New Chapter on Campus

oceanphi01 · #1 12-05-2002, 04:54 PM

I go to a small school with a small Greek system. Right now, we only have 6 national fraternities and 2 national sororities. A group of girls have formed a local sorority, Delta Psi Sigma, with hopes of getting a national to sponsor them. I have mixed feelings about this, so I was wondering what everyone else's opinion of this is.

a CA in CA · #2 12-05-2002, 06:41 PM

That depends on a lot, including how consistently your chapter and the other NPC group are at campus total as well as how much support the greek community receives from campus adminstration.

In my PERSONAL opinion (sanctioned only by me, myself, and I!), if the environment is right a third NPC group is a WONDERFUL thing. Yes, you'll have to work harder at recruitment but it will take away so much of the us vs. them stuff that you have to deal with on what seems like a daily basis when you only have two NPC groups on campus.

I graduated from a school with 10,000 undergrads and only Alpha Phi and one other NPC group were on campus when I was there. I was on Panhellenic and we would have LOVED to have another NPC group on campus but neither house was hitting campus total on a regular basis so we just couldn't bring anyone else in.

What chapter are you at?

Aphigal · #3 12-05-2002, 08:29 PM

Hi!

Do you have a collegiate panhellenic council on campus? You should have to vote to actually give the group associate membership status and vote to bring another group on. Just because women form a "local" doesn't mean they can participate in formal recruitment, be part of quota etc unless your school administration requires them to be in panhel.

Please make sure your chapter advisor contacts both the regional team and the Executive Office about this.

A new group can be a good thing but also its important that proper steps are followed so everyone benifits from the process.

bruinaphi · #4 12-05-2002, 09:04 PM

You go to FIT, right? From what I know about the status of the collegiate panhellenic currently at your school it makes for a very unhealthy climate for expansion. You should make sure that your chapter advisor or chapter president have contacted your CMC or the office about the situation.

astroAPhi · #5 12-06-2002, 11:54 AM

oceanphi and I are from the same chapter, in case you couldn't tell.

I am excited for these girls, because I really think we need a third sorority on campus. The competition between the two national groups is ridiculous and has gotten out of hand. A lot of other girls on campus see it and don't want to go Greek because of it. I'm hoping the third sorority will increase Recruitment overall, especially amongst upperclassmen. I think that they're going to get more upperclassmen than the two current groups, but that's ok, because half of our sorority is made up of juniors, and replacing 20 girls in a year is not going to be fun, or easy.

However, I am kind of sad about this. One of the girls was interested in us, but pretty timid, and I told one of our sisters about it. This sister, who I love to death, sat down with this girl and yapped her head off about Alpha Phi for like, two hours. She got pretty freaked out and thought that all we ever thought about was Alpha Phi. Ever since then she hasn't acted interested. I was pretty bummed, because I was pretty close to her until recently (she broke up with her boyfriend, who I'm also friends with, and withdrew from almost everyone), and her then boyfriend had told me that she wanted me for a big sister. I wanted her to get to experience what I did with Alpha Phi, but I guess she will be enjoying the Greek experience after all. It's also hard because out of the 11 girls, I'm good friends with about 6 of them, and they didn't want to join a sorority because of the competetion I mentioned earlier. I'm glad that they were motivated enough to get this together, but I almost feel like I'm going to be losing some good friends. I don't want the third sorority to get entangled in this whole mess and have THREE sororities who are at each other's throats. However, all the girls have thanked us numerous times for being so helpful, so I'm hoping that we will at least have good relations with them.

It's going to be hard to adjusting to this, but I'm hoping it will work out for the best in the long run.

a CA in CA · #6 12-06-2002, 02:29 PM

You know Ocean, I was going to guess that you were talking about FIT. I've heard your chapter is on a roll though--and how's the HOUSE?

Please tell Angel hello for me--we roomed together at convention and had the BEST time!

astroAPhi · #7 12-06-2002, 05:49 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Aphigal
Hi!

Do you have a collegiate panhellenic council on campus? You should have to vote to actually give the group associate membership status and vote to bring another group on. Just because women form a "local" doesn't mean they can participate in formal recruitment, be part of quota etc unless your school administration requires them to be in panhel.

Please make sure your chapter advisor contacts both the regional team and the Executive Office about this.

A new group can be a good thing but also its important that proper steps are followed so everyone benifits from the process.

Forgot to address this, because I had to run to my lab Final.

From what I understood, they're trying to be on Panhellenic. As for associating with a national, they've been told that they cannot associate with a national until both national sororities are at or above quota for a couple of years. Does that make sense?

What's unhealthy for expansion about the status of our Panhellenic? I'm not a Panhellenic officer so I really don't know the situation.

oceanphi01 · #8 12-06-2002, 08:06 PM

The house is going pretty well. We're having our first social event here tonight...a Christmas party.

