Officer titles. Common or not?
 

Does your fraternity or sorority use common names for your chapter offices/National Offices? (example Treasurer or National President) If you use uncommon names, what are they? (Example, High Gamma, or National Supreme Leader) (I think Lambda Chi Alpha uses uncommon names)

For Alpha Phi Omega, we used uncommon names from the founding in 1925 to 1934 and then switched to common names.

Prior to 1934 -> After
National
Supreme Grand Master -> National President
Deputy Supreme Grand Master -> National Vice President
Supreme Scribe -> National Secretary
Supreme Treasurer -> National Treasurer (I think.)

Chapter, remove Supreme and National respectively.

Alpha Phi Alpha officer titles are common:

General President
General Treasurer
Comptroller (is there a General in there? Don't think so, but maybe)

Naraht, I love when you start threads like this!

Delta Chi does not use common titles for chapter or international officers.

"A" - President
"B" - Vice President
"C" - Secretary
"D" - Treasurer
"E" - Corresponding Secretary (Alumni Relations Officer)
"F" - Sergent at Arms (Risk Management Officer)

"BB" - Chapter Advisor

"AA" - International President
"CC" - International Secretary
"DD" - International Treasurer

Someone here once asked me why we used such referents and my answer (as others will surely be curious) is that you wouldn't call someone John if his name was Harry. ;)

DST National Executive Committee

National President
National First Vice President
National Second Vice President
National Secretary
National Treasurer

Just FYI, I have the impression that some groups have "common" names for their officers that they use in ordinary circumstances, but they also have ritual designations that only the initiated would know.

We (Phi Mu Alpha) use the basic president, vice-president, etc. From the time we became national until 1947, national officers were designated "Supreme" (e.g., Supreme President). After 1947, "National" replaced "Supreme." Couldn't tell you why.

I know that some groups use masonic terminology, like (Worthy) Grand Master. And if I recall correctly, KA Order chapters uses numbers (e.g., I (President), II (Vice-president). III (Recording Secretary)), while the national president is called the Knight Commander.

We have a President, then Executive Board is designated by Vice-Presidencies (if that makes sense). For example, Vice President of Membership, Vice President of Recruitment, Vice President of Scholarship, and so on.

And if it's on the HQ level, they're International President, International Vice President of Recruitment, and so on.

Edit: This is just on the executive board level. Other offices had titles that reflect their job, sometimes with Coordinator after (New Member Coordinator, Alumnae Coordinator, etc).

Hmm. Interesting with the ritual designations. For APO, the closest that we get to that concept is that one of the officer positions who has a role in one of the rituals isn't necessarily an office that all chapters (especially smaller chapters) actually have in their bylaws. So it's "who wants to be X this time".

The group you are refering to as "We use the basic president" is Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia? (not sure on spelling)

I *think* the reason that we switched from masonic terminology is that BSA who we had moved closer to administratively wasn't comfortable with Masonic terminology for officers (though arguably the terminology for officers in Order of the Arrow isn't much more common)

Interesting on KA Order.

This is Zeta Tau Alpha?

Sorry. Yes, my "we" referred to Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia. I'll edit to make that clear.
Answering for agzg, but since I'm already doing some clarification, she's an Alpha Gamma Delta.

On the Chapter level, all our officers have Greek names.

Archon- President
1st Angelos- Internal VP
2nd Angelos- External VP
Thesauristes- Treasurer
Epistolographos- Corresponding Secretary
Grammateus- Recording Secretary

On the International level we are led by the Executive Council, which is led by a President. But most of the day to day running of Psi Upsilon is by the Executive Director.

Vito, those are really cool.

In Kappa, our public names are pretty much in plain English:
President, Vice President-Standards, Vice President-Organization, Recording Secretary, Corresponding Secretary, Treasurer, Registrar, Marshal, Education Chairman, House Chairman, Membership Chairman, New Member Chairman, Panhellenic Delegate, Philanthropy Chairman, Public Relations Chairman, Risk Management Chairman, Vice President- Academic Excellence, Event Chairman

The two people may or may not understand would be VP Standards (sisterhood + judicial) and Marshal (ritualist). One interesting note is about 5-7 years ago, we moved to VP Academic Excellence from Scholarship Chair to give the role more emphasis.

On a national level, they're mostly the same but fewer officers, and Directors rather than Chairs. There are people under these as well (e.g. Regional Director of Alumnae or Chapters, Province Director of A or C):
President, Vice President, Director of Alumnae, Director of Chapters, Director of Membership, Director of Programs and Education

Ironically, I learned all of these from former AA Bill Williams, who is now the BB for the Behrend chapter (as he was years ago, before becoming AA, as well). Love him! :)

Ours are like AGD's, President and then VPs of things.

Waiting for LaneSig to weigh in on this because Sigma Chi has some really cool ones (that we could never figure out).

Sigma Chi's are Latin based right?

ASTalumna, I'm naming you GC Delta Chi sweetheart. Its official, here's your serenade!

Awww. :) Is that sung for sweethearts and at weddings?

Yes! Many chapters also use it to serenade sororities. Its a nice song, but extremely difficult to sing, especially a cappella.

