All locals going national at once
 

At the risk of irritating or boring those who seem to want only titillating tales of sorority rush, this story which I uncovered may be of interest to some of you:

At most institutions national fraternities and sororities have been established intermittently as the need arises. However, at a few major universities a system of local groups had existed and a decision was made to allow them to seek national affiliation all at the same time. This process can best be correlated to mating season in some animal species, or perhaps the N.F.L. draft. It would have been fun to be a Greek Advisor at such time to witness the procedure. Two institutions are especially interesting.

University of Houston began as a junior college in 1927 and evolved into a four year institution in 1934. After World War II the University exploded in size and prominence. Placing a chapter at a major university in the state's largest city was attractive to a large number of fraternities and sororities, especially those with a strong presence in Texas. Plus the bonus of an already established group with alumni is always desirable to any national organization.

There were eight local sororities, the oldest dating from 1939. Following a process of intense lobbying and presentations by national organizations, and equally intensive selling themselves by the local groups, finally resulted in selections being made of a national affiliation for each sorority. The victors were Alpha Chi Omega, Alpha Delta Pi, Alpha Phi, Chi Omega, Delta Gamma, Delta Zeta, Phi Mu and Zeta Tau Alpha. All installed their chapters on February 4, 1956, in what surely has to be one of the more unique occurences in sorority history.

Fourteen men's social groups existed, the oldest formed in 1945. Their process was similar to the sororities, but with twice the participants and much more aggresiveness. Four successful groups, Pi Kappa Alpha, Pi Kappa Phi, Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Sigma Phi Epsilon, chartered the same days as the sororities. During the next twelve months, Phi Epsilon Pi, Sigma Chi, Sigma Nu, Tau Kappa Epsilon, Delta Chi, Delta Sigma Phi, Kappa Alpha, Phi Kappa Theta, Phi Sigma Kappa and Lambda Chi Alpha also installed chapters.

The opening of San Jose State University to national organizations was literally a "gold rush." Adding a chapter in the prosperous Bay Area of California was a high priority for almost every national fraternity and sorority. Especially attractive in this case was the age of the groups and the many alumni they had.

The oldest of the eight sororities had been founded in 1898. Attracting the oldest and strongest groups were Alpha Phi, Kappa Alpha Theta and Kappa Kappa Gamma. On February 6, 1948, the Thetas were the first to install on campus. Others successful at chartering groups later in the year were Delta Gamma, Chi Omega, Alpha Chi Omega, Alpha Omicron Pi and Gamma Phi Beta. Delta Zeta and Sigma Kappa organized colonies and also installed chapters during 1948.

The fraternity selection process was less organized and more drawn out in time. There were eleven groups, the oldest founded in 1926. The first to install was Sigma Alpha Epsilon in November 1947. Alpha Tau Omega, Delta Upsilon and SAE took the oldest and strongest locals. The remaining groups to install were Theta Chi, Phi Sigma Kappa and Kappa Alpha in 1948, followed by Pi Kappa Alpha, Lambda Chi Alpha, Sigma Nu, Theta Xi and Sigma Chi during the next two years. Chartering from colonies were Delta Sigma Phi and Sigma Pi.

The above material was obtained from the Wilson Heller papers, yearbooks from the two instititions, plus several fraternity and sorority histories.

Love it! Keep 'em comin' oldu!


In recent years, Furman & Wake Forest come to mind. W&L began their system with 3 groups, but they began from the ground up with no locals.

When is your book coming out and where do I sign up?

Who needs Baird's when you have oldu? ;)

Great stuff, keep it coming!

Isn't there a huge archive at Urbana-Champaign? How about we send someone (oldu?) to research this stuff!

Wow! I had no idea San Jose State used to have so many NPCs! They only have 4 now (I believe). I soooo wish the Kappa chapter was still alive!

Great info. I know that within the last 10 years or so both Valpo and John Carroll have had all their local sororities go national at once. It does seem like it would be a feeding frenzy!

It's as competitive as it gets in NPC -- especially if it's a "top tier" campus!

Just curious, how does it work exactly? I know that "normally" three groups present and then one is chosen. If say 4 groups are going national at once, does each group get three different national presentations or are x number of national groups chosen to present and then the four groups pick from those?

Seems like I recall at Wake (anyone else jump in here with info!) -- let's say there were 6 locals. I believe 6 NPC groups presented to each group. Then, it was like bid matching -- the locals ranked their top 3 and the NPCs ranked their top 3.

That's the way I recall for the other campuses too.

Correct, JCU was just a few years ago.

