Same with my family. And that is often what happened -- at some point in history on this side of the pond, the ancestor's arms became the "family" arms (since we don't have rules about it here).

Then, of course, there are the companies who have combed through Burke's Peerage and now sell arms found there as "family" arms.

I'm sorry, I'll take the blame for that :/

An interest is one thing. A need to read and study and try to truly understand a ritual that is private, and only means so much when written in a book, is another.

To say that the ritual has NO meaning when read by a non-member is probably an exaggeration. Obviously there can be SOME kind of a meaning found, and clearly there is one. I can acknowledge that as being fact for any Greek letter organization with a long and rich history. However, I don't feel the need to read through other GLOs' ritual books, because a) I'll never be there to experience the ceremonies, b) I probably won't bother to remember what was written anyway (seeing as it's not relevant to my life), and c) I have my own ritual by which I live.

Honestly, I probably would have been more curious before I joined a GLO to go looking through random ritual books than I am now (if I had ever even thought of doing such a thing). I find that non-Greeks tend to be a bit more curious because they know little to nothing about GLOs, and they wonder what goes on in ritual ceremonies of which they've never taken part.

Little bump, cause today when I was putting up flyers for my job, I accidentally witnessed part of a business fraternity's ritual (I think it was initiation?) I had no idea it was going on and I went up to the doors of a big lecture hall because there was a cork board outside of it. I was about to go inside the lecture hall cause I knew there was a cork board right inside of the doors too. But when I grabbed the handle, I noticed I could hear someone speaking on the other side of the doors.....and it sounded VERY ritual-ish. lol So, out of respect for the org., I decided to walk away......but it was like they decided to follow me!! Moments later, as I was putting up flyers a little further down the hall, and they come out into the hall...definitely doing ritual stuff. They saw me, but didn't seem to mind. Plus, I think it was the end of the ceremony, because shortly after that, everyone else came out and was talking and stuff. But I still feel awkward/weird that I witnessed that... :/

^^ Actually this reminds me of something similar that happened to me once. Me and one of my brothers were going down Fraternity Row to invite the different orgs to an event we were holding. We got to one of them and knocked on the door. They didn't answer and we were wondering what was up. We could see a whole bunch of them in the living room through the window that was open. We then heard them saying something that was obviously ritual. As soon as we figured it out we left. Turns out they were having their chapter meeting when we went down there.

I think everyone on an unhoused campus has some funny accidentally witnessed Ritual stories.

Once in the student union a guy walked into a meeting (I guess he was curious as to why the windows were covered with newspaper) gave us all a funny, embarrassed look at quickly backed out the door.

We hold Initiation in a beautiful historic courthouse, where we unfortunately are not always afforded the optimum level of privacy. Once some tourists with a video camera tried to peep through the uncovered transom window. Another time an agitated homeless man tried to break through the front doors and we had to call the police. Most recently the police officer who opened the building for us tried to come through an interior door, I suppose to see if we had finished, and was met me glaring at him through the crack.

So jealous.

I have seen rituals performed in the least ideal locations and I feel bad when people are initiated in classrooms with carpet, desks, and AV equipment in the way.

Ugh - pet peeve.

Despite the, ahem, security issues I couldn't imagine having it any place else. It's funny because a lot of my chapter brother think that you have to have Initiation in a courthouse, because its what they know, but in reality the majority of men are initiated in chapter rooms and house basements. The courthouse we use is truly the most ideal place I can think of the experience the Ritual.

One of my chapters on a commuter campus has had Initiations in the strangest places. The funniest one was when they rented the banquet room at a bowling alley. First, seeing all those women walking through a bowling alley in their white formals was hilarious. Seeing the looks on the faces of all the patrons was hilarious. The room was secure enough that nobody could hear/see what was going on, but it was NOT sound proof, so the sounds of strikes could be heard continually... That is one Initiation I will NEVER forget!

Our local chapter posts an alumnae member outside the door so that nobody can enter. It was much easier for my collegiate chapter to keep out people. We would cover all of the windows and doors and posted a sign at the door. Surprisingly, nobldy did ring the bell during initiation. I guess that was because all of the houses had a level of respect for each other's ritual and tried to avoid disruption.

If I remember right, we also took the house phone off the hook (it was loud).

