Guidelines for wearing your chapter name's letters
 

I'm looking for guidelines on use of chapter letters.

Like, if I'm a member of the Delta Zeta chapter of XYZ Sorority, are the chapter reference guidelines solely with the Sorority? Or is it totally acceptable to go around wearing the DZ letters?

I mean, NO! That can't possibly be OK. But I am searching for some official guideline somewhere. Where common sense does not, unfortunately, prevail. :eek:

This is happening and I'm trying to point out an error in judgment respectfully. Or, if I'm wrong here, I need to see it in writing somewhere.

Help?

I've never heard of an NPC chapter wearing only the chapter letters. Yes, I've seen Gamma Gamma of Alpha Alpha but not just chapter letters.

This. The chapter letters typically accompany the sorority (or fraternity) name/letters in some way, so I don't think it's generally an issue?

I would assume that may differ depending on the organization. Being in the NPHC, there’s obviously a lot of differences, so take my comment with a grain of salt if it doesn’t help you. :D But Greeks wearing just their chapter letters on a shirt happens pretty often in our council.

and that's exactly why I qualified it with NPC....

Shall I assume the chapter letters in question are not attached to your initiation badge? Unless women are refusing to wear their initiation badges (the rampant Equity Revolt) and are choosing to wear chapter guards alone.

*You* did, but the OP didn't. It doesn't look like PersistentDST was replying to you.

Bee, what council is your sorority a part of?

I'd assume NPC. She has Alpha Chi Omega in her signature line.

In Indiana, our Fiji chapters often refer to each other by Chapter Greek letter designations. For example, IU is just “the Zeta chapter”, Rose-Hulman is Rho Phi, Hanover is Tau, etc. And it’s not just single letter chapters...it’s just how it’s been. Our brothers from Purdue (Lambda Iota) would never say “the IU FIJIs.” It would just be “the Zeta chapter” and everybody would know who they meant.

In fact, the chapter I’ve advised for 20+ years has had pocket-Ts for rush shirts and on the pocket is: FIJI, below it (in Greeks) Rho Phi and below that Rush 2020 for example.

Precisely this. I saw the OP was in an NPC sorority, but she didn’t specify, so I just added my thoughts. I’m not clear why I received a negative response. :confused:

Can you share an example, or guidelines that make this acceptable?

It's not related to an Equity Revolt. They just like their chapter letters I guess. I've just never seen this without also featuring the sorority itself. That the chapter letters happen to be identical to another national organization is what's leaving me floored.

So... are they wearing, for example, stitched letter shirts with DZ plastered across the front and nothing else on it?

Do they know their chapter designation is the same as another NPC? Perhaps they're simply ignorant to this fact. You'd be surprised how many collegiate members of NPCs have no clue about national sororities that exist outside of their campus.

Think about this: the NPC didn't formally come into being until 1902. Even back then some chapter designations were already identical to those of some NPC groups...Alpha Phi, Delta Gamma and Delta Zeta chapters likely existed within several of our oldest NPC groups by 1902. The NPC has never sought to control chapter greek designations within its groups.

And NPC groups joining in 1951 would DEFINITELY have already had chapters with names exacting those of some of our earliest NPC member groups.

I think I get this. Do they wear shirts that say just Zeta? Tau? Rho Phi? Or is FIJI on them somewhere?

My concern is directly related to (going back to my example) Delta Zeta shirts with no reference to XYZ sorority. Am I just noticing it more because DZ also just happens to be an org that is completely unrelated to XYZ.

I am in an NPHC organization as well. As for guidelines, I don't know if they are public or where to locate them, but I know that they are not that specific to your situation.

HOWEVER,

As a practice, when I have seen chapters wearing chapter-specific paraphernalia, it is always in the colors of the organization and/or is branded in some specific way to that chapter and organization.

Example:

Nobody at Howard confuses a big pink and green chennille letter A for being anyone but the AKAs, specifically the Alpha Chapter.

