NPHC/NPC/IFC/NIC/MCGC and Greek Week
 

Hello!
So, a few quick questions..

1. Regardless of your council and organization:
Is Greek Week mandatory at your school? For example, if your chapter chooses not to participate, are there penalties?

2. If you are in NPHC, are you required to participate in your university's Greek Week?

3. If you go to a PWI, do you have different Greek Life Advisors for the councils or it's just one person over ALL Greek Life? It just seems like there is a lack of understanding between our Greek Life Coordinator and the NPHC at my school.

Thank you all!!!

Really yall? 30+ views and no one has anything to say about Greek Week?

LOL. I had typed a post but decided not to post. In the 1990s, my chapter hated Greek Week. We considered it an NPC-IFC-centered waste of our time.**

They tried to require our participation but we fought that tooth and nail. We agreed to participate in later years but it still was a hassle because we are an intentionally small chapter. Although we were friends with some NPC and IFC members, Greek Week wasn't fun. We would much rather hang out with other GLOs without a formal Greek Week.

They unfortunately had the same Greek Life advisor for all of the GLOs. We didn't pay that advisor any mind and only cared what the Delta chapter advisor, et al. dictated.

**This was also connected to the notion that NPC and IFC are "real" sororities and fraternities whereas the rest of the GLOs were for "those people." That is correlated with race and ethnicity which is why it grates my nerves when national bodies like NPC present themselves as representing "all sororities" and "the sororities."

/there ya have it

1) I work with a professional fraternity at a public college. Actual Greek Week, I don't know if they do. But they do require a lot of things for our org that I do not think is an efficient use of our org's time, such as mandating participation on a professional council. (I just think professional orgs operate in their own realms and don't need to interact with other professional orgs in order to be a success.)

2) n/a

3) At this school, there is one Greek Life Advisor for all Greek Life. The person sometimes has graduate assistants, but there are none currently.

Send me a PM if you have further questions as I can't guarantee further public comments about this topic will be diplomatic on my part lol

1. Regardless of your council and organization:
Is Greek Week mandatory at your school? For example, if your chapter chooses not to participate, are there penalties?

No, if a group didn't want to, we'd have no problem. Our associate NPC member just started participating recently, and we welcomed them in easily.

2. If you are in NPHC, are you required to participate in your university's Greek Week?

Our NPHC and MCGC organizations aren't required to join in; they used to be involved but have since discontinued.

3. If you go to a PWI, do you have different Greek Life Advisors for the councils or it's just one person over ALL Greek Life? It just seems like there is a lack of understanding between our Greek Life Coordinator and the NPHC at my school.

Our school has NPC-IFC under the Fraternity and Sorority Life Office, while the NPHC and MCGC groups fall under our Multi-Cultural Student Services Office, so we have separate advising for each set of councils.

1. Regardless of your council and organization:
Is Greek Week mandatory at your school? For example, if your chapter chooses not to participate, are there penalties?

I don't think Greek Week is mandatory-to the best of my knowledge not all of the IFC and NPHC chapters participate, and non-social groups don't participate at all.

2. If you are in NPHC, are you required to participate in your university's Greek Week?

Again, I am fairly sure but not completely sure that they aren't.

3. If you go to a PWI, do you have different Greek Life Advisors for the councils or it's just one person over ALL Greek Life? It just seems like there is a lack of understanding between our Greek Life Coordinator and the NPHC at my school.

We have a Director of Greek Life, an Associate Director of Greek Life and then several Graduate Assistants who act as advisors to chapters in all three councils (Clemson doesn't have any chartered multicultural groups). Our Associate Director is an AKA and one of our grad students is a DST so I'd like to think that we have decent communication between the NPHC and overall department, but I'm not totally sure.

1. Regardless of your council and organization:
Is Greek Week mandatory at your school? For example, if your chapter chooses not to participate, are there penalties?

When I was in school, it wasn't required. However, we had to submit annual "performance reviews" to the Greek Life office and there were points given for participating in GW. If you participated in other events throughout the year (both school and non-school related) it could potentially offset the points lost from not participating in GW.

2. If you are in NPHC, are you required to participate in your university's Greek Week?

My org is not NPHC, but no groups were required.

3. If you go to a PWI, do you have different Greek Life Advisors for the councils or it's just one person over ALL Greek Life? It just seems like there is a lack of understanding between our Greek Life Coordinator and the NPHC at my school.

There were multiple advisors (throughout the years, I've seen one for each council [4], one for PWGLOs and one for "cultural" GLOs, one for fraternities and one for sororities -- not sure what they're doing now, but all of the advisors reported to the Student Activities director).

1. Regardless of your council and organization:
Is Greek Week mandatory at your school? For example, if your chapter chooses not to participate, are there penalties?

I think so! but I only think so because each one had to pay a fee.