ITA.

I pledged a different fraternity and found out a few things. The actives kept giving me the grip when they shook my hand and I also learned another one of their signs, and some of their ritual. I eventually became disenchanted with the organization, but that's a different story. I wouldn't reveal anything of theirs out of respect for the few actives that weren't tools and treated me pretty well, and their organization nationally is pretty well respected.

Our house wasn't big enough to do initiation in (or hold meetings in for that matter) so we always had it in classrooms. If I remember, we usually used the education building as they tended to have classrooms without as much stuff in them. You just have to come in advance and make it look nice. ;) I think one of the groups used the chapel on campus, but AFAIK, most people did the same thing with initiation just because of the space factor.

I always wondered what it would be like to have an initiation in a really great location. When I was active they were for the most part held in our chapter room but that was truly too small for initiation and was always hot, uncomfortable, and long. One time we did get to have it at a local church and used their banquet hall for the ritual and then the activities afterwords and that was the best location I saw. But it was still small and had a forest scene painted on one wall with Disney-esque characters, so it still wasn't ideal. The last one I attended was held in an old class room we use for recruitment purposes and it was the least "romantic" of them all.

Don't know where my Zeta's is done anymore since I'm old and out of the loop, but we used to use our school's music recital hall, which was THE SHIT. :D

Prior to our campus getting greek housing for all the sororities, a couple organization did their membership selection all in one building on campus. One year, one of the groups who was situated on the first floor, right next to the entrance to the building did not put down the blinds and anyone walking by could see what they were doing.

Wow- I never considered initiation anywhere other than where my campus would hold it. We have a non-sectarian chapel (Galbreath Chapel) on campus that holds around 200 people. It even has a basement lounge area where people could wait or change clothes if needed. I'm pretty sure all the orgs on campus used it for initiation since it was so pretty and set up perfectly. The chapel had a sign that you would put on the door that it was in use, and I don't ever remember someone trying to get in.

Even the honor society I was in used it for initiation.http://www.ohio.edu/athens/bldgifs/galbreath.jpg

Locations for Alpha Phi Omega rituals I've been too...
 

For myself, the ritual was in the Army ROTC lounge in the basement of one of our buildings, they've complete redone the rooms in that area and that room doesn't exist anymore.

For some the rituals during my time as an undergraduate, we used one of the older lecture halls on campus.

I've heard of chapters doing rituals in odder places. When the chapter at George Washington University rechartered, the building they were supposed to hold chartering in caught fire. They ended up doing the chartering in the back room of a restaurant nearby. The chapter joke is that they had to initiate one of the waiters who walked in.

My wife's chapter chartered in the basement of a nearby church and has held rituals outside at scout camps among other places.

We always held monthly rituals in our dorm chapter room, but for initiation, we used a church on campus that incidentally had a completely red chapel....it made initiation very memorable!

We were lucky enough to have a Panhellenic wing within a dorm, which consisted of the 3 chapter rooms and a kitchen. AFAIK, all 3 held rituals in their respective rooms- but getting there was another story! We had a basement storage area accessible only by the Panhellenic wing, where we kept our archives. It also had a lounge where we "staged". On occassion we had a janitor pass us on the stairs going to/from the basement and we got the funniest looks!

Initiation & chapter meetings were always held in our chapter room (blinds closed!), but we did hold a couple of others elsewhere. We held the return-the-pledge-pin ceremony in the campus cafeteria, but in a beautiful private room called the Teakwood Room. The walls, ceiling, and furniture were all intricate hand-carved teak, it was just beautiful. We held our Fireside in a dorm lounge, down the hall from the Panhellenic Wing. And then we had a sleepover in the lounge :) I know people popped their heads into the lounge on occasion (it was also the location of the dorm's piano, which was a hot comodity on a music campus), but usually that happened during the sleepover portion and not the ceremony. Most people realize that a closed door means keep out.

My APO chapter did most rituals in rooms in the union. The IMU has plenty of rooms that student groups used all the time. We closed the door and never had a problem with people barging in.

The founders of most general GLOs, who were basically kids themselves, seemed so much more educated relative to college students of today. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, if you were a college student or even a high school student, you were going to get classics and mythology in your curriculum. (As recently as the '50s at my mom's boarding school back, you could take Greek if you did well enough in Latin. My mom, unfortunately, did not like to study and got a 4 in Latin one grading period. A 4.)

