GaTech sororities blackball local sorority

[hoosier]

Vote leaves X§ÙT without national

By Tony Kluemper
News Editor
ATLANTA
January 24, 2003

By Chris Raabe / GA Tech STUDENT PUBLICATIONS

Chi Omega Tau sisters Alyssda Ribeiro and Ana Remy talk with rushee Mrinalini Radhakrishnan. Although the local sorority hoped to achieve national status, Panhellenic members voted not to pursue expansion.

After voting to pursue national status in November, the members of Chi Omega Tau found out on Tuesday night that they won't become a national sorority anytime soon. This decision came after the vote among official Panhellenic sororities ruled that expanding with another national chapter on campus would not be beneficial at this time.

Panhellenic advisor Danielle McDonald explained what steps had been taken since Chi Omega Tau had voted to proceed with the national process. "They approached Panhellenic [after they decided]," said McDonald. "Panhellenic then has a process where we put together exploratory packets that consists of all of our statistics for the past five years."

This packet consists of the recent rush statistics, information about the houses on campus, financial information for the sororities and any other pertinent information. In addition, Chi Omega Tau was asked to put together a packet of information about its local chapter. "We sent those packets out to all of the chapters that we have on campus and their national headquarters," said McDonald.

"Then we gave everyone about a month and a half to review the materials and make a decision before we have the panel vote."

When the panel, which is made up of a representative from each of the official Panhellenic sororities, voted on Tuesday night, there were not enough positive votes to reach the two-thirds majority. The official results could not yet be released.

Chi Omega Tau president Colleen Baum summed up her reaction to the decision in one word. "Disappointed," said Baum. "That is the one word to describe how we felt when we heard the decision. We knew that there was a chance that this could happen but we were trying to stay optimistic."

Baum had also talked to four of the six sororities to answer any questions. However the decision was not always left up to the individual sorority.

Although each sorority had one vote, the process that the individual sororities took in making the decision differed for each group.

"They all have different mechanisms and I couldn't tell you exactly how the process worked for each individual chapter," said McDonald. "Some of their nationals counselled the chapters on the decision while others decided within their own local chapters."

This is not the first time in recent history that a vote to expand nationally has been rejected by Panhellenic. In 2000, the issue was researched by the Panhellenic executive board due to increasing female attendance.

"It was an issue about two and a half years ago. That was before either the Greek Advisor Buck Cooke or I was here. At that point, I would say they didn't do the process in the best manner," said McDonald.

"I don't think they researched and formalized the process well enough before they started and I don't think the chapters had enough information to make a decision."

Now that Panhellenic has made the decision regarding Chi Omega Tau, there is no formalized process that they must follow to call for a vote again. McDonald feels that the feedback provided by the sororities regarding the recent vote will give some insight into the future for Chi Omega Tau.

"We don't have a formalized time frame. We wouldn't want to do it before we at least had another rush period," said McDonald. "Many decisions were probably based on recruitment numbers. So my guess is that they would at least want to wait at least one more recruitment."

McDonald also felt that sorority feedback would help make the decision. "Once we start getting that feedback then we will know more about where we go from there and what would need to happen to have another vote," said McDonald.

No matter what the feedback turns out to be, Baum said that Chi Omega Tau does not plan to give up. "We plan to meet with Kirsten Gibbs, the new Panhellenic president and Danielle McDonald to see what steps we can take," said Baum. "We'll also have to meet as a group to decide if we want to pursue going national in the near future or try to further improve our presence as a local chapter instead.

[33girl]

"Blackball" is hardly the word. They simply decided not to open the campus to another national sorority. It sounds like they put a lot of thought into the decision and didn't do this to be mean. The local group can still continue to operate and perhaps should look into becoming an associate member of Panhel.

[aopinthesky]

I agree with 33girl. It seems that the existing NPC groups took the time to make an informed decision and did not act out of haste or spite.