If I were an NPC chapter, I'd make sure that chapter-centric nalia also included the word "chapter." And I'd hope against hope that this chapter wasn't doing it on purpose.

Is there *any* GLO out there that chose not to assign (for example) "Mu Mu Mu" chapter because "Mu Mu Mu" GLO exist?

IMO, the most likely (while still probably pretty unlikely) *might* be Zeta Phi Beta and Phi Beta Sigma, but I simply don't understand the ordering of the assignment of chapter names of either group. Kappa Alpha Psi and Tau Beta Sigma, while also constitutionally bound don't have any three letter chapters.

It appears Chi Omega has 2 current active chapters that share a chapter designation with an NPC group- Kappa Delta (Bowling Green State U) and Sigma Kappa (Austin Peay State U), as well as two inactive chapters, Phi Mu (Lehigh U) and Delta Gamma (Denison U). All four of these chapters were opened well into the NPC era, so Chi Omega would have known all of them existed.

I do see where Delta Zeta was skipped over in the chapter list, but I have no idea if that was done because there is already a NPC group called that, or it was for some other reason. Even if it was done for that reason, I guess it didn't become an official policy or lasting guideline, because the Sigma Kappa and Phi Mu chapters came along after that.

Pi Beta Phi designates chapters by state of chapter first (Illinois; New York; etc) then greek alphabetically by date. So their Illinois Alpha chapter is their founding chapter at Monmouth College.

AOII allows chapters to choose their own greek letter designation (within reason). Their recently-installed Delta Gamma chapter at Missouri State had a lot of help as a colony from the Delta Pi chapter of AOII at Central Missouri State. So when choosing their greek name, Missouri State AOIIs wanted their greek letters to somewhat resemble the letters Delta Pi, and the letters Delta Gamma did that for them. Their choice had nothing to do with secretly wishing they were members of The Delta Gamma Fraternity, and everything to do with honoring their first connections to AOII thru its Delta Pi chapter.

ETA: AOII also installed a Kappa Delta chapter at Wright State University in 1985, and an Alpha Phi chapter at Montana State University in 1917. It's been noted before on Greekchat that Alpha Gamma Delta has their Delta Gamma chapter at Montana State, and its recently notable that Delta Gamma has re-established their Montana State Gamma Delta chapter. FTR there has never been an Alpha Phi chapter at Montana State.

Should this be KKPsi?

As far as I know, there’s not any formal guidelines about chapter letters being used exclusively for my organization. It’s not rare for ‘nalia to feature chapter letters. One of my friends celebrated her 10 year anniversary with her line sisters and they wore black sweatshirts that had their chapter letters on the front in red and white with an elephant on the back with their line numbers.

I’ve seen items with chapter names/letters, founding years and even chartering years for specific chapters. All of these things can be a point of pride and pretty normal to see at events, so I honestly never thought twice about it.

All of this.

The colors really help on our end. Since the NPC can use different colors more liberally, emphasizing “chapter” may help to clear that up. I can definitely understand the confusion.

All logical and makes perfect sense to me.

Thank you!! Much appreciated input.

Alpha Gam has both a Delta Gamma Chapter and a Delta Zeta chapter. But, the only place I've ever seen our women wearing "letters" is on their chapter guards attached to their badges. Now, chapter designations often appear on event T-shirts, but so does "Alpha Gamma Delta"

Whoops!

Thank You.

I have never seen NPC chapter only shirts. As Bee points out it could be confusing-like a misrepresentation, but I also have never seen any rule that forbids it. I would think in most PNMs eyes, they are not joining XX chapter of ABC, but are joining ABC.

Just an FYI, it's Delta Gamma Fraternity.

Fixed it :) Sounded wrong when I first typed it, now I know why.

If I am remembering correctly, the chapter I advised for years got shirts that had Alpha Xi Delta on the front pocket with their university name under it, a picture of some sort on the back, their chapter designation, Iota Zeta, spelled down one of the sleeves.