Mixed campuses (nat'ls and locals)

[lbk_kpd]

I know that many campuses are home exclusively to national organizations, and conversely know of several campuses that only have local organizations; however, I know there are also many colleges (like my own) that offer bother types of organizations to PNMs.

Anyone here who is on a "mixed" campus where they recruit formally along side national organizations:

-Do you see your organization as at a disadvantage compared to national GLOs?
-Do you find that many PNMs write off your organization immediately when they hear you are local, in favor of a national org?
-If you are in a community where the national organizations are much larger membership-wise than the locals and therefore take larger NM classes, how do you overcome that obstacle during recruitment?

Basically, even though my campus is almost completely evenly divided between the number of nationals and locals, the nationals are significantly larger than the locals, and take significantly more NMs; many PNMs only consider the national GLOs during recruitment (we have minimally structured recruitment here, so they can basically go see whomever they like each night) and so we never even see many of the girls that we would like to consider for our organizations. Does anyone have similar experiences on their campus? How did you deal with these challenges?

Feel free to PM me if you would prefer

[SigmaPsi_Star]

I am a member of the only local sorority on a nationally dominated campus, and we do formal recruitment in exactly the same way as the nationals here do.

Do I see my organization as at a disadvantage when compared to the nationals? Yes and no. As far as recruitment goes, there are some girls who simply can't wrap their brains around the concept of a local sorority, they're looking for nationwide connections and assume that a local can't give you connections. Or, they've heard that locals can get away with hazing and are concerned about that. And then there are girls who do totally understand the idea of a local sorority, but really love the idea of having sisters on many different campuses across the country. So, I can imagine we loose a couple to those thoughts, however I don't feel that we're significantly disadvantaged, or that being a national would change our numbers any. We have around 40 active sisters currently, which is only 10 less than cap (which is, obviously, 50) and while some of the nationals do have more than cap, we're happy being slightly smaller.

As I've already said, some PNMs do write it off simply because it is a local, but the only things you can even potentially do about that is hope that they ask you about the differences, or give you an oppertunity to tell them about what's good about being in a local or to change their ideas about locals.

During formal recruitment, the national GLOs do tend to take larger groups, but they also very rarely do informal recruitment like we do. A fairly large number of girls in my chapter are the type that never expected to join a sorority, and that nobody ever expected to join. One of my sisters didn't even realize she was being rushed when we were doing informal. We always say that we're better at informal because it's a less structured and for lack of better wording, less fake, environment. We've found that it's much easier for us to bring in girls through informal because it doesn't make people quite as nervous (on both ends) and it lets girls who may not have thought about greek life see what sorority women are really like.

I'm not entirely sure exactly how your rules work, but I would suggest making friends with some freshmen women before recruitment (try making a "freshmen friends" book, where every sister has a page that they can write down the names of freshmen that they're friends with and can list all the sisters that that girl has met so far). Be visible on campus, wear your letters (we, as far as I've noticed, wear our letters more often than anyone else, and it makes it easier for girls to remember you when they've seen your letters a lot). If you meet a freshmen girl in a club or a class or something and you hit it off, invite her to hang out with you and one or two of your sisters who happen to be going out for coffee or to get some food or something like that (so long as that's withing what you're allowed to do).

It can be hard, but sometimes if you just look at it a little bit differently, everything works out.

PM me if you need anything else.

[Serena_TPhiB]

Hey! Just wanted to say what's up as you are on my campus! My name is Jen, and I just crossed into being a sister of Theta Phi Beta!

This is a great topic, and I have often wondered if maybe local sororities and nationals should have seperate rushes on our campus. But then again, a lot of people pledge locals who originally wanted nationals but then fell in love with a local. We do out number them here.

Anyway, just wanted to say what's up, I know a few girls in your sorority and they are all just so cool. Message me if you want to chat about this or anything!

[SigmaPezY60]

NJ Tech is only 25% girls, so Formal recruitment isn't exactly formal in the traditional sense. The average number of women that join a sorority each semester at NJIT is between 3-6. The average number of active members ranges between 10-20 members each year. We don't operate with quotas or caps. Because of this, Formal recruitment in it's traditional form would be a waste of the organizations' time.

This is how it works: The first week of the semester was considered "open days/open nights" and meant that sororities could hold events whenever they wanted during the days or nights but the events had to be scheduled with the IFSC recruitment chairperson. So in theorey, each organization could have events everyday.

Week 2: "scheduled days/open nights" events would be scheduled during club hours or during the day in 1 hour time slots. no other organization could hold an event during another organization's time. The nights were open.

Week 3: "scheduled nights/open days" same as above. the events would start at 9pm and could last until 10 or 11.

So basically each organization got 2 scheduled events, but also the chance to have other events. It was like Formal and COB all in one. Every potential member had the opportunity to to get to know each organization and make an informed decision. I liked it that way, but I would have liked to see the "formal" or scheduled aspect to be more structured. Perhaps 2 nights of 30 minute parties.

The recruitment director for the council is supposed to disaffiliate, but i'm not sure I ever saw that rule enforced....ever. It was never something any of the sororities saw as an issue. The recruitment director mostly was in charge of making sure events were scheduled and rules were being followed.

The only organizations that didn't participate were those that chose not to and their numbers were lower than 10 members, they struggled to meet Greek Council requirements. I think last year the school made it policy that organizations with less than 10 members by the end of this coming year would no longer be recognized.

anyways....i wanted to share how NJ Tech does rush.

[reverie]

We have a local sorority that really pushes how they are unique and don't have the same limitations as national organizations so they're doing pretty well.

