oldest continuous chapter
 

Listed below is the oldest continuously operating chapter of each NPC sorority. It is interesting to note how many Alpha (or founding) chapters are no longer active or have not had a continuous existence. Tell us the story of your founding and early chapters. Founding chapters are noted with *

1/1/1870 Kappa Alpha Theta DePauw *
9/18/1872 Alpha Phi Syracuse *
10/12/1872 Kappa Kappa Gamma Indiana 4th charter
4/10/1873 Pi Beta Phi Kansas 6th charter
11/11/1874 Gamma Phi Beta Syracuse *
3/15/1879 Delta Gamma Akron 6th charter
10/15/1885 Alpha Chi Omega DePauw *
5/10/1889 Delta Delta Delta Simpson 2nd charter
4/5/1895 Chi Omega Arkansas *
4/29/1898 Sigma Sigma Sigma Longwood *
4/14/1902 Alpha Omicron Pi Tennessee 4th charter
?/?/1902 Alpha Xi Delta Iowa Wesleyan 2nd charter
3/12/1904 Kappa Delta Alabama 8th charter
6/16/1904 Zeta Tau Alpha Tennessee 6th charter
4/21/1906 Sigma Kappa Illinois Wesleyan 5th charter
6/7/1906 Alpha Delta Pi Texas 4th charter
2/14/1908 Alpha Gamma Delta Minnesota 4th charter
10/8/1910 Phi Mu Brenau 11th charter
1/21/1911 Delta Zeta Ohio State 7th charter
12/28/1914 Alpha Sigma Alpha Truman State 15th charter
4/30/1916 Alpha Epsilon Phi Adelphi 4th charter
3/25/1917 Sigma Delta Tau Cornell *
/?/?1919 Theta Phi Alpha Cincinnati 5th charter
5/18/1923 Phi Sigma Sigma Illinois 8th charter
5/31/1930 Alpha Sigma Tau Concord 14th charter
10/18/1955 Delta Phi Epsilon Florida 34th charter

I'm pretty sure I learned during new member ed that DZ's Alpha chapter has never been closed, which would make it the oldest, since it was founded in 1902.

The first three chapters of Alpha Delta Pi were closed because all three schools banned Greek Life.

Our oldest chapter, Delta, just initiated a descendant of one of our founders! Can you imagine having roughly EIGHT or NINE generations of legacies?!?!?

ASA
 

Technically, Truman is our 15th charter, but it is actually one of the four "Alpha chapters" from our reorganization in 1914. Many of the first 14 (other than Alpha) were located at schools that no longer have Greek life or were released to other sororities.

The Alpha chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma was closed in 1884 because the college banned Greek organizations. It was reestablished as Alpha Deuteron in 1934. Pi Beta Phi would have a similar closing of their Illinois Alpha chapter, only I believe they reestablished earlier than Kappa did.

IIRC, The Beta and Gamma chapters were closed after a few short years due to low interest/members.

Alpha Xi Delta's founding chapter closed due to the college closing down. Lombard College closed, or was absorbed by another college. Maybe Knox?

Whoa - that is seriously cool!

I believe Knox is the old Lombard college......

That's awesome! Is there an online article somewhere? I'd love to read more details.

AOII's founding chapter at Barnard College/Columbia University closed when Greek life was banned. Alpha Epsilon Phi was also founded there and closed for the same reason.

I think Phi Mu's oldest continuously open chapter is Kappa (1908) at Tennessee, ZTA's is Epsilon (1903) at Arkansas, and Chi O's is Rho (1900) at Tulane.

AnchorAlumna, the ADPi founder with the long line of legacies is Ella Pierce Turner. I tried to locate an article, but wasn't able to find one. Her original badge has remained in the family and has been used to initiate many generations of her legacies.

What a wonderful family tradition! None of AOII's founders have any family passing their badges down the generations. All of the founding badges are in our International archives. They are all beautiful by the way!

Our oldest chapter is our Epsilon chapter at the University of Arkansas which was founded in 1903.

ZTA's first few chapters closed because the school banned Greek Life. Our Alpha chapter reopened when the school received accredidation of sorts.

