I've been lurking around and reading on GC for about six months now and this is my first post.
I'm sure there's probably already been a thread like this, but no one has posted here in a couple of days and I think we should get some discussion going!
I don't know if it's just me, but lately I have been reading a lot of posts that seem to have a negative attitude towards local GLOs.
I am a member of a local sorority that has been at my university for over 100 years. We may not be the biggest or the most popular chapter on campus, but we have a strong, close-knit sisterhood that I wouldn't trade for anything. We participate as equals in the campus Greek events and councils (In fact, two of my sisters currently hold offices on the Panhel exec board). We have a house, albeit not as nice as some of the other sororities, but it's set up so that we all have single rooms (it can hold about 25 sisters; it looks more like dorm than a house), which in my opinion is much more comfortable than some of the other groups that have nice houses but have 4 or 5 people per room (after a bad freshman roommate experience, I don't know if I would be able to stand it ). Some members of the Greek community don't even realize that we aren't a national organization (although, I can't see how they wouldn't be able to see that, we use it a lot to distinguish ourselves from the other sororities in formal rush and Greek Week especially).
One of the coolest things that I think comes from being a local and from being on our campus for so long is our history. We have the orginal pictures and documents of our founders, their scrapbooks and banquet programs, and other misc. items. We also have a lot of atifacts from the other local sororities that either folded or chose to affiliate with national organizations. It's also neat that a lot of the buildings that our founders and early members used for their meetings and ceremonies still stand on our campus so we can kind of imagine what their lives and school experiences were like.
So, anyways, this has turned into a lot longer post than I intended it to be. I'm hoping to get some discussion started, so here are some questions to think about.
1) What makes you most proud to be in a local GLO?
2) What do you see as advantages (or even disadvantages) to being a local?
3) Is your organization a member of your campus' Panhel/IFC and if so, do you participate in campus wide Greek events (Greek Week, Formal Rush, etc.)?
4) This sort of goes with question 3, but what do you see as the biggest problems facing your chapter?
Thanks for taking the time to read this, if you've made it this far, and I look forward to reading your responses.
Havilah