New to the site - looking to start a local and need help!

[Gusteau]

I'm sorry to hear about your disappointment. I ignored this thread originally because I thought it would be a train wreck based on the title, and then read the whole thing in the last two days once I saw what it was really about. From one incredibly obstinate child to another, good luck!

[OPhiAGinger]

You need to speak to the university president directly rather than through one of his employees. You have no idea how your case was presented.

Call his administrative assistant and ask for a 20 minute meeting with the president. Keep calling until you get your appointment. ("Just checking to see if anything opened up today on his calendar for the rest of the week.") Be courteous, be articulate, and be professional. But be persistent. Call every day, and drop by between classes. What do you have to lose? And always remember, YOU ARE ONE OF HIS CONSTITUENTS!! If not for the student body, he wouldn't have a job!

[xxstardust]

Hey guys Sorry I've been non-existent and haven't replied in a while .. between finals, end of the semester and insanity and getting sick AGAIN I haven't had a lot of free time lately.

Psi U - we do have a petition that was submitted when we gave a presentation. It had about 165 students on it, which is roughly 10% of our undergraduate population. Getting in touch with local groups is definitely a good idea - we have a lot of friends in an NIC at a school nearby and we were also offer a lot of help and support from people we met at our Meet the Greeks - which was AWESOME, by the way. We had almost 100 students show up, which is impressive for the Monday before Thanksgiving break! I met SO many people who were a lot of fun and thought what we were doing was awesome. I even met a woman who's a theo student at my school who was just initiated into a grad chapter!

We've been pursuing a meeting with the president and have summarily gotten ignored thus far. However, we have a rep from the student government who's interested in sponsoring us for the SGA and trying to get the SGA to support our proposal (which should be interesting, since our SGA has a ... fragile reputation on campus as it is), and come the New Year we will be continuing to call, stop in, etc and request a meeting. It's just not good manners to harrass anyone over the holidays and I don't want to give a negative impression to anyone, but I will be right back up here smiling and refusing to take no for an answer come January 2!

Our school newspaper did a piece on the issue - and understandably, the campus is pretty divided on this issue. Surprisingly, though, the people who seem most against the idea are either on the cusp of graduating or are alumni who no longer attend the school at all. I think people are just very resistant to change, which disheartens me. I heard a girl at an academic department part say to her friends something along the lines of "Did you see the paper? I hate Greeks, I came here because they don't have them! All they do is drink .. don't we have enough a*ssholes here already?" Made ironic by the beer in her hand (yes, we have alcohol at department events, lol), of course, and so closeminded in my eyes. I've never understood that viewpoint of going somewhere because of what they don't have. I chose my school for what it DOES have - small classes, amazing professors and a good reputation & graduate program. Why would you choose for what they don't have? No one forces you to participate in anything you don't want to, and in our campus climate there is no one group that dominates the social scene at all. I truly couldn't see Greek life somehow completely altering the campus atmospere and pushing out every uninterested student.

Of course, there are also a lot of people here who think we should get rid of athletics entirely as well .. so for all we're "liberal" we're kind of closed off to new ideas that don't mesh with our own.

Sorry for the rant .. but again, I'm not giving up at all. I'm going to keep working on this until we are at least given the courtesy of a hearing. We pay tuition, we're told to pursue the activities and communities we want to see on campus, and then are told no when we attempt it? Sorry, that's not acceptable to me, and until I get a more logical and well-reasoned answer you're going to continue to get phone call and personal visits from me! Hopefully the SGA will be willing to work with us (and I'm optimistic - while they may not all be interested personally, in general they've always been very receptive to supporting the need for administration to listen to student proposals).

[xomanadaxo]

Originally Posted by xxstardust

I'm not giving up at all. I'm going to keep working on this until we are at least given the courtesy of a hearing. We pay tuition, we're told to pursue the activities and communities we want to see on campus, and then are told no when we attempt it? Sorry, that's not acceptable to me, and until I get a more logical and well-reasoned answer you're going to continue to get phone call and personal visits from me! Hopefully the SGA will be willing to work with us (and I'm optimistic - while they may not all be interested personally, in general they've always been very receptive to supporting the need for administration to listen to student proposals).

