I assume it varies from college to college.

At some schools, I've actually heard non-social greeks said derogatory things about social ones and vice versa. It's a little bit more than a separation of interests.

"An APO set of letters is rarely seen. APO doesn't get together outside of their activities in any noticable fashion. They are not cohesive groups here."

Wow, on my campus and the neighboring ones, we wear our letters. We very often get together outside our activities. Were pretty cohesive. We also do interchapter mixers. As I said earlier it varies from campus to campus.

When it comes to boundaries:

*Service mixing, for example working together on philanthropies and blood drives-OK

*Social mixing, too much liability can play into that-AGAINST

*Non-socials participating in Greek Week, as long as they pay the fees, I see no problem. If so, the name needs to be changed-NEUTRAL

*Socials taking EC positions in non-socials-AGAINST

*At HBCUs, non-NPHC's doing stepshows, I see nothing wrong with either-NEUTRAL

DeltaTheta: That is how my school was. We say that 10% is greek and that only means, NPC, NPHC, and IFC. APO, you do see the letters but I never heard of much in the way of social events, unless it was a formal or cocktail party. SAI and the rest of music, honors, service and major related greeks were rarely heard from. That could be that we did travel in different circles and neither group paid attention to each other...

We did have a member of KD and SAI and she did say they had ritual and everything else like the NPC groups, but I guess since our campus governing bodies are different and national governing bodies are different then we never really considered anyone out side of the 10% greeks...does that make sense?

Now, we did have Gamma Sigma Sigma and they had socials with a perticualr fraternity...not sure how that works, and they still had them at the fraternity houses which no NPC group did...another source of tention...And with them they did try to join Panhellenic and I think we told them it was an open meeting but it was for NPC groups and since we are governed by such different regualtion that they could particiapte but not be a member...kind of an associate member, like a local would. Plus since the intake process is so different it was hard to relate. It was my understanding that they couldn't deny membership on any basis...is that right? Now there is another service sorority too and I am not sure how that is going!

But on the other side, NPHC groups are governed differently and we still consider all 3(NPC, IFC, NPHC) groups Greek....I think we even have an ALL GREEK Council now with NPC, NPHC & IFC.

I do not think anyone thinks that they are better, just different with different oppurtunities.

Very unfortunately, that is right. National service orginizations like APO and GSS, cannot formally deny membership to anyone. I used to be dead against exclusitivity, but now I'm for it. Next to non-committment, it is a big problem (at least in my org). Within the last year and a half we have had everything from thieves, to a male brother grabbing a female brother in a chokehold, to lesbian love triangles. Just flat-out drama.
All of that could've been prevented if we denied membership to certain boneheads. :rolleyes:

Of course informally we can deny membership. For example, mysteriously "losing" their application at intake/rush, keeping them out of the loop on projects and get-togethers, and if they still don't get the hint some mysterious person takes their name off our chapter listerv. :D :D :D

Wow! I just can't get over how anti-social the professional/service orgs at some of your schools are! At my school it seemed like we (the music orgs) would have socials a couple times a month, whether it be just an internal thing or with other organizations. I guess it really does vary from school to school, though.

As far as crossing territories... I think a lot of times service or professional orgs are pigeon-holed. For example, I am a member of a music sorority (Delta Omicron) but I wasn't a music major or minor.... I just liked music, and our rush came before the Formal Rush for the NPC sororities on our campus, and from then on I was not permitted to Rush another sorority on my campus because of our by-laws, something I desperately wanted to do. But whenever we tried to participate in a philanthropy that wasn't related to music, we'd get shot down for trying to do something that only "real greeks" were supposed to do. Very frustrating. Simply because we have mention of music in our founding, that's the only thing we're capable of doing? It just doesn't seem right.

Sorry, I'm ranting a bit... I know it's a local problem, but I would like to see it prevented at other campuses.....

Well...
 

Lexi, you attended ECU, right...so I know which GSS chapter you're talking about.

Since I'm a member of Gamma Sig...that's not totally correct. The only way someone could be denied membership in our sorority is if that person did not complete the prescribed hours of service that's required for a MIT, which is 10 nationally. Other than that, anyone who wanted to join Gamma Sig could do so. However, I, like Dionysus, am an advocate for exclusivity for reasons like that-non-committed members and those members who, more often than not, try to use Gamma Sig as a stepping stone to get into another sorority. This is rampant amongst those trying to gain membership in NPHC sororities that smile upon perspectives that do a lot of service. Also, GSS chapters recieve a lot of comments such as "you're not a real sorority because you let anybody in" or "all I have to do is do 10 hours and that's it". Don't think we don't have an intake process-and it involves a whole lot more than just doing 10 hours of service. We do have additional requirements.

Sadly, that IS the sentiment-because those greeks that do belong to a council say they ARE better than those of us who don't belong. It may not be at every school, but that attitude is there.

Now at my chapter, we participate in a lot of stuff so we can get our name out there. As I've said before, if we have an event we invite other greeks to come out and support. If the greeks want us to participate in something we're doing, they INVITE us and we'll do it then. We don't try to "get in where we fit in". Wherever we can help, we help, but we're not so desperate to fit in that we're trying too hard to be greek. We go as we are, we go as what we are, and we have a great attitude about who we chose to be-Gamma Sigs. Everyone else can take it or leave it.

gamma girl: What I meant is that we have a different pledging program. We can and have to cut women before we pledge them. Then the pledge requirements come into play, we cannot take everyone unless it is informal recruitment. But I do understand what you are saying that you can deny membership after the fact, we can deny before they pledge, and have to because we have limits on how many PNMS we can take per semester.

