Life at College

Term Paper

The person with whom I sat and collected my data for my term paper was a woman who works in the Ethnic Studies program in the library here at school. I interviewed her not because she work in Ethnic Studies, but because she, like myself was a member of a Greek-Letter organization. For the rest of the population that does not know, she is in a sorority and I am in a fraternity. Due to the fact that we had such a common ground, certainly there was a number of direction that my paper could have taken, but I focused it on the way it was when she pledged, and the way it is now and moreover why numbers of intakes are decline so rapidly in this part of the country.

The woman I spoke with was a girl, a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Delta Sigma Theta, along with eight other fraternities and sororities comprise the National Pan-Hellenic Council. This council is the housing body for these nine historically black Greek-Letter Organizations, more commonly named the “Noble Nine”. The oldest of these organizations is Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.(1908) and the youngest is the fraternity that I am a member of, Iota Phi Theta Fraternity, Inc.(1963). Lisa’s organization was founded in 1913, just the fifth of these organizations founded, and only the second sorority. As has been evidenced, with certain organizations having more years on others, some prejudices and stereotypes have been created and perpetuated, and this is where we began our discussion.

“You guys weren’t even around when I pledged” was one of the first things Lisa said to me in our interview. Although, Lisa did pledge after 1963, Iota Phi Theta Fraternity, Inc., had not yet been an officially inducted in to the NPHC. Although Lisa takes a more pro-active and mature approach to learning about this new organization, there still remain a few that don’t. “I know about your organization, although they weren’t around when I was in school”, Lisa said. The minority of the Greek population feels as though if you weren’t around when the pledged, then you don’t exist or get recognized. Also the older the organization: the larger the organization. For instance, since Lisa’s sorority was founded an entire fifty years before mine, their membership is significantly higher. Some people from the old school of thought have being enculturated to hold the disposition that an organization’s worth is directly related to its size. Lisa has had to become acculturated to seeing that this is entirely untrue.

Feelings of dissention among some NHPC organization have to do with their alpha chapters. An alpha chapter is the first school where a fraternity or sorority was founded. For Delta Sigma Theta, Omega Psi Phi, Alpha Kappa Alpha, Phi Beta Sigma, Zeta Phi Beta, Howard University is their Alpha chapter. This being true, the largest place of influence for these organizations would be Howard University, and many surrounding schools. Since culture is shared, the promotion of these organizations over time could turn in to the lack of acknowledgement or even indifference to the remaining NPHC organizations. This is why for the other four fraternities, membership is relatively low. In talking to Lisa she also agreed that in areas where a select group of organizations are prevalent, the others more or less “die out”.

Lisa also talked to me about what it was like when she pledged; very different from now. When she pledged she was one of more than fifteen girls who wanted to go “online”. Today, most NPHC sororities in this area have about five to seven women interested in pledging each semester, and even less who go actually go “online”. When she actually pledged, it was perfectly legal then for things to go on outside, visible to the campus community. Today, rituals and pledging activity goes on behind closed doors and not at all accessible to the public. Lisa said that they could be in class with their pledging clothes on and would have to perform certain activities on campus; any such thing mow, would land any organization on suspension or even dismissal. What has changed this rule over time is the strictness with which officials are coming down on hazing and any public showing of pledging on a college campus.

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