I've been following your story and have to say, I really admire how hard you've worked. That last paragraph of your post gave me goosebumps...you already seem to have the kind of commitment and determination that helped our founding Greek mothers (and fathers ) get GLOs started in the first place. Dedication to your letters (letters you don't even have yet!!) is part of what makes being part of a GLO so special. I know fighting the way you have been can be frustrating at times, but it sounds like your attitude and commitment to your cause have earned respect from quite a few people. Don't give up...If (the optimist in me wants to say "when," but I'd hate to jinx it !) you succeed, the result will be that much more satisfying because you'll know you fought for it. Keep up the hard work and the good spirits...best of luck!

[xxstardust]

Thank you, Manda It really made me smile to see that people don't think I'm nuts or fighting a lost cause.

I got the best Christmas gift EVER!!! We're getting a meeting with the President!! The Dean got in touch with us yesterday night and told us that the President is "quite willing" to meet with us! He's out of the office until mid-January, so we're going to schedule a meeting for the end of January. The spring semester started the last week of January, so hopefully we'll squeeze in right before it starts and we all deal with the hectic first few weeks of classes. She also told us that when they discussed it further that no formal proposal of the idea has ever been presented to the Board of Trustees, just that some of them had expressed to the President on a personal level that they were not interested in it. Which is encouraging, to me - it means that we have the ability to come in and demonstrate on a clean slate, as far as proposals go, and really dispel some of the misconceptions and instigate a constructive conversation about how to build a strong community on campus and how it can be a positive thing.

I'm so excited!! And really flattered - the Dean made a comment in the email that, regardless of the outcome of this project, she's "grateful to have us as students" and that we "express wonderfully the kind of students we want" - such amazing praise from her!

Oh, I'm so happy. We just want the chance to speak - to be given the opportunity to at least represent our idea before it's shot down. I'm glad the President was willing to change his mind and speak with us!

[RaggedyAnn]

That's wonderful! Congratulations and good luck.

[xomanadaxo]

That made my night!! Congrats and good luck!!

[xxstardust]

Hi guys! Just got home from my vacation (first ever trip to Orlando! woohoo!! I saw princesses, hehe ) to find out that we officially have a date and time for a meeting with our president! 1pm on January 26th, the 2nd day of classes. We have an hour time slot, which is plenty of time for discussion and questions.

I'm so nervous! It's kind of surreal to think that we're actually meeting with the president of the university about Greek life but totally amazing at the same time.

So I'll be spending all week re-reading my big ole binder of research while I pack up to go back to school so I know everything perfectly.

[OPhiAGinger]

I suspect that all of us feel the same, like we are your big sister or favorite aunt, cheering you on. I know I'm just so proud of you that I could burst!

I know you'll knock any preconceptions right out of that president's head when you meet with him next week, just like you did with the dean. Until then, rein in your student government friend so there are no distractions to the positive message you bring to the table.

[xxstardust]

Awh ... OphiA, you literally brought tears to my eyes. You guys have no idea how much your support and help means to me, and to the girls working with me on this - knowing that you're all behind us really does help us keep going even when things looks bad!

Our meeting is in an hour and a half!! Eeep! I'm SO NERVOUS! One of the Deans will also be coming to the meeting - he had an emergency judicial meeting the day of our first presentation, so it's nice that he'll be able to see the information first-hand now. One of the other Deans (who praised us so highly) was planning to come as well, but her flight home from Florida got delayed so she won't be back until tomorrow. I would have loved her support in the meeting, but I know we are still going to blow them away with our professionalism.

I'll be back tonight or tomorrow to keep everyone posted!

[Psi U MC Vito]

Good Luck Stadust, we are all pulling for you!!!

[ADPiTigergurl]

Good luck *fngers crossed*

[CougarGrad]

I just re-discovered this thread, and they're meeting the Prez in what, 15 minutes? It's karma, I tell ya.

Stardust, best of luck. You have a lot of us rooting for you. Kudos to all your hard work and determination!

[lovespink88]

I just skimmed through bits and pieces of this for the first time. Good luck! I'm excited to hear how it goes

[Senusret I]

Wow, they're meeting right now....