I remember that GSS had a PC of 60+ one semester and they had their hands full, another reason it is good to limit membership.

Actually, chapters of APO can deny membership to anyone who does not meet established pledging requirements. Each chapter is allowed to create its own pledging experience with its own requirements, as long as they follow our membership and risk management policies.

It is pledgship that we are discouraged from making selective. We usually do not offer bids or pre-select lines or pledge classes.

Of course there are always exceptions.

My Fault
 

Lexi,

Now I understand a little better what you were saying. Now we can't deny BEFORE we start, but after is a different story and that was the non-completion of service hours. A lot of ladies come into the sorority not fully understanding what a commitment it is...knowing that you HAVE to have a minimum of 15 service hours PLUS other things that the chapter is doing. A favorite quote amongst GSS sisters is, "It may be easy to get in, but it's hard as hell to stay in" :D

I should have known what it was you were trying to say; I have assisted with Rush @ GSU a year or two!

In response to the statement that "music organizations that try to do non-music philanthropies often get shot down"... My chapter has done things that are both music and non music related, without much controversy or anything. I think that no matter what the nature of your organization, any work for the common good should definitely be appreciated. If any organization that emphasizes philanthropy were to try to bar another group from helping their fellow humans, I would definitely question their sincerity.
Also, Alpha Chi Omega was founded as a music sorority, and many other NPC organizations were founded as things other than "socials" (I hate that term since we're all somewhat social!). Check out their website and read about the history of their founding. It's really pretty cool!
Roses,
Heather

I guess I'm confused as to what we mean by "fellow Greeks."

I'm in an NPC sorority, and consider anyone in an NIC, NPHC, other NPC sorority, a local, or Beta Sigma Phi to be a social Greek "like me." (Even though of course there are differences.) I would consider GSS and APOs service Greeks - certainly Greek, but not "like me." (We had APO on my campus, and at times the majority of APO was in NPC and NIC groups). With the musical groups, the fact that they're varying so much from campus to campus is interesting. It sounds like some chapters are functioning as social Greeks, whereas other places they are more professional or honorary.

The difference is, I don't consider honorary and professionals to be Greeks. Their orgs have Greek names, but affiliation in one is usually not the primary affiliation for the member.

The variance from school to school amazes me too! I know someone above mentioned Alpha Chi Omega (I think?) and that it was founded as a music sorority, but is now considered a purely social sorority. At least on my campus, that's how we view our chapter of DO. Like I mentioned before...for me my decision to go through Rush didn't really have anything to do with music...I like it and all, and I liked that a lot of our focus is on that, but I certainly wasn't thinking of any sort of professional boost, you know what I mean? Heck, I didn't even find out that we were a professional sorority until well into pledging.

I'm confused about the statement that affiliation isn't usually the primary affiliation for the member... maybe that's something that applies more to the service/honor orgs? For us, by becoming a DO you have to agree that it is your primary affiliation and that you will not pledge any other sorority... is that different for the other orgs? I'm confused that some orgs can have dual membership... isn't some sort of statement like that required? Or is it just ignored?

Also: In these groups - do you not go through Rush and recieve bids then? What do you mean you can't prevent anyone from joining...do you just continually accept new members, instead of having Rush each semester and being able to choose who becomes part of your group?

Ginger: I think the primary membership thing is; I'm a KD, an NPC group so I cannot join another NPC group, but I can join an honorary/service/music(Order of Omega, ODK, Rho Lambda...SAI....APO...GSS and so on) I am not aware that any other groups have the same restrictions....meaning if you are a GSS first, you can pledge a NPC groups as well. To me KD would be my primary membership...no matter

As for intake, it is my understanding that groups outside of NPC do not have a formal recruitment as the NPC groups, their intake is more similiar with our informal recruitment and they have to pledge everyone who wishes to be a members then initiate those you finish the plegding requirements. I am sure they have an intake time period that is once a semester or year not year round...

Hope I got that right!

What I meant was that in an NPC, NPHC, NIC, sometimes in a service org, and in musical orgs that are mostly social, people identify themselves publicly as that org - not so much with honor societies or interest groups they are in.

For example, I call myself an Alpha Xi Delta. I am in Sigma Tau Delta (English honor society), Gamma Sigma Alpha (Greek honor), and Order of Omega (Greek leadership), but I don't think of those as "the group I belong to," although I am proud to be a part of them. Similarly, people who are in Alpha Chi Sigma (chemistry interest org), don't generally identify themselves first and foremost as ACS, but whatever Greek group they belong to (if they do).

My litmus test (and this is terrible, I know), would be, if someone goes over to a fraternity house, gets way drunk and dies, what is the newspaper going to print about them? They won't say, "FuzzieAlum, a STD, was at the Pi Pi house when she died." They'll say I'm an AXD. They might say, "Dionysis, an APO, died at the Pi Pi house." Or "Ginger was drinking with her SAI sisters at the Pi Pi house when she died." But if SAI was primarily a professional interest group on your campus, they might not mention it.

Does that make any sense? Sorry to introduce so much death into this thread!

Fuzzie: That was funny, but a good example!

SAI and APO are not honorary...