[PenguinTrax]

Blackball is too harsh a term and completely inappopropriate in this context. In wanting to attain membership in a National Panhellenic Conference group, a local must agree to follow the NPC expansion guidelines. It sounds like the local Panhellenic did just that. Just because a local group wants to affiliate with a national, it's not cut and dried simple. The campus must take all factors into consideration and it looks like they did. It's very rare for a local group to be considered for campus expansion the first time they apply to Panhellenic. The local group should perservere, join as an associate member and continue to grow. As the campus numbers go up, the need for expansion will become more evident and the issue can be put to a vote next year.

[dzrose93]

As someone who is familiar with Georgia Tech, I can say with a fair amount of confidence that there is no need for another NPC sorority on campus at this time. I would have voted "no" to the expansion as well. Women make up only 29% of the campus right now and -- even though that's a definite increase from just a few years ago -- there simply isn't enough Greek interest to create a new NPC sorority there at this time. If memory serves, the NPC at Tech hasn't opened its doors to expansion since 1989 when Phi Mu was welcomed to campus.

(FYI - there are 2 local sororities on Tech's campus right now... the one mentioned in the article is already an associate member of Panhellenic. However, the group has only been on campus since April of 2001, so they are still in the early stages of growth.)

[Munchkin03]

That wasn't exactly a blackball. The school simply decided not to expand. Maybe next year...

[curlyagd]

I'm a member of Alpha Gamma Delta at Georgia Tech, and was on Executive Council before this vote took place in panhellenic, so I am pretty aware of the process that was taken on campus before the vote to look into expansion took place. Coyote (as they call themselves) is already an associate member of panhellenic council. Another non panhellenic sorority on our council is Lambda Alpha Theta. As someone else mentioned there is another local on campus, I believe called Lambda Nu, but I might be mistaken about that. They are not recognized by our panhellenic though. From talking to friends in other sororities, I know that each sorority was very careful in making their own individual decision about what to do about htis vote for extension. I know my sorority sought council from international, and discussed and voted on it during chapter. The main reasons I have heard around campus for why the vote didn't pass were 2 fold. First, as was said earlier, only 29% of our campus is female. Along with that, rush numbers have been declining the past several years. In addition to that, I know in the past four years, at least 1 house has failed to make quota during formal recruitment. It hasn't been the same house all four years, so it's not just the problem of a weak house, it's just a problem of not enough girls finishing rush. Until all the houses can make quota consistently, I personally do not see another national chapter coming onto campus. I've also posted the website of an article from our college newspaper from last semester. It was written after Coyote voted in their chapter whether to seek national affiliation or not. As you can see, their chapter was somewhat divided on that. If you guys have any other questions about this situation, or Coyote, fell free to pm me.
Loyally,
Kathleen

http://cyberbuzz.gatech.edu/main/cbj....edu/technique

[g41965]

The Sorority System is so much more closed than Fraternities. It hardly seems fair or right for your competitors to decide if you can nationalize( yes for all the "sisterhood" I see on Greekchat lets face it Greeks do compete with each other). It just seems like NPC is a self satisfied oligopoly on every campus I've seen. At UT-Austin there are 30+ fraternities and 14 sororities. I guess the NPC philosophy with regards to expansion is" pull up the ladder jack cause I'm already on board."

Maybe Men and Women are just different. But I just never saw it as my business as to whether another Fraternity wanted to come on campus.

[oceanphi01]

That is a totally inappropriate comment on sororities. As you obviously know nothing on the subject, I'm not surprised. There's a lot more that goes in to expansion than you seem to think. And just so you know (as I found out tonight), if panhellenicl had voted to expand, then all the other NPC chapters would not be able to recruit for themselves. They'd have to help the forming chapter. Maybe next time you should think before you actually act and find out more facts.

[33girl]

Geez, we don't tell guys which side to dress on, why do they think they should tell us how to run Panhel?

