Anti NPC campus... need advice

[Glitter650]

OK, so here's the 411, back in the 60s my school kicked off all the greek organizations. They were not let back on until the 80s (we were actually the first sorority back on campus)
BUT the thing was that we had to agree that EVERY greek organization would have to belong to the Fraternity/Sorority council, which is supposed to be the governing board for ALL greeks.. local and national. This council would be the only recognized council on campus. NPC, NPHC, IFC, and all other national councils are not recognized at my school, which means, we can't get rooms to meet in, no chance for money, no getting a place in the union to hang CPC posters during rush, no free ads in the student paper, no offices for individual organizations...(all 30 greek organizations on campus are supposed to share the frat/soror council office for their needs)
I mean some of the problems that come with not being recognized aren't such a problem... but it makes it really hard to advertise when when Panhelenic isn't recognized... So any ideas you GCers can recommend we can advertise as Panhellenic would be welcome.

[MSSTCY1]

Are you allowed to flyer, or set up tables in the student union to advertise?

[Little E]

My school is odd but this is how one group did it.
We just re did our student government bylaws and groups that overlapped had to show cause for being seperate. (We have issuses of people not wanting to double fund the same organization...kinda makes sense.) So the community service orgs decided that the best thing for them to do was to become one organization, as did the Science Fiction people. So the seperate groups formed like sub committies is a word to explain it. So they (the sci fi, easier to explain) have video gaming, role playing, etc. and they exist as sub committies through the one organiztion. This is all set out in their club consitution so that means each group is in a sketchy way recognized by the school. Then you can advertise events from the NPC interest group of the Greek Council. or NPHC of Greek Council. I don't know what your admin would say...perhaps your nationals could help you fight for more space..?
I don't know if this helps, it is skirting the system and definatly shady but that is Beloit for ya.

[PSK480]

Glitter650: I need you to clarify something for me. Ok, is your chapter recognized through the greek council? I know at my school NIC and NPC aren't recognized as student organizaions b/c they are national councils. We have our own local ones that are recognized student orgs.
I hate to tell you this, but, most schools and student governments will only fund the council and not individual organizations. I know at my school individual chapters can not get senate funding b/c we have closed membership. We don't get office space, if we need an office we have to try to use the IFC office. The newspaper is right in not allowing free ads. I mean how do you think they make money? We have to pay for all of our ads, and so does anyone else who puts and ad in the newspaper. The only differences we have is that we can get rooms b/c we are a recognized student organization. That and we can hang up posters on certain bulletin boards. There must be community bulletin boards on campus where people post stuff on them, like roommate needed, car for sale, tutor, books, etc. They shouldn't be able to keep you from posting stuff on there. If this is a huge outcry by the orgs than all of you should contact your NHQ/IHQ and ask them if they could do anything to help you.

[ladyj39]

I am an alum from Glitter's school and Our individual chapters are recognized, and are also a part of the Fraternity Sorority Council (FSC) which is the governing body of all the orgs on campus. There is no official NPC or NIC recognition. There are three National sororities at SFSU, and we do meet once a week as Panhellenic, but we cannot reserve rooms under Panhell because it is not a recognized org.

When we sign up for Panhell meetings or rooms for Formal Recruitment, we have to sign up under one of our own organizations. This often is a problem during recruitment because if Alpha Phi reserves a room for Panhellenic, but we also need a room for our own rush party, we might not get the second room because we will have two reserved for the same night. We don't have houses, so we rely on campus meeting rooms.

I don't know how the relations among Greeks are now at SFSU, but when I was active, the President of FSC was a member of a local sorority and VERY biased and mean spirited. It was hard to be part of FSC because the NPC orgs did not have a voice. There were three of us and about six or seven local sororities) In addition to that, there are only two National fraternities and about five locals. National orgs are outnumbered! An example of this was at one FSC meeting, it just so happened that the reps for AGD, Alpha Phi, and Phi Sig were sitting next to each other. The AGD rep made a motion and the President identified her as an Alpha Phi. When the AGD tried to clarify for the record, the President said out loud, "Oh, it doesn't matter. You Nationals are all the same anyway." It was so frustrating!!! I know this person graduated, but she still works at the University in the Student Life office. There is such a huge bias against National organizatons, at least with the sororities. It doesn't help that our school is a commuter campus and anti-greek in general.

Glitter- The bookstore used to offer organizations a $50 gift certificate every semster. I don't know if they still do this. All you had to do in the past was fill out an application and you could use it towards nametages, markers, poster board, anything the store sells. It was great, but it wasn't really advertised. You could check into that. Also talk to AS because they did something similar to that too. Good luck!

I know greeklawgirl and Pikapp142 might have some input too..

[Little E]

Wow! Good Luck!
Skirting loopholes won't work for ya...
Call National and NPC/IFC see if they can help you at all. Why would a school prefer locals...? It seems National orgs have more support networks and have people overseeing them (at least from what I get from here and my campus.) Good Luck!

[Blue Violet]

Because NPC states that if there is more than one on ay campus you must have a NPC and all NPC groups must belong to it. I do not know why you can't have co-existing groups> Why can't you be NPC and under the umbrella of the Frat/Soror Council at your school. Weird? You'd think if they didn't like nationals, they'd really want an NPC. NPC is how you make sure everyone is following the rules, rushing correclty, setting wuota etc etc. Whew! Sounds like a mess. Good luck!