Back in the day, putting together a ritual must've been not only fun but relatively effortless because you had this basic shared well of info from which to draw and adapt.

Without trying to be nosy or imply any superiority of old vs. new, I wonder what cultural allusions have inspired the founders of GLOs from the past decade or two.

I heard that one of the recent installations (well, not THAT recent) was taking place at a hotel and the fire alarm went off. Ummm, awkward! I won't get into any of the other details I heard, and I can take this down if someone wants me to.

ForeverRoses inspired me to look for pictures of the courthouse we use.

The courthouse (exterior photo) was built in 1800 and is a National Historic Landmark. The courthouse grounds were also the site of a civil war battle where the first officer casualty of the war took place. There are some cannons, not pictured, right outside as well - facing North, of course, lest we should have to resume the war with the yankees :rolleyes:

I can't find any good interior shots - all the ones I have are group shots so most of the courtroom is obstructed by people.

I've often thought about this on a grander scale, of how different rituals reflect the times they were created. Even those from the 18th and 19th centuries would vary, I'd think, to reflect the "current" issues (not to mention founder & campus personalities). I've seen some from the early-mid 1800s and others from the mid-late 1800s, and to me they have a slightly different in focus. Most come back to Greek ideals (duh, it's a GLO) and appreciation for learning (also duh, they're in college) in some way- but the approach changes. Admitedly a low sample size and male vs. female, but it's absolutely fascinating.

I did have a class on mythology in high school, called "Humanities" (nice broad term don't you think?). Only 30 of 2500 students took it a year, so I'm pretty sure I was in the minority with that one. We also had a Latin program but it was being phased out to some extent. My college had a strong but small classics program, several of my sisters were involved there and "helped" us on pronunciation and the like :)

"True to self and to each other, and can I have an order of jalapeno poppers with that?" :p

I was actually talking to somebody about this the other day. I think the biggest difference is the purpose of education now adays. For the most part if you were in college in the early 1800s, you were preparing for either the ministry or the bar.

Great point. For the women, if you were in a co-ed school in the mid-late 1800s, you were a pioneer with an uphill battle. Today it's just expected. Even though I'm the first in my family to go to a 4 year school, I never considered NOT going. It's just what you do after high school, and is a prerequisite for many career paths. Even if you don't know what your career path is going to be, you know a college ed will help. And of course there are more careers to choose from- so in comparison to your early 1800s example, you don't have 2-3 main options that you stick with as a career. You have a zillion options, most of which are unknown until you wind up with an opportunity. Managing Six Sigma projects, running user acceptance testing, or being a technical recruiter were never in my expectations for the first few years out of college. Yes, a very different world indeed.

Two of the sororities at my school use the lounge and the conference room in our largest dorm building. I'm amazed they would hold rituals in such a 'public' place.

We use a lot of different places for our rituals... We have one main church that we use for the some rituals and we go out camping for a weekend for others. I love using the church because it's so large and it has a bunch of epic rooms. Doing ones in the woods/in cabins (hah, sounds really shady), though, is awesome as well.

Now that I think about it, since our installation, my chapter has never held initiation in the same place more than once! Ha! I think we've had new member pledging in the same room a few times, though. Installation is always on campus, NM pledging has always been on campus, and we've had Fireside both on- and off-campus.

A bit off-topic....

Freshman year, i took a class in Greek Mythology and History - it covered theater, literature and art. (I was a theater major at the time then changed to English).

I didn't study Greek Language, but the "Art and Thought of Classical Greece" class was one of my favorite, most informative, interesting and intellectually fulfilling class that I have ever taken. It gave me so much perspective on ancient and more recent (middle ages and later) lit, art and theater to know the origins of the modern versions we interact with today.

I had already studied Latin my first two years of High school, as well as English, American and World lit, as well as 4 years of Spanish in HS. Those classes, in my opinion, were what "higher learning" was all about. As I progressed through my Major, I felt privileged to be able to spend my days reading and learning about something that a lot of people felt was trifling or lacking any "real" skills in the real world. Learning can be such a luxury!

We didn't used it. :D That's one sexy school you attend though! ;)