Yeah, I don't see why it would have to be a UA. Individual groups can make their own policies on this one; there's no reason for it to be an intra-NPC issue. And in fact, the reason for such policies is the reciprocity...it would make NO sense for the NPC to create a UA without the other councils' agreeing.

33Girl, your post seems to dismiss the social viability of the chemistry fraternity just because it's made up of people in a specific area of study. I don't know that specific organization, but Sigma Alpha and AOE are focused on a specific group of college majors but still seem to have a strong sisterhood and social life. On a national level, they both appear to be thriving.

Yeah, my thought was there would need to be reciprocity between NPC and NPHC because there's no advantage otherwise. Without it what's the benefit to refusing to initiate an otherwise eligible woman?

While I do agree that all GLO's should be open to intermingling and working together, there are many things that will not overlap. A prime example would be "bids." NPHC organizations (for sure) and the NALFO organizations that are active in my area do not do a bidding process. The NALFO organization currently on the campus has a process similar to those of the NPHC. While NPC organizations are sure to have recruitment every year (minus a campus ban or something extreme), the organizations I am aware of may or may not choose to have intake every year. There is no purpose to have a no contact period because we do not "recruit." If a person is interested (we do not use PNM in our language) they are more than welcome to come to events and learn about our organizations.


I think that learning more about each others councils would be a great start, because it helps during conversations like this one. Having a program to promote all GLO's on campus is great idea, but we need to make it clear that each council is different and may have different goals/initiatives/traditions. Heck, we barely speak the same language (Community service vs. philanthropy/PNM/intake/etc. etc.)


I can say that if I caught wind of a person who went through the process was initiated into a NALPO organization and then "quit" the organization and tried to get into my organization, it would be a swift NO. I give equal respect to the NPHC, NPC and NALPO. The NALPO is not just some fringe "multicultural" council. This chapter took their time and energy and decided to pick the OP to be in their lifetime sisterhood, and she quit. I see this same conversation about PNM's not wanting to be in a chapter when the women took their time and energy to offer a bid to them and there is no sympathy in those posts. I feel none in this situation either. Same difference.

On a philosophical level, I agree. A woman who re-negged on her commitment is not an attractive prospect. On a practical level, though, the reason we don't take women who dropped out of other NPC's is because we don't want them doing it to us.

I have no problem with that if it defines itself, as Sigma Alpha, Ceres and AOE do, as a professional/social sorority or even a professional/social coed fraternity.

I have a HUGE problem with groups making themselves into something they're not and something their NATIONAL ORGANIZATION does not intend them to be. I've complained on here many times about Alpha Phi Omega chapters that bid selectively, are full members of councils that are for social Greeks, and that make an unwelcoming environment for members of social GLOs who would also like to join.

From the OP's post, this chemistry fraternity is doing the latter.

About ten years ago Omega Phi Alpha had an issue with one of our chapters that is relevant to this discussion. This chapter was very successful at attracting large pledge classes, but they also had a really big retention problem. Even with the large pledge classes, they seemed to turn over almost their entire chapter every 3 semesters or so. Eventually we discovered that women on that campus viewed OPA as a pathway to the NPHC sorority of their dreams. They would pledge OPA, get initiated, and rack up an impressive amount of community service hours performed on OPA chapter-sponsored projects. If she was successful in securing an invitation to join the other group, she would immediately dump OPA. Regardless of the fact that they made a lifetime commitment to OPA, they were using OPA just to meet the service requirement of the other org.

The issue eventually resolved itself, but I'm curious about how the NPHC leadership would view a situation like this.

There is nothing wrong with membership in a social GLO and a service GLO. That is not "dual membership" in the sense that we are discussing in this thread. As for violating a service GLO's "lifetime commitment", not every chapter of service GLOs teach "lifetime commitment". Those that do will have difficulty overcoming the varying cultures. If someone has always been told a service GLO is a club to join to get more involved in the community but nothing more longterm and dedicated than that, there will be people who will view a service GLO as transitional.

ETA: That doesn't mean none of these people did community service before joining the service GLO. Some people join service GLOs because they love service and want to further their community service. When I was interested in joining APO it was after years of community service in high school and college. I ended up not joining for a number of reasons but some of the members of that APO chapter expressed a lifetime commitment to service but not necessarily a lifetime commitment to APO as an organization.

And so to Sen's point about seeing NPHC and NALFO orgs in te same value as NPC orgs, are you saying you can't see this scenario practically?

Because a woman dropping out of a NALFO org and coming to your org would be less offensive? You wouldn't want an NPC sister depledging for a NALFO or NPHC org in the same vein?

In other words, the disdain is only felt intracouncil, not intercoucil.

Actually the reason NPC groups don't do it is because we have a rule against it. The rule was instituted because groups were stealing members from other groups. NPC doesn't happen to have a reciprocal rule with any others. Should we? That's not up to me but it evidently isn't a priority for NPHC and NALFO and NPC at the moment (though I understand some NPHC groups forbid membership in NIC groups and maybe others).

On the NPHC side, I tell aspirants that they are dead-ass wrong for using APO, OPA, or GSS service hours to count toward community service toward an NPHC org. My rationale is that you are SUPPOSED to do service for a service GLO, and you are REQUIRED to do service for a service GLO. For an NPHC org, we only ought to be counting the service that you didn't HAVE to do to maintain your membership in something else, but the service you WANT to do, unselfishly.

In my opinion, the work really needs to be done on the NPHC side, for those orgs who require prior service.

And I'm saying it's got nothing to do with "disdain." As soon as NALFO groups start stealing an appreciable number of women from NPC groups, it will benefit NPC groups to form an agreement with NALFO. Until then, we can argue all we want about lifetime commitments, but that's not the driving factor for the NPC UA and it won't be enough to make a rule about not pledging former members of NALFO groups.

Hence our discussion. ;)

It is a priority for some of us. Even if some GLOs don't have national policies, there are chapters establishing their own guidelines regarding this.

It has to do with disregard or apathy. That's the point.

NPHC GLOs such as Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. didn't start prohibiting women who are members of NPC sororities because of a huge amount of Black women joining predominantly white sororities. Please believe it. It stemmed from a very small but noticeable trend of Black women using NPC sororities to get to Delta over the years. This warranted a national policy that includes NPHC and NPC. Individual chapters of Delta continue to expand the national policy to include MCGLO, LGLO, AGLO, BGLO sororities based on the lifetime commitment of other GLOs at their school or in their city.

Four of the five NPHC fraternities are also members of the NIC, so that settles issues of dual membership for everyone but Omega, the one NPHC fraternity not also in the NIC.

As Dr. Phil and others have noted, some of the four NPHC sororities forbid dual membership with NPC sororities.