[g41965]

I do beg to differ with the last two responses.
I do know a little something about PanHellinic and Greeklife in general, my wife was on Pan Hellenic at Vanderbilt (ADPI), my mother and both her sisters were DG's at OU , my sister in law was a Kappa. My Grandfather was an SAE at Dartmouth in the 1920's.
I also have reviewed Bairds Man. closely and have reviewed the Center for The Study of The College Fratenity Sight, I was alum chairman and pledge trainer for my chapter. I was my chapters represenative at our national convention were we passed dry rush over heated opposition(1986) , I seriously thought about becoming a leadership consultant after college before going to law school. In law school I lived next to a former traveling rep for Delta Gamma (Alpha Psi Chapter) and visited with her a lot about Greek Life. My major ongoing interest in Greek Life is observing the small group dynamic and supporting students rights to govern their own affairs. Greek Life is a good way for 18-22 year olds to manage organizations and develop a lifelong habit of community involvment: community involvment/ joining and creating voluntary organizations is good for America(IE Masons, Churches, Elks etc ).
My basic point is most individual sororities are bigger than individual fraternities but overall many more men affiliate ( these figures may be old but I recall in the early 90's 400,000 + men on campus were active in fraternities while sororities sat at about 250,000( I do know Fraternities have declined some since then). But more men are still active.
Why?
Economic Theory postulates that allowing a competitor to decide on your entry to the marketplace will necessarily result in an anticompetative/oligopolistic marketplace with very high barriers to entry.
This is why the situation at Georgia Tech bothers me, people should have a darn good reason before saying we don't want more greeks on campus.
Sororities do many good things, frankly I will be more supportive of my two daughters going through rush than my son, But clearly more men affiliate with Fraternities than women with Sororities because barriers to entry are higher, IE Formal Rush, Recomendations etc, PanHel having more control over their member chapters through unanimous agreements on rush
In my opinion,and according to classical economic theory adding more national sororities at Georgia Tech would cause rush numbers to increase.
Ladies I mean no offense, just my two cents! Food for thought? If Greek Life is a plus, shouldn't the doors be opend as wide as possible so more people can participate for both men and women? If a local wants to come on board let em, if they fail, well at least they had a shot.

[MikeGT98]

curlyagd is correct on all her points. For the curious, some background information on NPC expansion efforts at Georgia Tech:

When this issue last came up, it was in (I believe) the fall of 2000 (I could be wrong about that, it's been a while.)

XYZ sorority closed down their chapter at another local school that semester, and began talks with Panhellenic about expansion to the Tech campus. It wasn't explicitly said at the time, but a lot of people felt (Tech's former Greek Advisor included) that this was simply a knee-jerk reaction by the sorority: basically, that they wanted to maintain an Atlanta presence as a jumping-off point to recolonize the recently closed chapter nearby. That's most likely heresey (so please take it with a large grain of salt), but the timing was definitely odd when the group approached the school. At the time, there was no local sorority formed; Tech had simply hosted a number of open formums where girls could come voice their opinions about bringing a new sorority to campus, and had decent turnouts. Surveys from unaffiliated girls also showed support for expansion.

Regardless of the group's intentions or the limited support from campus at the time, I attended the Panhellenic meeting where they voted on extending an invitation to this particular GLO to come to campus and recruit. It unanimously failed, and Panhellenic basically laid down an informal ground rule that expansion shouldn't take place until all houses on campus made quota three years in a row. I highly doubt this is in writing anywhere, but the general feeling is that our campus is such a hostile environment to a new sorority, that this kind of attitude and stringent regulation is warranted to see if the campus truly needs another sorority.

Hope that sheds a little more light on the situation for all who are curious.

BTW, I am indeed a Tech student.. if anyone has questions about the Chi Phi situation that was also recently posted about here (regarding Chi Phi and Tech reaching an agreement about their suspension), please feel free to PM me. I am a former IFC Judicial Board member (but did not hear the case), but have read the case file in detail, so I am more familiar with the case than just what our school newspaper prints.