Bringing the Councils together
 

At my University we have all four councils. But the only councils that work together are IFC and PHC....NPHC and MCGC dont participate with the other councils. I want to find a way to get the councils to work together...any thoughts?

Councils can be a real challenge - I would first take a look and see if your IFC and PHC send any representatives to NPHC and MCGC meetings? Would those councils be willing to have a rep be there? That way, IFC and PHC can attend more of these councils events, update them on what's going on, and open up the communication lines a little bit more.

Often, NPHC and MCGC have been left out of the loop in the past with things such as Greek Week, Week of the Scholar, and other such "all-Greek" events. Whether it's right or not, some of these members may not feel so inclined to extend the all-Greek love, so it's going to take more work on the PHC/IFC end to show sincere commitment to Greek unity and interest in collaboration outside of for your own good (not that you are - but we all know how things can be perceived at times).

Take things a step at a time - see if you can start a Greek unity committee, or other such group, combining members from all councils to discuss ways to close the gap - maybe it's by each semester hosting a philanthropy together, maybe it's in Panhellenic sororities inviting MCGC groups for socials (vice versa all-around), or other specific tasks that you can work on together to enhance your GC. Eventually, if this group is going well, you could examine creating a strategic/long-term plan for your community, identifying key areas where you all can work together, setting long-term and short-term goals, etc.

All in all, find a few ways to reach out and create face-time between members to exchange updates, ideas, and most of all support.

You want to find a way to get the councils to work together? OK, fine.

But specifically doing what? And why the need? Have you asked why the NPHC and NMGC orgs don't participate? Perhaps it's as simple as "they haven't been asked."

Your dilemma is an interesting one, but way too broad. Why do you want the councils to work together? What are the goal(s) that can be accomplished by doing this? And more importantly, what are the respective councils willing to compromise in meeting this goal?

Please give some specifics and some background on your campus' situation. Your dilemma raises way too many questions at this point for a lot of us to sufficiently offer suggestions.

I don't know if things are different at my old school now, but NPHC was not at all involved with IFC or Panhellenic while I was still a student.

When I was on Panhellenic Council exec board, we technically shared an office with NPHC. However, I never met a single person from their exec board. (Panhel and NPHC shared a very large corner office. IFC had the "office" immediately next door to us, which was nothing more than a glorified closet.)

The NPHCers never set foot in our shared office - we made several phone calls to their exec board members, and not a single phone call was ever returned. (Our exec board was required to set office hours each semester where we'd be available to anyone who wanted to walk in with questions. We tried to reach the NPHC exec board to make sure that none of the times we were considering for office hours conflicted with any of their plans for the office space, etc.)

To this day, I still don't know why the NPHC group never set foot in our office space or why they wouldn't return phone calls from any of us. Did they simply not have a very active exec board, and therefore didn't have any use for office space? Did something happen in the past which caused bad blood between Panhellenic Council and NPHC? I don't know.

Why wouldn't the councils want to work together? What's wrong w/ building a united Greek community on campus?

From my very recent experience working in Greek Life at a university, having all four councils (or however many there are) work together can help in terms of breaking down stereotypes btwn the councils. As you know from GC, all four councils are different and offer different perspectives on Greek life. I think it's important that collegiate councils come together for that purpose, as well as to show the student body that they can all come together as members of the Greek community.

I could go on, but I think there are many benefits in having councils work together... at least for Greek Week and other all-Greek events the school may plan.


In terms of advice, I thought ekDZ1535 gave a lot of good suggestions. I think it's key to remember that getting the councils to work together won't happen overnight. I think it's important to get the councils to communicate with one another first, and then go from there in terms of what can be done to get them to collaborate on some projects.
Good Luck!

At my school, in addition to the 4 councils (IFC, NPC, NPHC, and DGC), we have the University Greek Council, which oversees all 4. It is another organization that has positions held by anyone who is greek. They coordinate events that get us to do things together.