2. If you are in NPHC, are you required to participate in your university's Greek Week?

Okay so technically you are supposed to, but that doesn't mean people like listen to that. At my school you have at least one NPHC and one MCGC fraternity or sorority paired up with you. Our NPHC frat participated with us to the best of their ability ( i think they had other events planned around the week too) and the same with a majority of the other NPHC sororities and fraternities.


3. If you go to a PWI, do you have different Greek Life Advisors for the councils or it's just one person over ALL Greek Life?
Nope. Our greek life advisor oversees them all. But I know he is a IPT so he deff understands the culture of the NPHC and whatnot.

I wish more schools would try this model.

I'm curious is the resources are comparable. At my alma mater, Greek Life had a MUCH larger budget than the MC office did.

The FSL office has a slightly bigger budget currently, in part due to previous allocations and due to the addition of more chapters in the IFC-NPC area recently. I know the university tries very very hard to make sure campus resource allocations are equal and suited to what each group needs. We've had a big uproar here regarding diversity issues on campus, so I imagine the MCSS budget will be seeing a rise come fall in order to tackle these issues and provide more resources/programming. We have a very welcoming atmosphere here, and money works much the same--there's plenty around so if the MCSS Office wanted more I can't imagine them having problems getting it.

And at many schools, Greek Life/Student Activities has a larger influence/impact on campus life than Multi/cultural offices.

It is an interesting model. At face value (what k_s has presented) the model seems super segregated but I could see how that is beneficial for NPHC/MCG. I think it implies that the university acknowledges that the councils and organizations operate very differently and need their own space to do their thing, but it also implies that the university is not going to create any common ground for all orgs to share.

Can I just be super honest and slightly shady?

Why should the orgs share common ground? Even aside from recruitment practices, it's apples and oranges, from systems of advising to theories of lifetime commitment. And social justice.

Well that's my neutral/unbiased answer. To be really real... you're right. Apples and oranges still means we're all fruit. Maybe we're apples and tomatoes. Both fruits except we're fruits that everyone treats like vegetables?

Now this is stuck in my head:
You're A Vegetable, You're A Vegetable
Still They Hate You, You're A Vegetable
You're Just A Buffet, You're A Vegetable
They Eat Off Of You, You're A Vegetable

I've said this in other threads. There is no reason to act like the different councils have anything in common other than Greek letters. At a national level, there are some common interests, such as allowing single gender organizations, housing and insurance policies, etc., on which the groups might want to work together (for example, the bill to allow donations to Greek housing to be treated like donations to a university for tax purposes), but as far as programming? Nope.

This stuff varies by GLO cultures and campus cultures.

I considered the "no matter the letter, we're all Greek together" stuff to be bullshit. We have had GC discussions about the "all-inclusive" Greek thing and how it reminds some of us of most multicultural churches. Invite the non-white people but everything will be based on white culture(s).

We always wanted the Greek Life office to get out of our way and leave us the hell alone.

LMAO

Word.

THANK YOU!!! This is exactly how I was thinking. We don't have a problem with the Greek Unity idea, but when one NPC Chapter is larger than the entire NPHC x3, it's just...Idk. Different.

Our current Greek Life Coordinator is saying we will face disciplinary actions if we don't participate, but in order to participate we have to buy these shirts, and honestly, we don't have money like that to purchase shirts for no reason. The larger chapters can add on fees on their dues and have ample money left over, but we dont.

And yes, she is def a member of a NPC sorority so I feel she views us as "others". I've heard her mention at our school's Black Grad ceremony a few years ago that she wishes she wasn't associated with the Black Greeks and was upset how we are allowed to stroll at the end..etc. It's just a battle I feel I have to prepare for and I wanted to see how other schools handle it.

I tried to explain it to someone else that even though she's Black and Greek, she's not necessarily a Black Greek. I'm a Pan African Studies major and I just have issues with her continuously trying to force us to act like a NPC org. We even tried meeting her halfway and asking if we could host a yard show/stroll comp during Greek Week and that got shut down TOO quickly. Smh.


For everyone else commenting,
THANK YOU as well!
I have a President's Meeting with the GL Coordinator on Wednesday and I wanted to ask her why it's mandatory for us to participate, but I wanted to see how other universities handle this.
We have to do Quarterly Reviews too and Binders, and the NPC/IFC get awards on their regional level for some of the stuff they are mandated to do, but our org is different and these mandatory events are just taxing and time consuming.
I want to see if we can have a seperate NPHC Advisor, since they understand we don't necessarily recruit for the numbers and aren't trying to have a line of 50+ every year.

"THANK YOU!!! This is exactly how I was thinking. We don't have a problem with the Greek Unity idea, but when one NPC Chapter is larger than the entire NPHC x3, it's just...Idk. Different."
We have an NPC associate member with a chapter in that same situation--they've elected to participate in Greek Week the past year and this one coming, but if they didn't want to join in, we never would have the gall to tell them they have to. It would be so unrealistic and unfair to make a group with 30-40 members do something with us and expect they be on the same level as chapters with totals around 200 members.