I believe all the local sororities also went (inter)national at Pepperdine in the mid 90's.

I remember when all the Baylor sororities went national at once in the seventies. Feeding frenzy!

At the school where I teach, all the locals except 1 went national at once, plus they added another one a couple of years later.

I wonder if Sewanee could be next? They have one NPC and several locals.

Davidson has national fraternities but no women's GLOs. The women have eating houses that could be absorbed by the NPC groups. They just appointed a new president this summer so perhaps he will be more amenable than previous campus administrators.

I wouldn't hold my breath about Davidson. A friend from high school goes there and told me the faculty and administration is very anti greek.

Definitely not. Many women alumnae also vehemently oppose sororities. I don't think it'll ever happen there. Also I wonder how NPCs would react to Davidson's guaranteed self-selection. I know that most of the fraternities opposed it and many left campus when this was instituted in the 1970s, but many later returned.

Sewanee, maybe so, but it's my understanding from other GC threads that the locals there don't want national affiliation/supervision.

In layman's terms, what is that?

But would Sewanee locals have a choice if the administration said they had to affiliate with a national or disband? With liability risk so much higher with locals, wasn't that why WFU admin demanded the switch to all nationals?

Any person going through Davidson's fraternity or eating house recruitment (there are both all-women and co-ed eating houses) are guaranteed their choice of where to join. Basically if a person wants to join that group, they can. The potential new members rank their choices and membership is decided by lottery. My understanding is that you cannot be denied membership by the members of the group you want to join. Self-selection instead of mutual selection You may not get what you want in the lottery, however.

Of course students at Davidson might be able to comment on the theory vs. practice of this rule.

When the rule was implemented in 1971, many of the fraternities decided to close and at least a few began operating off-campus without school recognition. I think they are all now officially recognized and abiding by the self-selection rule. The eating houses obviously never had this issue.

Actually looking at the website it appears that the co-ed eating house folded...

Alpha Phi Alpha has a chapter there..... they must exist outside of this self-selection....thing.

I guess they wouldn't. I know that KD is currently at Sewanee--I'm not sure if they colonized outright or took in a local. At one time the rumor was heard on GC that they were going to be required to go national, but it apparently never happened (or maybe they were never actually required to). There is a really old thread about this:

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...hlight=sewanee

I agree with you re: liability concerns. I also wonder if KD's national resources haven't shocked and awed the other groups there. LOL. Who knows?

Yes, I noticed when I did a search on the Davidson site that Alpha Phi Alpha had colonized there in the early 00s.

I did find this PDF regarding the topic, but it doesn't tell me anything more than I already knew:

http://www3.davidson.edu/cms/documen...ife%200708.pdf

The Patterson Court (where the eating houses/fraternities are located) website is pretty cruddy and not as good as I remember it once being:

http://www3.davidson.edu/cms/x16074.xml

I have no idea if they left Alpha Phi Alpha not do self-selection. Honestly it seems unfair that they would let them and not any other groups do it... but who knows?

ETA: I found a very good timeline here:

http://www2.davidson.edu/studentlife...PC_history.pdf

I suppose I should add that I grew up 40 minutes from Davidson and went there throughout my life. I wanted to go to college there but ended up not at the last minute. My aunt is an alumna and is pretty much horrified that there are any single-sex groups there. In 1971 the process of self-selection really was designed to kill Greek life and make all the groups into co-ed eating houses. For whatever reason, according to that timeline the original co-ed eating houses all seem to have died by the early 90s.

According to the timeline, national sororities were debated in 1997 and 2001....

Found this too:

http://library.davidson.edu/archives...court_type.asp

OK, one more thing. Evidently fraternities do give bids somehow, although how that would work in the self-selection process isn't clear to me. Also, you can switch eating houses. And one more thing that I do remember hearing from my college tour: you can join an eating house in "clusters" of three so you won't get separated from your friends. Read about all of that in this article:

http://media.www.thedavidsonian.com/...-2673071.shtml

Indeed they did, in 1996 (all installed in 1997). I was a freshman during the first rush when all of the locals had just affiliated as colonies of nationals, and got to join the Gamma Phi Beta colony. At that time, there were 7 NPC colonies (one NPC has since left campus), and then Theta organized a few months after the rest and installed at around the same time.

The fraternities on campus also all went national at that time.

It was interesting hearing from my sisters that had been in the local sorority about the process of choosing which NPC they were going to be. According to what they told me, our chapter was deciding between Chi Omega and Gamma Phi Beta, and chose the latter.

