GreekChat.com Forums - honor societies

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Quote:

Originally Posted by texas*princess (Post 1691859)

Like others have already noted, there is a difference between "professional" GLOs and "honorary" GLOs.

There are (4) types of GLOs:

* Social - e.g. Lambda Chi Alpha, Phi Mu, etc - mainly social, though there is a component of philanthropy/education/etc in there

* Professional - your Delta Sigma Pi's & Alpha Kappa Psi's of the world. In addition to the professional aspect, there is also a social side and some chapters are more social than others. One of my favorite Deltasig chapters was on the UT campus. Fun group :)

* Service - Alpha Phi Omega - they focus on service projects, but from what I've heard some chapters are more social than others

* Honorary - I was never part of one, but these usually recruited people from, say the college of business or education or engineering, that had a certain GPA. There is no "new member" period there.

I've never heard of Honorary GLOs doing bigs/littles or anything like that.

Phi Sigma Pi, though an Honors Fraternity, would more fall into your service category, as most service GLOs are orgs you have to pledge, possibly be voted on, and have at least some characteristics with general GLOs.

The names I prefer are (in your same order and definitions):

General (some NPHC members HATE to be labeled "social" -- I don't care because I know what people mean.)

Professional

Recognition (Baird's uses this)

Honor

Quote:

Originally Posted by AGDAlum (Post 1691839)

www.phisigmapi.org
I came across their website today. Their history is well-presented and comprehensive (and fairly candid, given the number of times their Alpha chapter has been revived).

There is a link to a fraternity that Phi Sigma Pi had crossed with in its early days: www.philambdaepsilon.org . . .I understand that it might have been a genuine fraternity at one time; is this contemporary site a spoof?

Thanks for the compliment! The current website is fairly new and was completely redone sometime in 2007. I love the comprehensive history. I sat one day and read it all.

Without Phi Lamb, Phi Sig would not have some into being. I have seen that Phi Lamb website before and did question it's validity as a fraternity of any kind.

Quote:

Originally Posted by texas*princess (Post 1691859)

I can't say for other Honorary Fraternities, but Tau Beta Pi, which is an Honorary Engineer Fraternity, does have a "new member period" which you are required to participate in certain activities and accumulate a certain amount of community service hours, and also be in an interview before you are initiated (which include polishing the metal statue like what jessicaelaine said, except I opt out from it) . They also go through the history of Tau Beta Pi and such.

But ditto to what you said, I've never heard Bigs or Littles in these Fraternities, and it'll be weird if they do have it. For my chapter, we do have socials, but it's more like a networking, and besides, most of us are already friends before we were initiated.

I personally, on the other hand, annoys me when the main reason why they don't join Honorary Fraternities because they don't want to go Greek. But they don't understand that Honorary Fraternities are TOTALLY different then social Greeks. So it's sad to see that people turned down such great chance to enhance their resume just because they think the two are the same.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlwaysSAI (Post 1684000)

I've kind of skimmed through this thread, so I'm gonna add my two cents.

The biggest difference I see between pure honor societies and say, Phi Sigma Pi, an honor FRATERNITY is the secrecy of the ritual. The only people that know the inner meanings of Phi Sigma Pi are initiated brothers. We have a secret grip, password, meanings for all of our symbols, etc.

Compare that to Kappa Delta Pi, the education honor society. The 'initiation' ceremony was totally public--everyone and their momma was there to see every one take a 'vow'--whatever. There was no recruitment, no pledging ceremony, no pledging period. All I had to do to get in was maintain a 3.0 (I believe), which I would have done anyway.

Thanks AlwaysSAI, this makes sense.