Photo by Evan Dixon
As Texas Tech’s enrollment continues to grow towards it’s institutional goal of 40,000 students by the year 2020, an exploratory committee has presented a proposal for a new sorority to eventually join Greek life on campus, according to a delegate on the Texas Tech Panhellenic Council.
Carolyn Simpson, chapter adviser for Texas Tech’s Kappa Kappa Gamma and a member of the exploratory committee, said the addition of a new sorority to the Tech community is long overdue.
“With the growth of the university, and the expected growth of the university in the next several years, our community needs to grow also because we definitely have the numbers out there for another group,” Simpson said in a phone interview. “And, we are all very, um, very, very, very interested in growing the group.”
Photo by Evan Dixon
Elisa Taylor, a delegate for Alpha Phi on Panhellenic, said she is in favor of adding a new sorority.
“I know that we started an exploratory committee,” Taylor said. “Delegates from each of the 11 chapters on campus, along with their advisers, have been meeting for the past couple weeks. They’ve just been looking at statistics, about who’s enrolling in recruitment, how many girls are going through, how many women are being placed within houses, and just the growth of each chapter on campus, to really see if it’s feasible for another sorority chapter to join at Texas Tech.”
According to the Texas Tech Panhellenic Council, there are 11 chapters on campus, with over 2,300 women involved in Panhellenic chapters, totaling nearly a fifth of all women on campus. There’s an average of 216 women in each chapter, which Taylor said can be a daunting number to manage for executives of the sororities.
“I think it’s definitely hard sometimes to manage over 200 girls we have in our chapter,” Taylor said. “and I know other chapters feel the same way, that we just have a large increase. It’s difficult at times to manage so many girls, so obviously we’re all for having an extension and welcoming more women into the groups on Texas Tech’s campus.”
Last year’s Panhellenic recruitment director, Kathryn Kallina, said she thinks this is the perfect time to colonize a new chapter. Most of the sorority houses, she said, are not meant for how many girls are currently meeting in those buildings.
Harriette Baker, the fraternity and sorority life coordinator at Tech, said the extension proposal is a proactive step to accomodate an anticipated increase in Greek growth and interest due to a growing undergraduate population, but the addition does not guarantee any changes in current chapter sizes.
Baker said the current Tech sororities are at capacity and are experiencing growing pains.
Darby Sullivan, a member of Panhellenic’s exploratory committee and member of Kappa Alpha Theta, said that three sororities which were formerly organized at Tech could be considered for the spot, but they will be keeping their options wide open. A new sorority has not been added since Kappa Delta 27 years ago, and the proposal for one has been voted down for the last 12 years.
Baker said Gamma Phi Beta, Sigma Kappa and Phi Mu used to have chapters at Tech, but Tech faced a lack of Greek interest in the 1980s and sororities struggled with membership.
Simpson, a member of the exploratory committee, said serious consideration will be given to all of the national chapters that apply during the expansion.
“I think the field is wide open,” Simpson said. “I know there have been some inquiries from groups to campus, but you know we’ll see if they apply and send their materials, and we’ll move from there.”
Photo by Evan Dixon
But, Baker said the National Panhellenic Council does allow Tech’s selection committee to give some special consideration to the three chapters that have previously had colonies at Tech.
“Our umbrella organization does indicate that you do consider organizations that have previously been on your campus,” Baker said. “So it’s absolutely a factor, but there are also many other factors to be considered.”
The exploratory committee, which has met over the last two months, led the first step of the process after reviewing data regarding Tech’s growth and whether an extension will work for Tech.
According to the extension presentation, the committee recommended extension after data collected showed 292 interested female students are currently unable to join existing sororities on campus. Panhellenic saw a record-breaking 981 women sign up for recruitment last fall, a 15-percent increase from 2012.
Sullivan said Tech meets the usual growth statistics that schools meet when looking to extend.
According to information from the Panhellenic Growth Committee, the process for a new sorority joining campus is a lengthy and meticulous process:
In two weeks, a representative from each sorority will vote on the proposal. Panhellenic documents said the proposal must receive a two-thirds majority vote to pass.
After sororities vote to allow a new chapter to colonize, Simpson said, a separate committee will create the application process and decide the timeline of when Tech will colonize a new sorority.
“I think the ultimate goal” Simpson said, “would be a new group participate in fall recruitment in 2015.”
If the proposal is deferred, Baker said Panhellenic will revisit the extension proposal in August and will be able to pick up where it left off, but it would only take applications for three weeks rather than the current attempt’s three-month window.
There are currently 15 National Panhellenic Council sororities that are not represented at Texas Tech. If the proposal passes, applications from the unrepresented sororities will be collected and reviewed, and the strongest organizations will be invited to campus to lobby for a selection as the next chapter on campus.
The process to recruit a new sorority to campus could allow for more than one national sorority to join Tech’s Greek community, said Simpson, who formally worked as the national director of chapters for Kappa Kappa Gamma.
Even though she was a legacy to other sororities on campus, Texas Christian University student Rebecca Whiteman said she did not chose a sorority when she originally went through formal recruitment because she did not find one that was a good fit.
“I didn’t want to just join to join so I took two years and did my own thing,” Whitman said.
When TCU colonized a new sorority in fall 2012, the senior speech pathology major was able to help establish a new chapter she felt she could belong to as president of Alpha Omicron Pi.
When asked if she was in favor of allowing more than one sorority to become a member of Tech’s Panhellenic council, Simpson said she sees the possibility and the need for the Greek community to allow two new sororities.
“I’m going to give you a long answer to say yes – if it works,” Simpson said.
After the application and interview process, Simpson said, if the selection committee thinks that there are several national sororities that would thrive at Tech, the Panhellenic council could vote to invite multiple sororities to colonize.
“We could definitely say ‘you know what we’ll take one group in 2015 and another group in 2017 or 2018.’”
Allowing more than one sorority to colonize during the extension process, Simpson said, is referred to as stacking. By selecting more than one sorority, she said, it would save Panhellenic from having to go through the lengthy application process a second time.
When a sorority is selected, they will begin their organization by planning the construction of their chapter and recruitment. Sullivan said the new group will target girls who are not currently in a sorority because they did not find a connection with the current chapters.
Panhellenic anticipates the chosen organization will run its first recruiting event in Fall 2015. According to the growth report, Tech enrollment has grown 27 percent over the last 10 years, and Panhellenic anticipates 5,000 freshman for Fall 2015. According to Panhellenic documents, there were 4,892 freshman in Fall 2013.
The new group will meet on campus until lodging opportunities are made available. At Monday’s delegate meeting, Panhellenic President Ashley Peterson said one option is the potential development of land north of the current Greek Circle. A second would be for the new group to take over accommodations if a fraternity were to be kicked off.
“As a sorority community, we will have to be willing to let another group use or building on a different night,” said Simpson, chapter adviser for Tech’s Kappa Kappa Gamma. “The thinking from all of us is that we’ll all band together and do what we need to do to help a new group until they have some sort of facility.”
The growth report said the new chapter will have be able to recruit as many members as current groups have in less than a month.
Visit the National Panhellenic Council’s website for more information about extension.
Alicia Keene and Evan Dixon contributed to this report. Both are affiliated with Greek organizations on campus.
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