At Sewanee, Kappa Delta started from a colony - it did not take over a local. They are doing fairly well, but I don't think being a national has given it an advantage over the locals. Sewanee is such a sopping wet campus that the locals don't want to have national oversight with regard to alcohol rules (and the administration has a long history of turning a blind eye to alcohol use).

I went to Davidson, and yes, that is the way selection for eating houses is determined. In the fall, freshmen visit the eating houses, kind of like an Open House. Then in January, women who want to join rank their preferences. Once the cards are in, a lottery determines where a woman will join. The eating house has no say as to who will or will not be a member.

I do not remember fraternity rules, but I'm pretty sure when I was there that bids were given like any other campus. I just remember that my then-boyfriend so badly wanted to join SigEp, but he didn't receive a bid. He did get one from PiKA, though. I had a good friend from our high school in the SigEp house and I remember him telling me that he didn't want the boy in his fraternity... whether that had anything to do with it or not, I don't know. But bids are usually given out starting around October, and that goes on for awhile... the "rush" time is a whole semester. So that doesn't make sense with a self-selection process to me.

At the time of the Houston and San Jose State selections the NPC rules were much less regimented.

At Houston the Dean's Office notified all of the national groups of the intent and requested to be notified of those groups interested in placing a chapter on campus. Each local group could contact any or all of the national groups which had registered. After each group had done their research they notified the nationals of their choice. If the national was interested in that group, a meeting was set up where a presentation could be made (selling the merits of each to the other). From that process all of the groups matched with a selection. Amazingly efficient, the process began in the spring of 1955, the groups officially pledged in January and installed in February. The fraternity process was similar but far less organized and took longer to complete.

San Jose State was similar but a little more competitive because there were far more nationals interested than locals available. At least two local fraternities (and maybe some of the sororities) made tentative agreements with a national but continued shopping and finally upgraded to another group they felt was stronger or a better fit. A couple of the national organizations, after losing out on a group of their choice, went back and selected a local organization they had earlier rebuffed. The four groups that formed colonies had either lost the local group of their choice or lost out completely, but felt that the climate was healthy enough to support more groups and were successful in starting from scratch. Fascinating drama!

The ultimate feeding frenzy was when the University of California opened its Southern Campus, known today as U. C. L. A. Over about a 7 - 8 year period during the 1920s, 35 sororities (and a similar number of fraternities) installed chapters, almost all of which came from previously local organizations. As fascinating as the story would be, it would require a lot of research, including on-campus, which I do not have the facilities to do.

Still active at the University of Houston:

Alpha Chi Omega, Chi Omega, Delta Gamma, Delta Zeta, Phi Mu and Zeta Tau Alpha.

Pi Kappa Alpha, Pi Kappa Phi, Sigma Phi Epsilon, Sigma Chi, *Sigma Nu, Tau Kappa Epsilon

*I'm not quite sure what their status is.

I was about to mention BU here because that's exactly what happened.

Supposedly the Kappa Omega Tau fraternity couldn't find a national that fit their needs in all the rush, and that's why they stayed a local. Makes for some interesting local histories, that's for sure.

Back when I was chapter president, I met the Baylor Pi Phi president and she described some of the craziness that occurred when they were trying to choose what national... it sounded very dramatic to say the least!

One of my good friends now is a Chi-O from Baylor and I think her husband is a Kappa Omega Tau.... I may be wrong on this, but aren't there some local sororities at Baylor as well? I know a really sweet girl who is a member of a local (or maybe regional, don't know) group there with a strong Christian focus.

Ah ha! Thanks for that! I was trying to reconstruct from what I learned when I was applying there and from my aunt. It's interesting that they would have self-selection for the women's groups and not the men's.

May I ask what your opinion of bringing national sororities to Davidson is? I know my aunt is so vehemently opposed to it, but when she was a freshman there I think at least the seniors (and maybe the juniors too) were all male and she is really influenced by the specific political situation that was on campus then. She's a pretty involved alumna, but she once mentioned to me that she'd quit giving money to the school if they allowed sororities on campus. I'm not sure I really believe that though. Although it's true that she's pretty upset that the co-ed eating houses gave way to all women's eating houses.

There's CHI'S (a service sorority) and KXA (Christian local) as far as local sororities go. They don't participate in Panhellenic stuff, though. There's Sigma Phi Lambda, too--an upcoming Christian sorority with chapters elsewhere.

Then there's Phi Kappa Chi (Christian local) and KOT for local fraternities. I'm pretty sure both do all the same things that the rest of IFC does.

Yeah, I think my one friend is a KXA. And now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure my other friend's husband is a KOT.