NPHC and DGC are often left out of (or choose to ignore/not participate in) Greek Week. But usually, the same week as Greek Week they hold their Greek Extravaganza (Greek Extrav) which is a huge step show. Those running Greek Week made attendance at the Extrav worth points toward the Greek Week trophy, so there were tons of IFC and NPCers there! I think the other organizations really appreciated it. Also, greek council organized a "Greek Stroll" which included one person from EVERY greek organization on our campus (there's 44). They all learned a easy step routine and 'strolled' to the stage.

(On a side note, Greek extrav was quite possibly the coolest thing I've ever seen. I applaud those of you who step and spend hours perfecting your routines! People came from ALL OVER the state to watch the show. The only bad thing was that they made all the greeks go in one entrance and visitors another, so once in the arena all the NPC and IFC people were on one side and all of the visitors there for an amazing step show were on the other side.... it was pretty bad).

Also, during greek week, each organization had to submit 2 nominees for greek court, no matter what council they were in. Once court was announced, I believe there was one person at least from every council. That was an improvement from previous years as well.

I think it's all about getting the councils excited about participating in the other councils events and traditions. A little give and take, you know?

There's nothing wrong with it, but you have to ask how much the orgs have in common besides the use of Greek letters. On some campuses, joint programming makes sense. On others, it does not. The problem lies in partnering just for the sake of "unity" or "diversity" or something of that sort.

DeltaBetaBaby,

You hit the nail on the head as to why I posed the line of questioning the way I did. Hence why I asked, "What specifically will the councils be uniting to do?" What purpose will it serve other than unity for unity's sake? If that was to happen, what unity that does arise from that will be short-lived and will revert back to status quo in short order.

One way we try to bring together chapters within the CPH is common programming that meets national requirements. So for example, a lot of chapters are supposed to have programming on alcohol/drug abuse. If the CPH can put on that program, it serves a need for most of the chapters. I have no idea if NPHC groups have the same requirement. If they do, it makes sense to include them, if they don't, well, you can invite them, but why would they show?

(I don't mean to pick on NPHC groups...it would work the other way, too, if the NPHC groups had a program to honor outstanding AA high school students. What would the NPC groups want with that?)

wow, talk about pulling out examples through stereotypes. i hope in your head that was hypothetical.

What are you talking about? Delta gave two very concise examples which would demonstrate two different situations. It should be obvious that Delta's not insinuating that all NPC/IFC members do drugs and drink too much, and that all NPHC orgs sponsor AA high school students.


I think it's the opposite problem. We invited the NPHC groups to participate in Greek Week. Two accepted. Of the two, one teamed up with DZ [because the NPHC groups were too small to compete on their own, and they knew this going in]. The other group was supposed to be with us. We called and called them to organize stuff and discuss it, and never once did they call us back. Not one person showed up to anything from that group.

I agree with Susan; at least here, it's more effort on the NPHC side that's needed if intercouncil relationships are to work.

What is hypothetical? This is something I know the NPHC groups did on my campus. Is it now inappropriate to note that NPHC groups do activities geared toward African Americans?

I actually included that example because, unlike the above posters, it was not my experience that the NPHC groups were to blame for lack of unity. It was definitely a two-way street on my campus.

i started to respond, but i'll PM you since it takes the thread off-topic and what not...

Okay, back on topic.

One thing that worked very well for my chapter was inviting NPHC or MCGC orgs to join our homecoming float. Campus rules allowed up to 4 orgs, but most Greek floats were on CPH sorority and one IFC fraternity. Groups from the other councils were traditionally much smaller, and couldn't do a float on their own.

For them, it meant a chance to participate in a campus-wide activity that they didn't have the people/resources to do alone. For us, it meant we got to hang out with some new people (admittedly, we were most interested in the male people).

Obviously homecoming floats are the right activity for every campus, but you should take a look at what you already do that may interest groups from the other councils, as well as what you'd like to get out of a relationship with some of those groups. If you can find common interests, great. If you find that doing something with another council makes about as much sense as co-programming with the rugby team, don't bother.