The money complication here I would also take issue with--we set clear monetary expectations up front for members, and members are told upfront what we have to pay for, how much, and why. If anyone dared tell me I better pay for something we never voted on/never discussed having all participate in I would be equally livid. It's not fair to place unexpected financial burdens on college students; we're all trying to pay for rent and books and tuition, and sometimes even a simple t-shirt can be too much for one's bank account.
Pardon my lane swerve, back into mine….

Lulutnl3 - if they are trying to force you to pay for things you don't want and participate in things you don't want to be involved with, I would get your national hq involved. This chick sounds like she has issues of her own that she's taking out on your orgs.

That's what I was thinking. She may need someone with some authority come in and explain to her how she's trying to force a round peg into a square hole.

And sanctions against any chapter that didn't participate in what is typically a competitive, social, risk filled week of activities? I would definitely clue in someone from headquarters.

Regardless of your council and organization:
Is Greek Week mandatory at your school? For example, if your chapter chooses not to participate, are there penalties?
Nope. If you don't participate, you just won't win. It's totally optional, though.

2. If you are in NPHC, are you required to participate in your university's Greek Week?
Again, no one is required to participate. But, the NPHC org(s) (the number fluctuates) aren't consistent with their participation.

3. If you go to a PWI, do you have different Greek Life Advisors for the councils or it's just one person over ALL Greek Life? It just seems like there is a lack of understanding between our Greek Life Coordinator and the NPHC at my school.
It's one person over all of Greek Life, but the NPHC org(s) is/are advised by the coordinator of Multicultural Programs. Also, there are/were the umbrella Greek Council with 3 councils underneath, one of them being NPHC.

It is worth mentioning, though, that when I started at school, all Greeks were in the IFC. At the end of my sophomore year, the NPHC orgs on campus resigned from the IFC, stating that everything the IFC and the orgs within it did were of absolutely no benefit to the NPHC orgs.

Also worth mentioning, when recruitment week comes around, NPHC is required to participate in the traditional events that the non-NPHC orgs are hosting.

You mean formal recruitment? So... NPC/IFC don't have to participate in...well I wouldn't know what there WOULD be for those orgs to participate in on the NPHC side, nor would... Ehh. It's not reciprocal.

Informal, I guess. It definitely isn't like formal NPC recruitment. But there is an event/party rotation that occurs on the weekends (recruitment is 2 weeks long) and all orgs are required to participate.

But at the end of the day, no, it isn't remotely reciprocal. It's all for the benefit of the non-NPHC organizations.

I'd agree with this more except for the membership of Alpha Phi Alpha, Kappa Alpha Psi and Iota Phi Theta in the NIC.

There are individual members of fraternities in the NIC who don't know NPHC fraternities are members of the NIC; and there are Alphas, Kappas, and Iotas who don't know their fraternity is a member of the NIC.

Therefore, those national dynamics are minuscule as far as some people are concerned and do not mirror what is happening at the local and college levels.

Phi Beta Sigma is also a member of the NIC.

I've also seen non-NIC/NPC/NPHC fraternities in Greek Week. For example, Alpha Phi Omega at Ramapo (http://ramaponews.com/greek-orgs-tak...5#.U02OQ_ldU1I)
and Syracuse (http://fasa.syr.edu/greek_week2014/teams.html)

^^ Gamma Xi Phi was in that. I don't mind saying publicly that I do not support GXP's participation in any activity that isn't in support of the arts or artists.

Which IMO is completely effed up, since it basically takes away the concept of cross-membership in APO and social GLOs. If APO is going to participate, it should be in a referee or (wait for it)service capacity.

1.) The time while I attended, Greek Week wasn't mandatory. All Chapters participated in the event.

2.) The NPHC has never been (to my knowledge) involved in Greek Week.

3.) Cleveland State's Department of Student Life has someone who was hired this past academic year as Greek Life Advisor to oversee The Greek Organizations. During that time, She has helped bring back IFC and Started a Sorority Council. The NPHC council was formed this past spring semester and is officially recognized by CSU. they may be advised by a different advisor.

Co-ed
 

Is their a co-ed national greek council, if yes what's the contact info, if not, why not?



DPsiA

The question is "co-ed what?". If "what" = "Socials", there are few that aren't ethnic (or other minority) and most of those are historically in a the NIC. If for non-socials, all of them are co-ed in the US due to Title IX and thus a single co-ed council exists (say the Professional Fraternity Association (PFA) for professionals, Association of College Honor Societies (ACHS) for honoraries, etc.) The Service Greeks don't really have one (the largest (Alpha Phi Omega) joined the PFA.

National Multicultural Greek Council (http://nationalmgc.org/) or National American Greek Council (http://nagc2004.wix.com/nagc) *may* align with what what Delta Psi Alpha, but I don't know...