Southern Mississippi: Diversity in NPC Sororities
 

Several Southern Mississippi chapters of NPC sororities have members who are African-American, of Hispanic origin, or in other ways different from the "traditional" white membership associated with the NPC at many/most schools. Some of their comments, among other things, are in a recent article from school paper's site:

http://www.studentprintz.com/greek-l...857?MMode=true

"The Student Printz
Greek Life is color blind
By Justin Mitchell
Published: Monday, November 28, 2011
Updated: Tuesday, November 29, 2011 01:11"

LOLLLLLLL...

Especially since the article begins with the woman being proud to be the first African American sister of that chapter of Pi Beta Phi.

And LOL at a Black member of Zeta Phi Beta being put in a photo that says "...represent the diversity in their respective sororities."

DrPhil, I see your point. Just wanted to note that I did not say "Greek life is color blind" -- that's from the article. Even I am not stupid enough to think or say that.

I know, hence the quotation marks that I added.

This is so wrong of me, but I bet that's every non-white member of the NPC groups there.

ETA: I wish the fact of diversity in NPC groups was not newsworthy.

Thanks. Oh, speaking of thanks, I hope GCers had happy Thanksgivings.
(Golly, that was a lane swerve.)

It's interesting that NPHC girls help with NPC recruitment.

That was my first thought when I saw the photo (that includes a member of Zeta Phi Beta).

It reminded me of the Bid Day Pics thread when some NPCers were marveling over the diversity...and there were only 1-3 nonwhite members in the photo. A sprinkle of non-(insert predominant race) is not diversity and that's especially the case if the reaction to the sprinkles is going to be "race doesn't matter...we don't see color."

It's also the title of the article. :)

Other NPC sororities there have had AA members. She's certainly not the first.

I think you're missing the point.


Ridiculous article.

I see it as a start. It kind of reads as a press release from CPC saying, look how inclusive we are! Yeah us! But the fact is it's not that long ago that having any women of any color other than white would be unheard of. My follow up question is, are these women going to be tokens and we can't allow a 2nd black woman to pledge or we'll become the house with all the black girls, or can they move on and pick members based on their other many attributes and leave this one as a footnote? Being big enough to pick "one of them" is easy. Being big enough to not care is something completely different.

I don't know the demographics of Southern Mississippi. How diverse is the student population? I'm guessing the sororities are about 1% non-white (I guessed 130 members, 1 black woman, 1 other woman of color). The student population is probably quite a bit more diverse than that, but you have to start somewhere.

And every time a student article is referenced here it gets crucified (justifiably in my opinion) for horrendous writing. The fact that the writer of this article probably thought the title was awesome (and how cool are we?) to me just cries out for better writing and students who are a smidge more aware of the world around them.

Here is their report from last year from their office of institutional research:
http://www.usm.edu/sites/default/fil...it_2009-10.pdf

I suppose they included a picture of the ZPB member because she was a CPC Rho Chi, and thus a leader in the CPC community without being a member? I'm really surprised by that collaboration -- have NPHCers heard of this happening elsewhere? On the one hand, CPC recruitment is totally apples and oranges compared to NPHC, and part of the Rho Chis' job is to help PNMs avoid focusing on just one GLO (which is exactly what any successful NPHC aspirant did). On the other, no one could be more unbiased about the CPC sororities than someone not a member of any.

Doing a little digging, they have made a public statement (the Sigma Initiative) that they want to grow their Greek system. If I were trying to expand my Greek system and more than 1/3 of the student population was not white, I'd probably start trying to increase the gene pool, so to speak. From their website, 14% of the student population is Greek.

Total Undergraduate Students 12,383
Gender
Women 7,594 61%
Men 4,789 39%
Race/Ethnicity
International 77 1%
Race/Ethnicity Not Reported 669 5%
African American / Black 3,749 30%
American Indian / Alaskan Native 54 <1%
Asian / Pacific Islander 150 1%
Hispanic 188 2%
White 7,496 61

And yet again, they've buried the lead. The story that they want to grow their Greek system and part of that is welcoming a more diverse population into traditionally white sororities would have come off more authentic and dare I say, more interesting.

Being a Rho Chi DEFINITELY does NOT = being "a leader in the CPC community." Many times, Rho Chis get encouraged to do it by their sorority because they suck at rush or are not that cute. Or else they are self aware enough to know they suck at rush and are more of a hindrance than a help at their GLO's parties.

This all being said, Rho Chi isn't an "award" you get for being the most involved in Panhellenic or the Greek community as a whole. Ideally, it's something that the women most qualified for the position (i.e. very empathetic and realistic) will end up doing.

As far as the ZPhiB sister being a Rho Chi, that's as odd to me as...hmmm...a Pi Phi planning AKA's next rush event would be.