Hi, everyone!
I've been lurking around the site for a week or so and finally joined so that I could post, and possibly get feedback/advice from anyone who'd be kind enough to offer it! I apologize in advance for the length of the post, I'm sure it'll be a long story ...
I'm just starting my junior year (first day of classes is today, actually!
) at a very small, private liberal arts university in the NYC tri-state area. My school has very little by way of greek life. The only GLO we have on campus is Alpha Phi Omega, and while they're great and I'm friends with several members, it's just not what I was looking for and wasn't the best fit for me. I really want to be a part of the sisterhood that comes with being in a sorority, and while the APO members are active and do a lot of good service events, they don't do much by way of a social aspect or brotherhood, from what I've been told. Aside from APO, greek life is something that hasn't really been looked at positively at my school, though to my knowledge the university has no official policy on the matter.
There are three colleges all on the same street in my area, all within under 5 minutes of each other. One of these has an active greek system with several national fraternities and sororities. Something which has always been said at my school is that we were able to rush at our neighboring university, which was in line with what my best friend from home (who is an active member of an NPC sorority at her own school) had told me - that students whose schools had no greek life, or even didn't have a specific fraternity/sorority said student was looking to rush, were technically allowed to pledge outside of the university at which he/she is enrolled. So a friend of mine from school and I decided we were going to go through the recruitment process at the other school this year, as being members of a sorority was something we both were very interested in doing. (I know at this point you're probably wondering why we waited until our junior year - one, getting the bravery to go to a university where you know few if any people is hard, and two, my home university doesn't allow cars until junior year, and we wanted to wait until we knew we could get there on a consistent basis to be good, active PNMs/pledges/members.)
We were unfortunately told by the director of student life at the other university in town that we had been incorrectly informed and it was their policy to not allow students from either other college in town to participate in their GLOs. Which hurt to hear, because it's something we would both so dearly like to do, but we're hoping not to let it stop us!
The two of us have decided that we would like to pursue starting a local sorority on our own campus, if at all possible (and we also have hopes to push for affiliation with a national GLO, but let's not put the cart before the horse!
). We know it will definitely be an uphill battle, but we think that there's room on our campus for a women's group devoted to sisterhood, service and scholarship, as the only other women's group on campus currently is Womyn's Concerns, which is more focused on activism. We also think that there is interest on campus - if no one was interested in it, surely the rumor about going through formal recruitment at another school wouldn't exist and float around as frequently as it does now?
So we're putting out feelers to gauge the interest on campus, and starting to get our organization in order in respect to our university's policies for student organizations. The name we've chosen is Beta Gamma Theta, the open motto for which is Beginning Great Things - we felt that was fitting for a group of women beginning something so new and exciting for our school! I've googled it several times and haven't seen any other GLO with that name come up, but if I've somehow missed one please let me know. =]
Anyway, I just wanted to post my story in the hopes that you guys could provide some guidance, since you all are so much better established and can hopefully give us some insight from your own experiences. Are we foolish to even try? What can we do to make our organization, and our case, strong to present to our administration? Any help or ideas you have would be helpful - the two of us are truly passionate about this and want to succeed!
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