Same with my campus. The guys all seem to be 'whatever' about what the other fraternities are doing. It's rare to even see them talking to each other at all. And usually when they are, it's to work on planning an all-Greek event. But even with events like these, it's usually the sororities that take over most of the planning.

Again, Panhellenic could be more unified those 345 days of the year when it's not Greek week or time for recruitment... but we all have friends and/or acquaintances in other sororities. The fraternities tend to keep their distance.

Well, recruitment is 365 days a year. Even if everyone decides to "play nice" during formal rush, it doesn't help if a girl thinking about Greek life goes to a party and hears a girl from a sorority saying "those bleeping XYZs are such whores!!" This is why LOTS of women are turned off to rush.

And it's important as far as showing the administration and faculty that this is a community - not just an excuse to compete and/or drink.

Don't get me wrong, I've had those moments when I came home and yelled "those bleeping XYZs!!!" because of this or that drama that went down. But I did it in the privacy of my home, not in public. In the heat of the moment you lash out at someone's affiliation sometimes - after you calm down you realize that's silly.

I think a lot of collegiate members don't think about that. Tearing down members of a rival organization makes everyone look bad, because in the eyes of many non-members, we are all the same.

The campus I advise at is fairly "Panhellenic" I believe. It is a smaller school of 6,500 students with 6 NPCs that all live in the same dormatory. There is of course healthy competition amongst the chapters but since the sororities all live together on a relatively small campus, members tend to be friends with women outside their own house.

http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2...top/news01.txt

I found this great story about the Kappas and Thetas at the University of Montana. This past December, the pipes in the Theta house burst. The Kappas allowed them to move in and share their house.

At my school it was common for individual members to be very panhellenic. I knew of dozens of cases where girls from multiple sororities lived together. In those cases, they were friends before recruitment. I'd say about 40 percent of the PNMs each year are sophomores, so they've already established solid friendships with their roommates/hallmates/suitmates from freshman year. As far as the orgs go in general, there's a lot of badmouthing and gossip. Recruitment time gets down right viscous with girls going as far as to frame other orgs for infractions. It's ridiculous.

The "top tier" sororities at my school tend to be surprisingly mean to each other, possibly because they're all competing for the same girls (we have deferred recruitment), but the rest of the sororities have their own niches, and get along really well.

I think now with the demise of a certain gossip website, we'll see a resurgence of "Panhellenic spirit."

I think some lack of Panhellenic spirit at my school is caused by general confusion as to what "Panhellenic" means. Many people don't understand why the other PHC org doesn't do winter/spring recruitment anymore and now only does formal with us in the fall. I think that's the main issue. We need to have more communication about issues like that.