[ladyj39]

Blue Violet:
It can be a mess, but we do have NPC "unofficially". Like I said, the three groups still meet once a week, have a NPC advisor, and follow NPC Recruitment rules and the Green Book, but NPC is not recogized by SFSU. It is really weird, but it's been that way since National sororities came back to campus. Before I rushed, a local was part of our NPC, but left after a few years because they didn't like our structured recruitment.

Little E:
SFSU is so anti-Greek, that it doesn't seem like they want a more structured group such as NPC on campus. They want Greeks to be hidden in the background. Less than 1% of our school is Greek!

[Pi Kapp 142]

We are actually about 1.5-2 percent Greek now.

[greeklawgirl]

Originally posted by Little E
So the seperate groups formed like sub committies is a word to explain it. So they (the sci fi, easier to explain) have video gaming, role playing, etc. and they exist as sub committies through the one organiztion. This is all set out in their club consitution so that means each group is in a sketchy way recognized by the school.

During my tenure as Panhellenic President, my main goal was to work with the FSC President to do exactly what you're talking about: get Panhellenic quasi-recognized as a committee of FSC. Although we had the support of the FSC President, the administration shot the idea down. It was extremely frustrating--ladyj39 has it exactly right when she says that there is a huge bias against national organizations.

The only thing that I can think of to advertise Panhellenic is to ask each of the individual sororities to include the names of all the NPCs on campus when you advertise (i.e, posters in the Student Union, ads in the paper). Make sure the recruitment posters have all the same dates, and that the contact person is your Panhellenic Delegate (who will sneakily steer everyone to the Panhellenic Council). Just don't use the word Panhellenic, NPC, or CPC in your advertising.

Another idea...I know that Alpha Gam and Alpha Phi chapters have websites. Let's get a Phi Sig website up, AND (this is crucial!) get a CPC website up. While the Panhellenic can't get an SFSU website because it isn't recognized, it CAN do a geocities website or something similar.It wouldn't cost much money--only time. Make sure that all the chapter's websites have prominent links to the CPC website. All the formal rush information can be there. (Just to CYA, make sure that the CPC website has a disclaimer saying that it is not a recognized organization at SF State.) The internet is a great advertising tool, and I think its a great way to get around not being able to advertise on campus.

Hope this helps somewhat.

[Little E]

wow, i thought it was bad here...
how hard is it to get a new club approved? If it isn't too hard could you do a club that is a front for NPC so at least you can have an easier time reserving rooms?
Isn't there anything that NPC or the nat'l orgs can do? it seems so strange they aren't willing to put some voices in. We all seem to talk about how they are our support networks but isn't this what they are around to do? I'm baffled. I can't believe that even quasi legit methods won't work... but then we seem to be in a different realm anyhow! Good Luck! Maybe you can start some kind of support campaign, step up the philanthropy, and prominence, and get out how useful NPC could be by clairfying its benefits, bring some speakers to campus. etc.
Good Luck though!

[Tom Earp]

Ah, yes, get web sites hooked into you National Web Site and other Schools as links!

Wear Letters when possible maybe not On Campus! Get PR from Chaity Events! Work with other IFC, NPC, NHPC, and any MultiCultural Groups!

You Must Show A United Front, build membership among Greeks. The Higher the %, The more that the Scholl Will have to take Notice!

Become an important part of Your campus!

I hear of money on G C, but My School never has given money to Greek Orgs. We do it on our own! Period! So try to do it on your and all of the other Greeks on campus working together!

Just my thoughts late at night!

Goodest Of Luck!

[Glitter650]

yeah I don't understand why the other councils can't be recognized either while still having the frat/soror council, because it really hasn't stopped us from following the rules and I happen to know that the NPHC orgs have council meetings as well... so they'd do better just to recognize them... You'd think the administration would WANT NPC and other councils because you have to follow rules RIGHT ?? They think that's what the Frat/ Soror council is for.. but it DOESN'T WORK... there is SUCH RAMPANT hazing in the local orgs. at my school and the council hasn't even gotten it together enough to plan greek week in I think 10 years or something like that, let alone deal with issues of hazing or how ot promote greek life on campus.
Actually Greeklawgirl my chapter does have a website... it's www.welcome.to/phisigmasigma we just have to update the link to it from the SFSU website, but having a whole website for our college panhellenic wouldn't be a bad idea... I don't know that we could have a link for it from the SFSU website... it might just have to be linked through our three orgs' websites.
I didn't mean to turn this into like a bash SFSU thread... it's just I've been very frustrated lately with the way it works at my school because I'm trying to bring the Order of Omega to campus and it's caused problems that Panhel isn't recognized. Another source of frustration is that we've we've been trying to get a panhellenic office, which isn't going well either. Our panhel. is also really trying to promote itself and had come up with some great ideas.. but it's proving impossible to do any of the things that we think would help improve greek life at campus because of the way it is run.

[Pi Kapp 142]

AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!! At least I am not the only one at SFSU who feels this way. Dude, I worked my ass off to get Greek week going, but nobody really wanted it so i stopped trying. Ugh. Order of Omega would definitely be sweet. Pm me Glitter.

[ladyj39]

Greek Week was always planned the last couple of years I was at SFSU, but no one really participated. They would organize events like scavenger hunts which the Nationals could not take part in due to our risk management.

Who is FSC President? Is he/she from a local? Even when we managed to have one of our sisters elected FSC President, no one listened to her.

Good luck you guys!