ETA: I have a terrible singing voice as it is, so I feel bad for potential future wife...and all those people in Denny's this one time.

Not gonna lie - kinda gave me goosebumps. It would lend itself well to a barbershop quartet.

Awww yay! :D

O.K., I'm hijacking like no other right now, but my all time favorite Delta Chi song is called Delta Chi Dad and it is sung by a very barbershop-esque quartet.

Kappa Sigma has the following:

President: Worthy Grand Master
Vice-President: Worthy Grand Procurator
2nd Vice President: Worthy Grand Master of Ceremonies
Secretary: Worthy Grand Scribe
Treasurer: Worthy Grand Treasurer

They correspond to the names of chapter officers, except they have the name "worthy" in front.

That's awesome. :)

LOL @ hazing people at Denny's like that.

That is kick ass!! :D I love such traditions.

I love barbershop-esque quartets and the words are great.

In Kappa:

(Vice) President=>(Vice) Polemarch
Secretary=====> Keeper of Records
Treasurer=====> Keeper of Exchequer
(Asst.) Sgt @ Arms=>(Lt.) Strategus
5 member Board of Directors (no special title)
Historian/Reporter (no special title)

Regional titles are prefaced with Province [Title], international titles are prefaced with Grand [Title]. On these two levels, two additional officers are added, the Junior (Grand/Province) Polemarch, who is an undergradute brother, and an additional board of directors position. The two Strategus positions are also exclusively for undergraduates, as is three of the six board of directors positions, with the other three for alumni. The Keeper of Records and Exchequer positions are consolidated into one position on the Grand level, and a Grand Chapter Nominating Committee Chairman is included on the Grand level. So our regional and international leadership has at least a 40% makeup of undergraduate brothers at any given time, which I find really cool. :cool:

I love that! And I'd love even more to see a chapter attempt to sing it :D

Funny enough, TKE uses the same word for the same position: Grammateus - Secretary

So do three of the four NPHC sororities.

Yeah I'm assuming it is just the Greek word for Secretary. And I know Archon is used by a few fraternities as well.

I was going to say that TKE uses some pretty interesting titles, but I don't know if they are ritual. So I'll just leave it at that.

I was Marshal while I was dating a Theta Chi, but for them, the Marshal is New Member Chair (or Pledge Educator, whatever you wanna call it).

I think Sigma Pi has interesting names. I could check on FB, I bet.

I thought Lane would have posted by now too. Oh well, I guess I get to beat him to the punch.

Chapter Officers
Consul = President
Pro Consul = Vice President
Annotator = Recording Secretary
Tribune = Corresponding Secretary
Quaestor = Treasurer
Magister = Pledge Trainer/teacher
Kustos = Sergeant-at-arms
Recruitment/Rush Chairman
Social Chairman
Risk Manager Chair
Chapter Editor
Historian
Steward = Oversees kitchen/dining operations

Grand Chapter Officers = International Officers
Grand Consul
Grand Pro Consul
Grand Quaestor
Grand Tribune = Note, this is different from the chapter officer [corresponding secretary] in that the Grand Tribune is the spiritual leader and fellowship advisor of the Fraternity.
Grand Historian
Grand Trustees = Assist with chapter house corporations, legal issues, corporate governance, facility maintenance, fundraising, generating volunteers etc. There are 15 Grand Trustees.
Grand Praetors = Serves as an advisor, mentor, and provides leadership guidance to the chapters in his province (region). There are 47 Grand Praetors, one for each province.

The titles are open to all who are interested and they are as follows.
Prytanis - President
Epiprytanis - Vice-president
Grammateus - Secretary
Crysophylos - Treasurer
Histor - Historian
Hypophetes - Chaplain
Pylortes - Sergeant-at-Arms
Hegemon - Educator (pledge)

Stupid me, when I first heard the word hegemony with respect to Henry Kissinger, I thought "what has the Secretary of State to do with pledges?"

Hegemon (ἡγεμονία) = leader

It is just the names for the National Head, but I found a book that lists them for a number of National Fraternities, Sororities, Professional and Honoraries. It is from 1915, so it doesn't include all of the current groups...

http://books.google.com/books?id=nFd...page&q&f=false

I love how the president of the Chemistry professional is Grand Master Alchemist!

It could also be out-of-date. It lists ours as "Supreme President," which was correct in 1915. Sometime though (late 40s?), we changed the "Supreme" in all of our national offices to "National," so that know we have a National President. Don't know why the change was made.

Great find, though!

I was surprised to learn that Theta Xi used to be a professional fraternity.

That link is very interesting. I couldn't remember the date we made our officer titles secret, so I was wondering if I would open it up to find something that should not have been published. Luckliy (or not so luckily if you're nosey) it listed "AA."

What's really fascinating is that we're listed among general fraternities when we were still a legal fraternity in 1915. We went single membership in 1909, which began the trend that led us to become a general fraternity, but it was not official until 1922. It really goes to show how prevalent it was to initiate men outside of legal studies leading up to the 1922 resolution.

I know this isn't a GLO, but don't the Elks have kind of archaic officer names? I think I went to an Elks lodge for poll training and saw a parking space reserved for the Exulted Ruler or something along those lines.

Look at the Masons if you want to go that way.