Delta Zeta's Alpha chapter has not had a continuous existance. According to the national history it was not functioning from 1905 until 1908. The Zeta Tau Alpha chapter at Arkansas was inactive from 1938 until 1947.

Was Chi O's chapter at Arkansas (where they were founded) closed at some point?

The Alpha, Beta, and Gamma chapters of Sigma Kappa were all at Colby College and are closed because Colby banned Greek Life.

That's a shame! Somebody ought to write one...perhaps for the sorority magazine...and the NPC magazine.

Alpha Phi officially became the 4th Greek Letter organization for women on September 30th, not the 18th.

--One of our founder's descendants initiated into Alpha Phi @ USC (except i'm not sure how long ago that was).

--There were at least 4 Alpha Phi's who served as the Dean of Women at Northwestern University.

--One of our founders was 22 years old, and she was the only one who could sign any of the legal documents.

--We pronounce the Phi as FEE because a professor at Syracuse told our founders that it correctly pronounced FEE.

He was correct. Most Greek organizations use the Americanized version of the Greek Alphabet. There is no "I' sound like in pie in the Greek language. Alpha Xi Delta, I believe, is the only other NPC that pronounces their name in the classic Greek manner.

This is so cool. I currently live two block north of this chapter house. It has a sign in front that says "1889" but I had no idea it was that long.

I think I will send a birthday card to them on May 15th!!! in the Panhellenic spirit!

You are correct!

This isn't really accurate.

Paging MysticCat!

What about it isn't accurate? My husband is first generation Greek-American and speaks Greek...this is the source of my knowledge.

Modern Greek is not the same as Classical Greek - much as modern Italian is not the same as Latin. But for specifics, we do need MysticCat.
And as a long time English teacher, let me say - it is entirely possible to speak a language as your first language and not be fluent in the finer points of grammar, linguistics, syntax, spelling, vocabulary and pronunciation. I always got a chuckle out of hispanic students who thought taking Spanish would be an easy "A" - and then they tripped up on the grammar.
Though come to think of it, we have plenty of evidence of that here everyday at GC!

So, does that mean that your sorority would be Al-fuh Om-mee-cron Pee?

Something about that doesn't seem right.

I understand that languages do change over time...I can't understand "English" as spoken by the British, but that being said, the same rules for I apply in classical greek.

That actually is correct if you wanted to use classic pronunciations, but we don't. We use Pie as you well know. I don't feel in anyway less "greek" because my founders didn't choose to use that pronunciation.
Although, I think it would be O-meh-cron not Oh-mee-cron.
And...my husband learned his Greek not from his father, but from his Aunt who teaches Greek in Athens.

You rang? :D

AOII Angel is indeed correct the name of the letter F is correctly pronounced FEE in Greek and that most GLOs use anglicized pronuncations of the Greek letter names. (Although off the top of my head I can't remember if there are any GLOs other than Alpha Xi Delta that use the Greek pronunciation rather than the anglicized. That's not counting, of course, those orgs that only use letters for which the Greek and anglicized pronunciations are essentially the same, like Kappa Delta. I say 'essentially" because in Kappa would be closer to Kahppa.)

The part that "isn't really accurate" is this:
There is an "I" sound in Greek; at least in classical Greek there is. I'm not sure how prevalent it is in modern Greek. As in most languages other than English, though, it is not represented by a single letter.

The sound we associated with I (eye) is a diphthong, or glided vowel -- two vowel sounds pronounced one after the other in the same syllable with no break in between. Pay attention to your tongue and mouth when you say "eye" (and say it slowly) and you'll notice that you start with the "ah" vowel and end with the "ee" vowel. (If you listen to a trained singer, you'll notice that he or she, if an "eye" sound falls on a longer note, holds the "ah" until almost the end of the note, only moving to the "ee" at the very end.)

In classical Greek, this diphthong would be represented by alpha (ah) iota (ee) together -- ai. Thus, while the letter iota alone does not indicate an "eye" sound, alpha and iota together do. (Or did.) So, for example, the Greek word for "and" -- kai -- would be pronounced like the common American pronunciation of the name of the letter Chi and would rhyme with the English "pie."