Of course there are still girls who prefer national sororities, but I don't think you can ever completely erase that mentality since that's usually what people think of when they think of sororities. For me, I had friends in other chapters that really enjoyed their Theta experiences and knew I would too, so that definitely swayed my decision.

[sgfgsu]

My campus has seven local sororities and three national sororities. Everything was pretty even until the national sororities broke away from the Inter-Sorority Council and formed a Panhellenic Council (which they should have had all along, according to their national headquarters, apparently...it wasn't an attack on the locals, which is what some locals see it as).
The nationals definitely play up their benefits and have a lot more unity. As locals, maybe because there are so many of us, we aren't really united AND a lot of the organizations/sisters dislike the national sororities. It's really difficult.
The locals were invited to join the NPC, which I think would have been a great idea --- starting a recruitment process instead of just "rush" and so forth...but it was voted down,because there are so many restrictions.

I think the national sororities on my campus definitely have the advantage.

[Glitter650]

Originally Posted by sgfgsu

My campus has seven local sororities and three national sororities. Everything was pretty even until the national sororities broke away from the Inter-Sorority Council and formed a Panhellenic Council (which they should have had all along, according to their national headquarters, apparently...it wasn't an attack on the locals, which is what some locals see it as).
The nationals definitely play up their benefits and have a lot more unity. As locals, maybe because there are so many of us, we aren't really united AND a lot of the organizations/sisters dislike the national sororities. It's really difficult.
The locals were invited to join the NPC, which I think would have been a great idea --- starting a recruitment process instead of just "rush" and so forth...but it was voted down,because there are so many restrictions.

I think the national sororities on my campus definitely have the advantage.

My campus is actually a majority Local organizations by pure # of chapters (about 8 social locals and 5 co-ed, educational focus greek orgs) there are only 3 NPC orgs, plus all the D-9 orgs. There are more chapters of locals, but the national orgs. (npc and D-9) have more members per chapter. I think it's because of a lack of unity, and a saturation of the market really (there's only a certain amount of people who WANT to go greek in the first place, when you have 8 local "multi cultural, social sororities" there's going to be a point when you really just don't need anymore orgs. like that, and if you aren't working together to up the percentage of people going greek in general, then each chapter is going to remain small.

[PiRhoPres]

My school is mostly nationals. The office of frat. and sor. affairs makes things pretty hard on the locals. They won't let you register if your not national and on their webpage they wrote these organizations are NOT recognized by us then listed all the locals. As far as I know though they won't even let any more nationals in because my one friend tried to expand hers when she transferred here. When we volunteered for dance marathon at our school under our sorority and they sent out the list of volunteers and organizations they were with they wouldn't list ours. I think it might be because there was a local a few years ago that did some pretty bad stuff, and gave the rest of us a bad name. There is only two social locals here that I know of other then us one is a frat the other a sorority and they pretty much have the were not recognized by the university so we can do whatever the hell we want attitude. I see where they're coming from, since the school frustrates you to that point but it makes the school think we're all just about getting trashed. Right now we are taking baby steps toward getting official through the activities dept. That was a real fun time of us pretty much having to kiss ass, and act like we were something we weren't. I think we might have a good chance of being recognized by the school soon. Knock on wood. I have nothing agaisnt the nationals but I think its appaling that OFSA doesn't allow people to choice between national and local if they want to go greek. I think people come to college with the idea of the nationals in their head and with out the image of what locals are all about they think that's all greek life is. It's sad for some one who wants to be in a Greek Organization, but doesn't fit that prototype. With locals theirs usually something for everyone.

[OmegaPDPrez]

Here at my school there are no other local organizations ( i dont see any other letters) and i belive it is because this univ. does not allow the registration of local groups... All there is to choose from is nat'l. While i love all greek life, i agree with Pi Rho- that people should have the choice to go local too! Here not many people like the nat'l groups we have(sorority wise, im not sure about the fraternities) which is one of the reasons why i like OPD..... Pi Rho..im going to PM you about how you registered on your campus as we are going through the same 'ish here for registration...

[GC2theEC]

My sorority is the only local organization on campus. I was in the most recent pledge class to go through and I have to admit that I was turned off to a local at first because a. I researched all the groups before hand and couldn't find a lot of information on mine. and b. Gamma Chi traditionally keeps itself smaller. Being naive I associated quantity with quality.

A lot of girls went to the national because they just wanted the letters. There are girls that want to get by doing nothing and girls who don't even recognize their sisters. Meanwhile I was shown how crucial sisters are to a local sorority. We're involved in NPC, do a ton of events around campus, and even though it's small it's packed with strong personalities and leaders from around campus.

So, I wouldn't even look at it as an issue of competing with nationals because real quality girls won't be in it just to get "the name."

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by GC2theEC

Meanwhile I was shown how crucial sisters are to a local sorority.

Sisters are crucial to NPC sororities also. Just putting that out there. I'd hate for this to turn into a "national sorority bashing" thread.

[GC2theEC]

Sorry, I didn't word that well. I was referring to sister input as far as the self-governing aspect goes.

[I_Heart_Sigma]

We are the only local at our school and it wasn't until we started trying to go National that I even considered if we were competing with the natls. We pull from a completely different group than the Nationals do. Only about three or four of our girls went through formal recruitment. We offer a different sort of experience through recruitment, and through the sisterhood. Not better, just different. Part of that being that we're Jewish, and though about half of our members are not Jewish, we embrace the morals and holidays as a group which changes things a lot. When we approached our school's PHC about expansion though, we were told that there are a lot of Jewish Girls in the greek system already, and that we shouldn't be in the place to compete with the other sororities that have brought in Jewish girls.