Quote:
Originally Posted by tallgreekalum
I didn't realize that locals were kicking around Austin. Are there a lot of them?
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As Elephant Walk just posted- this particular house was not a local just to confirm, but yes there are many underground and local houses here.
How many is difficult to say. For various reasons I have been keeping close watch on the real estate situation in West Campus lately and there are a lot of small homes owned by Greek Letter Organizations that I am not familiar with. And not all of them have letters advertised on the front door.
But whether these groups are chapters of national GLOs or not, the fact remains that they do not tend to be registered with the University. I know this because I have last semester's official Greek House map and IFC grade reports sitting on my desk right now.
For various and obvious reasons, there has been a rise in recent years of new GLOs which tend to cater to specific racial groups and have a national presence.
However, the newness of these groups and the approach they have taken with regards to operating in a semi-underground manner gives them something in common with local and underground GLOs- specifically that they do not have the history, alumni presence or formal responsibility to colleges and strong national offices that can set the proper tone for recruitment and risk management.
My research shows that this is where the real risk lies. Different chapters in different places have different boundaries as to what is acceptable or not acceptable, and we are never going to agree on that.
But it is my opinion that chapters without alumni presence and guidance (courtesy of advisors or having lots of legacies in the chapter) and that chapters who are not selective in their recruiting are the ones that have the most problems. And if you really think about it and drop the north/south and other prejudices- this makes perfect sense in ways that would take 20 pages to fully discuss and explain (though I can do it if anyone wants!)
To get back to my earlier comment, my frustration is that when these kinds of organizations have incidents- the media does not report that the chapters involved are underground, local, not registered with the University or are just a bunch of 10 random guys who decided to rent a house together and pick out 2 or 3 letters to name themselves.
All they see is Greek letters, and then a media story is born.
Just read the first 2 pages of this particular forum and consider each incident. Ask yourself if these stories would have made the news if the student(s) involved were not greek. Look at how many of the reported incidents happened away from the Greek house.
We of 100+ year history greek organizations who are formally registered with our colleges are being judged by isolated incidents that happen with students who have nothing in common with us other than they decided to call themselves something using greek letters.
That sucks.
But I could care less about what the general public thinks. What pisses me off is that so many of our own- even from within our own brotherhood at times- are so willing to pass judgement, on this forum at that, and not stop and think about what is really going on.
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