Wow, I feel smart just for reading that post. :cool:

I completely agree with this. I was incorrect in saying there is no I sound...there is no letter that alone makes the I sound. It's interesting too that many of the sounds we associate with the greek letters are not the sounds used by Greeks. Our written out spelling of Greek letters are english not Greek. A is called alpha but not spelled out as alpha, etc. It's the name of the greek letter the same as A is "aye" in english. Thanks for the Greek lesson, MysticCat! I also miswrote about the Alpha Xi Delta comment. What I meant was they were the only other group with an I in their name that pronounces the name in the classical greek manner. Some of the americanized greek letters do sound the same as the classical pronunciations.

By the way, MysticCat...did you study classical Greek in school? I'm very interested in your background!:)

This is why I'm always amused when someone tries to spell out the names of the Greek letters using Greek letters and spells Alpha ALPHA. Ummmm, that spells "Alpea." :D Alpha would just be ALFA. (Whenever one sees "ph" in an English word, one can pretty safely bet that the word comes from Greek and that the "ph" was originally F).

No, I didn't -- just one of the things I've made general, informal study of on my own. Probably didn't hurt that there are quite a few ministers in my family, so I grew up in an environment that valued some understanding of the New Testament in Greek -- that plus an education that stressed an understanding of Greek and Latin roots of words. (Yes, I'm that all old. :D) In addition, with a music background, singers have to learn rules of pronunciation for foreign languages even if they don't have a clue what the words mean -- I can sing or "speak" Italian like a pro, even if I can only guess at what I'm talking about. That's probably given me a facility for paying attention to how foreign words are pronounced.

All of that means that I can be pretty good at figuring out the meanings of lots of Greek and Latin words, and I can be pretty good at figuring out how to pronounce those words, but I'd be lost trying to put a Greek or Latin sentence together. The rules of grammar and syntax I know not at all.

I feel the same way. I find your story very interesting. I, on the other hand, am horrible at pronunciation. I can read languages, but don't try to make me speak them. I guess it's embarassment from trying to speak a foreign language with a southern accent. Nothing ever sounds right.

You obviously didn't have my voice teacher. :p All arias/lieder/chanson must not be sung until you are able to recite them as a poem, and fluidly give both a literal and poetic translation. And trust me, "Tell me What Love Is" =/= "Voi Che Sapete". Tried that one.:(:o Luckily I was studying Spanish at the same time, so the Italian was similar, and German is easy, due to the similarities in English. And my teacher gave up on French with me. Nevermind that I studied French 2 years in highschool and my teacher was the French diction teacher, singing + French + me = disaster. Even now, I can barely eek out an acceptable Habanera, and that's about it.

Kappa Delta's Alpha chapter relinquished its charter so that KD could join NPC.

I just tell people I'm from Southern Germany, or wherever. ;)
LOL. No, my voice teacher also expected us to know exactly what we the words meant as well. Still, though, as Anna Russell said (I think about French art song), "It doesn't really matter if you know what the words actually mean so long as you can pronounce them properly." We had to take either French or German as a language, and for the other language we had to take a class on pronunciation. Yes, after 3 years of French in High School, I took a class on how to pronounce French. The thing is, there actually are differences in pronunciation in sung and spoken French -- things like a silent "e" may not be silent when sung. Who knew?

Actually Knox was in existance before Lombard closed and absorbed Lombard College in the depression. Alpha Xi Delta transfered its Alpha Chapter to Knox at the time of the merger of the colleges, absorbing a local that was already in existance at Knox. Pi Beta Phi and Sigma Nu had chapters at both Knox and Lombard, which were merged as well.

Alpha Xi Delta's Beta chapter at Iowa Wesleyan has the distinction of actually being in existance before the fraternity was founded. Our Beta chapter was originally Chapter "S" of PEO and became Beta of Alpha Xi Delta when PEO stopped having college chapters.

You'll definitely enjoy this - when my German diction teacher was younger and studying in Vienna, they wouldn't allow her to sing any songs with the German word "bist" in them (and yes, that seriously eliminates most of your vocal selections). She could not say "bIst" to save her life, and even now still has students help her pronounce it during diction class.