(One exception would be those huge displays of Greek unity that you don't even want to do for your own council, but do for show, i.e. groundbreaking on a new house, installation of a chapter. You should do those for any chapter on your campus, regardless of council.)

I think you raise one of the issues with inter-council relations - everyone expects everyone else to come to them. I'm going to be frank in that the hoo-rah of Greek Week tends to be a favorite among the PHC and IFC groups and has traditionally been a week put on by these groups. So now one day PHC and IFC decide to include NPHC and they're expected to fit their mold for Greek Week? Just because you invite someone to participate doesn't mean that they should - I saw our councils do the same thing at first - Greek unity was inviting other people to our stuff...umm, no. Greek unity is reaching outside of your chapter and council to understand others. Each campus is different in terms of this and each chapter within the council maintains a different culture that's going to influence the success of doing so. But that's why the focus needs to be on understanding your campus, collecting others who also want to build inter-Greek relationships between councils, and figure out through communicating with one another what those ideal relationships should look like. You have to meet people where they are and not every chapter/council is going to be ready to participate with you in Greek Week, join in on the all-Greek stroll, etc. It's wonderful when those things work - but in terms of the question at hand, you have to invest the time to understand your community's needs and how far councils/chapters are willing to go to make these relationships a priority.

at loyola university, we formed a greek council that holds members of the NPC, IFC, and MGC councils and together they help plan greek week. we did this for the first time this year and it worked out great, everyone participated because everyone was involved in planning it. and we are expecting bigger and better for next year....I tell you the moment all your councils get together the better, because you end up making a greek week so unique and great!

I want to know why its the NPHC and MGC folks that are at fault here? Maybe they don't want to work with you because you all are too self-righteous!

I was wondering the same thing...

And I wonder has anyone ever thought to ask those two councils why they don't want to participate?

Just to be clear in case anyone misinterpreted my post about the office space...as I said in the actual post, the NPHC exec board may not have ever set foot in our shared office space b/c they simply didn't have use for an office space. (I don't know how organized of a group they were as a council - perhaps each individual NPHC fraternity/sorority just went off and did their own thing, and the council itself wasn't very active.) Or, there could have been some past event that happened long, long ago which caused bad blood between the different councils that none of us were aware of...I'd hate to think that was why they didn't return calls or show up in their own office though.

Unfortunately, since their exec members never returned any phone calls, we never knew what the situation was. I'd like to think it was that the NPHC council just wasn't active - if they needed the office space, I'd like to think that they would have used it. Their whole half of the room sat untouched all year - empty desks, empty walls. Even though they never set foot in the room and technically it would have been really convenient to use one of their desks, we never did. On the off chance that one of their officers did drop in one day, we didn't want them to think that we were taking over their fair share of the room. Our phone calls were made to try to be courteous office mates (ex - we're scheduling a meeting for our group and are trying to decide between X, Y, and Z dates/times, please let us know if any of those options would conflict with any plans you have). Not trying to force a joint meeting or some sort of group agenda, or anything like that.

I always thought it was unfortunate that they didn't use their office b/c it would have been a great opportunity to get to know their exec board. I'm not saying that any joint events would have necessarily come of it - certainly it would have been a positive thing if we would have happened to discover a way that we could have worked together on an event that both groups were interested in. However, even just being in a shared office on a regular basis and having the sort of casual conversations you might have in that situation would have helped both groups get to know each other.

One perspective:

We were required to send a rep to attend the weekly PanHel meeting.

As I've vented about before, we also did the Greek Week stuff. The Greek Week events were cool and it was fun to mingle with the other GLOs. Many of them were in our classes and close pals of ours, anyway.

But the problem is that BGLOs were relatively new to the campus and were excluded from almost everything until the BGLOs, themselves, pushed for more visibility and consideration. There was also an issue with the BGLOs having fewer members. It's difficult to delegate tasks regarding PanHel meetings and events like Greek Week when you have fewer members to delegate to. With fewer members, it's hard enough running the yard and having tons of programs a semester (:D) for your OWN organization without having to take overall GLO stuff into consideration. So we opted to focus on running the yard and having tons of programs a semester (:D) and often got criticized for being separatist and BLAH BLAH BLAH. However, the separatism definitely worked both ways but actually BEGAN and was mostly perpetuated on the opposite end.