Anyway, I just don't know how I feel about the whole thing. While I think it's a great thing that the school needs, I don't think we're quite ready for it yet. This past formal recruitment was horrible. Only 8 girls went through it. Like Astro said, neither of the chapters on this campus are at total yet and we haven't been able to hold it long enough. The Greek system here is small, thanks to the school's former president. Hopefully things will start to turn around, but there don't seem to be that many girls interested in joining a sorority. I really hope things turn up. Because I want so much for it all to work out. I'm just not sure right now.

a CA in CA · #9 12-06-2002, 08:11 PM

Well just know that you really aren't the only ones out there going through this with a small greek system! Like I said, my alma mater is a small greek campus (they held a non-traditional formal rush this year because FR has been so dismal in recent years), AND I advise now at another VERY small greek campus.

AMAZING THINGS WILL HAPPEN IF YOU NEVER GIVE UP!

astroAPhi · #10 12-06-2002, 08:34 PM

Yeah, when we came on, there were 2 sororities already. Sigma Kappa became Zeta Chi (either before or after, I don't remember), and they eventually died because they didn't do a very good job of recruiting. Formal Recruitment was extremely difficult, and I think it was because the Orientation Counselors bashed Greeks to their groups. On our campus, it's almost like you're pro-Greek or anti-Greek.

On that note, this is horrible that I have to put it this way, but I think people are like that because we go to a small Tech school. A lot of the kids were geeks in high school and have this whole bitter, twisted image of "popular" people. Now, being Greek is not a popularity contest. We take girls from several backgrounds (I even have a sister from Pakistan!). But they see us as a bunch of elitists so they're taking out many years of repressed anger on us. Now I had a really rough time during high school. I disliked the whole "popular" crowd too until I realized that no one really liked them, and therefore they weren't "popular". I guess these kids never realized that.

Those are the odds that we have to go against. Having only 8 girls go through FR scared the crap out of me. I mean, I had a new member class of 12, and the semester after that, 8 girls. We had never been very good at COBing, but we had to be this semester. We ended up with 7 girls, but it was still scary. A lot of people on this campus let Greek stereotypes go to their head, when we've proven to be anything but the stereotype. It's just scary for us because we don't want the same thing that happened to Zeta Chi happen to us.

a CA in CA · #11 12-06-2002, 08:46 PM

Astro, you crack me up with the repression thing! But honestly, I wonder if the women at Colorado School of Mines have the same problem. They're certainly another engineering campus, maybe they've got some ideas for beating the stereotype (help Laura...I know you're lurking out there!)

I'll tell you though, chapters that have to COB and still never make total, also seem to think that they aren't good at COB when in reality they know how to recruit but they just don't know who to go after since they so desperately want and need to bring in new members. I'm going to PM you a suggestion....

bruinaphi · #12 12-06-2002, 10:05 PM

Hi ladies,

When I made the comment about Panhellenic not being all that healthy I was talking about the constant fighting b/w the two women's groups on campus and the fact that only 8 women went through recruitment this year. When you only get 8 women to sign up for formal recruitment it usually isn't a great time to expand (it can kill the other groups on campus).

Mines doesn't have issues like those set forth below that I've heard of -- their bigger issue, like RPI (aphigal can talk about this at length) and MIT is that there simply are not as many women at tech schools. Many times the only way to break barriers like these is to have every woman in the chapter be involved in one club on campus where they reach out to the other communities and make an effort to get to know people outside the greek system. By reaching out to those communities we help eradicate the negative stereotypes. It takes time though and effort on the part of our members to change these things.

You also said something about a new President at the school. If the new PResident is willing to help Panhellenic reach out to potential students it could help you a lot too. I've seen several University Presidents write letters to new students and unaffiliated returning students that praise the efforts of the greek system and the experiences of the members at their University. Is this new person someone Panhellenic could approach?

Just my $.02 for a Friday evening.

LD

bruinaphi · #13 12-06-2002, 10:06 PM

P.S.: I am SO not a lurker!

astroAPhi · #14 12-07-2002, 02:33 PM

Ah, I gotcha. I thought you meant that there was something about the way our Panhellenic is set up or rules that we had that made it bad for expansion.

Like I said, I'm hoping that a third option will increase recruitment overall, especially amongst upperclassmen. Girls won't have to feel like they have to choose one over the other, they'll feel like they have more of a choice. And it is hard to make that choice during Formal Recruitment. I was going to join the other sorority until Pref Night, because I realized I clicked better with the Alpha Phis. Some girls aren't even sure where they fit in.

But of course, you are right, the way things are could kill off a group. It's happened once on this campus, and I think both nationals are nervous about that. I'm hoping for the best.