Recolonizing a chapter
 

Hi I wanted to recolonize a chapter at my school. They were initially banned for hazing and is currently inactive for about 2 years.

How long will this take and what is this process going to be like?

Are you looking to recolonize NPC, IFC, NPHC, NALFO, or some other council? It varies wildly depending on the answer.

I was looking into a NPC sorority

Generally, the process for recolonizing an NPC sorority is out of an individual student's hands. The national sorority may have an agreement with the school to return at a certain time after all former members have graduated, or the school may not want that sorority back on campus and will look for other extension options instead. If your school is not open for sorority expansion or not considering it, it's unlike that any recolonization will occur. You can contact your school's office of Greek Life and ask if the sorority is planning on coming back any time soon.

I'd also ask why you want this specific chapter to come back. Are there other sororities still around that you've looked at? If you're hoping to get XYZ restarted and go back to their old reputation, whatever that was, it's not going to happen. Recolonizing an NPC sorority is such a large undertaking that I'd recommend considering already-established groups instead.

I feel like out of all the established NPC sorority chapters at my school does not exactly fit my philosophy and philanthropic beliefs. So I should speak to my school's Greek office?

Yes, they'd be the best place to go for information, but again I want to caution you that for the most part NPC sorority expansion is driven by the schools and the national sororities, not the students. Also keep in mind that just because you feel the groups don't meet your philanthropic beliefs doesn't mean that you have enough girls to start an interest group or a new chapter on your campus. It just means you don't feel like you've found your home, and there might not be enough other girls who also feel this way.

Thanks for the awesome answers! Do you know how long this process will take? And how exactly are new members recruited? I'm going to be a junior next semester, but I have about 40-50 girls who are interested in joining.

How long it takes depends on the group and other factors. If your school isn't interested in expansion, it won't happen at all. If they are then it will take at least a semester to announce that they're open for expansion and have an interest group that wishes to be colonized, receive interest packets, select group(s) to present, have these groups present, pick a new group, have that group come on and colonize, and then be installed as an official colony and then chapter. I'm not trying to scare you out of going for this if it's something you're truly passionate about, but I want you to know that it could not happen at all or take a very long time. I know of colony members on GC who graduated before their colony was installed as a chapter and had to come back to be initiated.

As for how sororities pick members, that differs too. Some groups won't consider interest groups at all, or the interest group might be absorbed wholesale, or a colonization team will interview girls inside and outside the interest group and hand-pick them.

If I were you I'd start by asking someone within your school's Office of Greek Life how they feel about an interest group being absorbed by a sorority and proceed from there. If they're against the idea it's not happening, but if they're not you've got a shot.

Also know that I am not the end-all, be-all for information about this. There could be other factors I don't know about that influence your chances, and anyone else on GC can feel free to swoop in and correct me if I'm putting my foot in my mouth:)

gogreekorwhat, please read the information here from the NPC website, about extension.

There ARE times when a sorority is invited to recolonize without opening up for the full expansion process. However, for that to be true it likely would have been negotiated at the time the chapter was closed. That may or may not be information that is available for public consumption.

Another thing to be aware of is closing due to hazing is not the same as closing due to low numbers. If the school has a reputation of being problematic with hazing, the sorority in question may not want to touch that school with a 10 foot pole. If the offending chapter only closed 2 years ago I would not look for resolution any time soon. Like at least 2 more years and likely longer than that.

Based on your enthusiastic responses, I have the feeling you think you can make this happen. I would counsel you to find a way to fit in with the existing chapters. It really is the only realistic way for you to end up in a sorority.

This rubs me the wrong way. You're a junior who is just now wanting to go Greek, yet you've already decided none of the sororities on campus meet your standards.

If someone on my campus decided to petition panhellenic for expansion based on not liking the current sororities, I'd vote no, every time.

It's one thing to petition for expansion if your active chapters are bursting at the seams, it's another when you petition because you don't like the current sorority choices.

Two comments.
1) If the group was kicked off two years ago for hazing, then there may still be sisters of the NPC sorority on campus, which is likely to make the NPC sorority *less* likely to want to come back on campus. (repeating more or less what clemsongirl said)

2) Of all of the councils, NPC is the *least* likely to support someone who specifically wants to bring organization XYZ onto campus. (Other end of the scale is *probably* PFA)

There have also been times where a "bait and switch" happens and even if an interest group does the legwork of getting an NPC interested, -none of the girls actually end up in the sorority.

Unless pledge class sizes have gone up stratospherically since this chapter's closure, I don't think this group is going to come back to campus just 2 years after a hazing-induced closure.

Just to clarify, is this code for "I want to join a Jewish sorority"?