Anyone can honor outstanding African American high school students if that is a component of the group's philanthropy.

Exactly!

It's just like any other invitation to attend or participate in events on college campuses. Almost every event is open to anyone who wants to attend--Greeks and nonGreeks of any race, ethnicity, gender, GLO affiliation, etc. To figure out why people don't come out despite your attempt at inclusion requires more than just a surface level invitiation.

Precisely!

i think the main thing people should do is ask why some organizations don't participate. sometimes it is as simple as they haven't been asked. if you ask one and there is no response ask again. keep asking until you get an answer. you'll get on their nerves and they will have to answer eventually. i liked getting to know the members of the npch and mcgc organizations on my campus. the way they do things is different but there is still some common ground. i think there is a need for diversity for educations sake.

My thoughts exactly!

At Southern Illinois University - Carbondale, we have an Inter-Greek Council which is composed of members of IFC, PHC, NPHC, and MGC. They meet every other week and the respective sub-councils meet on the weeks that IGC doesn't.

I guess that I've become so used to how we do things that I assumed having an Inter-Greek Council was pretty common.

Not to mention, if it had not been for IGC, I wouldn't have met some of the women of Delta Xi Phi Multicultural Sorority whom I've planned philanthropy/community service events with.

Well said! Thanks!

Gooooo Salukis!!!!

Charter member of the Delta chapter there.

I have a basic question. Is there something wrong with the councils not working together?

I believe there is. I think that it is important for the councils to work together so that all chapters can be supported and encouraged to participate in not just "Greek" events but school events at large. Some of the biggest events on our campus at Indiana University are not put on by IFC and PanHel, but our school's student foundation. The event is still primarily greek, but MGC and NPHC are not participants in these events. I want them to participate for the greater good of our school and our GC.

Furthermore, I believe that the divided/segregated councils goes further than just Greeks. I think it’s important for the greek councils to work together to set an example for more of the other student organizations to work together.

I fail to understand why you would NOT want to collaborate with your fellow Greeks. You work and play with other NPHC GLO's; why do you not want to do the same with others?

Because maybe what the other councils are involved in isn't something the NPHC groups (or vice versa, the NPC groups) are interested in or have time for. Like the poster below said, if the NPC and IFC say "hey! come join us for Greek week" but they don't want the NPHC to have any input, just show up, it's a hollow sort of invitiation. Kind of like a bridezilla who plans everything and then says to the groom and attendants "just show up and do what I tell you to do."

Sometimes I think it takes 2 individual groups from different councils working together (I know someone mentioned on here that AKA & DZ at their school had a "pink & green" fundraiser) to show that the IFC & Panhel want real input, not just diversity for the sake of diversity.

It was just a question. I am an alumnae chapter member. But considering the attitude you expressed your answer, why would I want to collaborate with you on anything?

YOU want them to participate, but do THEY want to? And are you saying then that it is wrong that they don't want to?

Because of the condescending attitude displayed by folks IRL like many in this thread, in particular. YOU PEOPLE keep asking why don't the NPHC Greeks want to participate in YOUR activities....how about you offering to participate in some of THEIRS or even better, collaborate to come up with something totally NEW that both groups can fully support?

Sometimes, some events work well as a collaboration. Other times, not so much. I think it's great when all of the Councils can find something that all the groups can totally support, but I don't think they should all be painted with the same brush either. Ultimately, the goals and aims of each council are different, so it doesn't always make sense for them to do things together. I do think it's nice when all of the groups support each other's efforts at philanthropy or community service. As for Greek Week, the activities planned and the sizes of the groups aren't always consistent with everybody's goals and aims. There's a difference between doing everything together and supporting each other as Greeks.

