Phi Sig troubles due to low numbers

The resignation of almost all members of Penn's chapter of Phi Sigma Sigma, announced Wednesday, resulted from low membership numbers for the sorority.

All but a few of the Phi Sig sisters resigned Wednesday rather than comply with a "reorganization" attempt by their national office. The national organization planned to put all active sisters on alumni status and reestablish the sorority with new women.

Phi Sig chapter adviser Melissa Jacobs said "fewer than 20" sisters ultimately did elect to accept alumni status. This means that they will "keep their letters" and could, theoretically, apply to help reorganize Phi Sig at Penn.

Jacobs said the national will try to reorganize in January of 2004 and that none of the women who resigned will join.

"The majority of the chapter no longer wanted to be Phi Sigma Sigmas," she said.

Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs Director Scott Reikofski said Phi Sig's national organization was acting under a "membership growth resolution" passed by National Panhellenic Conference, the umbrella group for American sororities.

The resolution "allows a chapter or a national to reorganize a chapter really in the interest of maintaining the continued health of the chapter," Reikofski said.

According to its Web site, Phi Sig had about 75 members. Most of Penn's other sororities have over 100 members.

Reikofski did not rule out low membership numbers as a reason for the national sorority's decision, though said he felt there were also other reasons.

"I think there were probably a number of factors," he said. "I don't think it was just something quite as simple as numbers."

He declined to comment further on the subject.

But Jacobs said that besides low membership, Phi Sig had no problems of which she was aware.

"This chapter has not had disciplinary issues, has not had academic issues," Jacobs said. "We may have had fewer numbers than other chapters, but that made the bond between the women even stronger."

She also said it was ironic that one of Penn's "exemplary" chapters was disbanding, while sororities that have had disciplinary problems remain.

Wednesday, a national Phi Sig official said her office had not received paperwork on the sisters' intentions to resign. Yesterday, another official said she did not think the national sorority had received the resignations yet.

Two women on the Panhellenic Council Executive Board, President Alison Ng and Secretary Laura Harris, are Phi Sig sisters. Even though they are no longer sorority members, they intend to finish out their term, which ends at the beginning of the next calendar year.

Jacobs said that Ng and Harris' status relating to their positions on Panhel's board is being reviewed by Phi Sig's national office.

As for the future of the women who resigned, Jacobs said she had not heard anything about the possibility of their forming an underground society, as other Penn Greek chapters leaving campus, like Sigma Alpha Mu and Psi Upsilon, have done.

But Jacobs did say she "assume[s] that they would want to maintain the bond of sisterhood. We probably haven't heard the last of them... at the least, they're all [still] friends with each other."

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