I think bringing national sororities would be a step in the right direction. I don't understand why men are allowed to have fraternities if women can't have sororities. Fraternities come with benefits that follow way beyond graduation, as do sororities. Those benefits include continued leadership cultivation, tradition and networking to name a few. Eating houses do not offer the same benefits. So why are women forced to make those concessions when they are accepted to and attend Davidson?

From what I know of a lot of alumnae friends, they are also vehemently opposed to bringing sororities. They chose to attend Davidson based on the fact that it did not have sororities. I don't know if it's because they don't fully understand what a sorority is (I know Davidson people are smart, but I get the sense that they buy into the sterotypes).

At any rate, I understand the earlier alumnae position, since it was a very volatile time for feminism. My dad had graduated the spring before women were allowed to receive degrees (women could come to classes), so he really wasn't too privy to the atmosphere on campus to be of any historical use to me for this topic. But I don't understand why men have fraternities, the campus will be adding Alpha Kappa Alpha in the fall, and eating houses can't go national. To me, that just doesn't sound very equal.

scbelle - Almost none of the elite liberal arts colleges like Davidson have GLO's. They believe because of their small size it is unwise to divide their students into the haves (greeks) and the have nots (GDI's) and further divide the greek students by the status of the chapter to which they belong. These colleges have no problem attracting the very top students. As far as Davidson fraternities go, no system that has self-selection can be called a strong one.

Personally, if my alma mater, Otterbein, was to go from all-local to all-national, I think we'd lose a huge part of what makes Otterbein, well, Otterbein. The history of the Greek system is irreparably linked to the history of the school, and vice versa, and I think that imposing nationals would remove a lot of what makes our system work. Our fees and dues are much more affordable, and while OC has become increasingly affluent, there are still a fair number of students from families and backgrounds that couldn't otherwise access the benefits of Greek life.

Now, we do have several NPC city-wide chapters represented on campus, and a chapter of Alpha Sigma Phi (one of two unhoused fraternities). There used to be a chapter of Alpha Tau Omega, but that closed in the 90's due to alcohol/party violations (OC is a dry campus). The Alpha Sig chapter was formed "by popular request" of a group of guys, and its taken them a bit to establish themselves, but they've really been flourishing in recent years. These chapters have some hurdles to face, mainly with reconciling national policy to campus policy/culture.

Knowing the situation at Davidson, I am totally in agreement with you. I was just curious as to what you would say. It seems like the early women alums (eg, the women alums who wield the most power, as Davidson is relatively new to the coeducational thing) are so against sororities without having thought through the benefits and risk management national GLOs can provide. I would say my aunt is just such a one--she's horrified I joined a sorority at W&L but can never provide a legitimate reason (in my mind at least) why my sorority is worse than Davidson's eating clubs. I always felt that my aunt never "got it" and that on many of her own standards my sorority would far exceed the eating clubs (no detriment implied to the eating clubs of course...)

Again, I would (with you) question the fact that the true feminist choice is eating clubs...

It'll be interesting to see what happens over the next several years at Davidson as alumnae women from the 90s and 00s take power... I love my aunt dearly, but I know her political stances (which are intimately tied to Davidson's coeducation, the Davidson region in the 1970s, and the larger political situation of the 1970s) are tied to her thoughts about the situation. Yet I also know that she and women and like her have a LOT of pull in internal affairs there....

anyway thanks for your perspective. It was so interesting to compare views.

I was at Baylor then. Kappa Alpha Theta was the first soroity to come on campus and the only one for several months. Then another big sorority came on campus and it was a feeding frenzy one Tuesday night, chapters were in a panic. Then they all changed in the Spring of 1977. Kappa, Pi Phi, Tri Delt, Chi Omega, DG. Then it spilled over to the guys. KOT and Chamber did not go national. Chamber is really a service organization especially since they allow girls in. Alumni returned and there were mass initations. Then the following year Zeta colonized. In the end it was a positve move for Baylor. There aren't and will never be sorority houses.

Kitemom: Was DG a switch from a local chapter? If so, what was it before DG?

all of the groups at UNT went NPC/IFC within a period of two years from 1952-1954. what's interesting is a lot of the groups were originally founded in the early 1930s with names like Foureffs(ADPi), Kaghliers(APhi), and then all of the groups took on greek letters in the mid 1940s before affiliating with national orgs a decade later.

I believe all the locals at Emory University also went NPC at the same time. I don't know the whole story, but the Kappa chapter was originally the "Fleur de Lis Club." They became KKG in 1959, along with several other NPC sororities.