissions offices.

[AGDAlum]

It is still hard for me to even comprehend what sorority life would be like in a chapter of 200+. I know that it's the paradigm for many NPC women nowadays. They wouldn't know what it would be like to be in a chapter of 60 with new member classes of 20! Years ago I posted somewhere on GreekChat that I'd favor more, and smaller, chapters. Someone responded saying how exhausting it would be to go to 26 open houses! Just now I ran some numbers -- using my alma mater: if Mizzou has 15 groups and 288 total, that's 4320. Divide 4320 by 26 and get 166 so if a campus had the maximum number of NPC groups the chapters would still be large. (If chapter total were 60 it would take 72 chapters to absorb 4320 members. Yes, that IS too many open houses. <g>)

[pinksequins]

The VCU timeline does exhibit immense naivete. As a follow-on question, given the delays, can the CPC revisit the decisions in the future as being stale?

By contrast, when NCState expanded following DG's colonization, the extension letters (posted back when on the NCSU Greek website) explicitly stated that should colonization of one of the specific groups not occur by an outside date, the next group would move up and the vacant slot reopen. (None of the NCSU stacked groups have missed their assigned target dates thus far.)

[pinksequins]

I don't understand why they simply didn't stack three a semester until they could compete with IU ....

[irishpipes]

Exactly! How else could they get that quota of 27 last year to a manageable number?

[33girl]

Originally Posted by irishpipes

Exactly! How else could they get that quota of 27 last year to a manageable number?

If you're used to a quota of 12, then yes, 27 can feel unmanageable and overwhelming.

[irishpipes]

Originally Posted by 33girl

If you're used to a quota of 12, then yes, 27 can feel unmanageable and overwhelming.

Which is not the case at this very large state school.

[ms_gwyn]

This is the information that I had on the VCU Expansion....

Alpha Delta Pi Colony Fall 2013 (pushing from the original 2012)
Kappa Delta Colony Fall 2014
Phi Sigma Sigma Gamma Sigma 1979-2011/Colony 2015
Gamma Phi Beta Colony 2015/2016

[pinksequins]

LOL, Irishpipes!!

Well, the schedule posted above still doesn't help because 2013 has come and gone ....

[Griffins&Quills]

At least at NC State they're all 3 years apart, not a semester!