This is a really interesting discussion. After reading the responses, I have a question. Do you all think that the reasons to bring/not to bring the councils together stem from the type of campuses you are/were on?

Well, I think that IFC and NPC councils have to understand that the affliates of the NPHCs are overseen by the graduate/alumni chapters, which may be extremely active in the respective community. So there may be gala events that must be supported by the undergraduate NPHC affliates.

If I were you, I would contact the affiliates sponsoring graduate/alumni chapters. Then, if you do so, you all are going to have to come to the table with something reasonable.

Loooonnnnngggggggg time ago, there was an ALL GREEK TOGA party on San Diego State University's campus. Councils made mad money. It was sometime at the start of school before Recruitment.

This year, it cannot be done. But, you all may want to have your college involved and tag the NPHC affiliate philanthropies and have their strong voice represented.

Do not just call them, do not just send invites/evites or emails. You MUST venture on their turf, show you mean business. If that means you visit with the guests in the Senior Citizen Home, that means you do it. If that means you go to a Missionary Baptist Church all day on a Sunday--guess what!!!

If you are serious about reaching out, then you cannot be scared.

PM me if you want more ideas.

I think the perception of the campus climate definitely factors into why councils do or do not collaborate. Also, if the individual chapters within a campus NPHC or MCGC don't work together, I think it's a bit of a stretch to then expect them to work with NPC and IFC groups. Other points that were mentioned, condescending attitude, shallow invitations, non-inclusion in the planning, contribute as well.

I disagree with greek unity for unity's sake. Really, unity needs to be fostered BEFORE everyone is greek. So for NPC and IFC members who are able to pledge as first-semester freshman, that means fostering relationships not only with the NPHC and MCGC groups, but also with the Black Student Union/Association, NAACP, NCNW, Asian American Student Association, Hispanic Student Association, and whatever other groups on campus that are "feeder" groups for NPHC and MCGC organizations. AND VICE VERSA. NPHC groups are not exempt from partnering with non-minority focused groups. Additionally, really understanding how the other groups operate, and respecting it, helps as well.

Hey Kels ;)
Yea I see what you're saying. You make really good points. I understand about not wanting to have greek unity for unity's sake. I mean, I would hope that if councils DO work together, it's b/c they see it as an opportunity to really get to know one another and each other's organizations.

The only thing that I'm not too sure about was this:
Not that I don't agree w/ this, but I think that unity can be tough to achieve beforehand. Just from what I've been learning in my higher ed courses (student development theory, to be exact) college freshmen (and even sophomores),go through big time developmental issues. Many first and second year students are not in the mindset of seeking relationships outside of their "comfort zone" (whatever that zone may be). But this is all based on so many factors (i.e. type of h.s. they attended, type of family they are from, other environmental influences). I can only speak from my undergrad experience and say that during my freshmen and even sophomore years, you did not see the Black Student Union collaborating w/ the Indian Student Association. There were many groups on campus that just did not work together. Is that good? Umm, in my opinion, not really. But everyone wants to be in their comfort zone, which meant being around folks that usually looked like them. I'm sure many of us have seen or heard about this.

Anyway, I think that being greek is a unique experience and I don't see anything wrong w/ using that as a means to attempt to do things together (provided that there are good intentions about doing so). I think that even though all the councils are different in a lot of ways, there are definitely similarities. Of course, one of the biggest similarities is that we go through some type of process to become lifetime members of our respective org. I think many greeks can relate to that aspect on some level, as well as the fact that many of us understand what it means to uphold the rituals, traditions and histories of our orgs. So in that respect, doing things together b/c we are greek makes a lot of sense to me (call me crazy, but I just think that it does) :D

Also, from my experience in working in a greek office last year, it would pain me to hear my students (NPHC and MGC) talk about how IFC & NPC orgs would not even realize there were "other":rolleyes: greeks on campus. From their experiences, they got the sense that IFC and NPC orgs didn't even recognize them as being "real" greek orgs. Now that was really sad to me and that's another reason why I feel like councils should try to at least get to know each other better.