My introduction, need your advice as well.
 

Hello, I am Larry. I've been aware of this forum for awhile now and finally decided to join. I have seen great topics and awesome responses as well.

I am really interested in starting my own fraternity and I have been doing research after research. I notice that there are many different kinds of frats and soros. I am a poet and I thought that it can be a great idea to create a fraternity for poets, just like others have frats/soros for music, band, doctors etc. I know that it will be a hard process to start a fraternity from scratch but I am really up for the challenge. We have the principles set on what we would like the fraternity to stand for. Because there are so many greek letter fraternities and sororities now I was wondering would it be ok to have a 4 letter greek frat than the traditional 2-3 letter. I am not aware if there are any 4 letter greek frats or soros out there. The reason why I ask is because we don't want to choose letters and later on found out its already taken. We came up with 4 letters that we feel will represent the up coming fraternity. How you all feel about creating this four letter greek frat or should we try to stay with the traditional 2-3 letters?

Limiting your potential member pool to such a narrow degree will be more problematic than the number of letters you decide to use.

The most difficult aspect of starting an organization is recruiting and retaining members. I suggest you broaden the scope. You will have a hard time finding members if the criteria is restricted to poets. Why not widen it to literary arts? You will appeal to a wider audience. Think about it. You could have special interest committees and opportunities for poets, as well as other literary types, to nurture those interests, and to share them with the rest.

There is a national fraternity called Zeta Phi Eta specializing in communication arts. They may be a good fit. Perhaps you could start a chapter at your school.

Reinventing the wheel is very difficult. Why not start out with an established organization so you can get your bearings and have some support? If it later doesn't work out, you will at least have learned about how to run an organization, work with the administration, and recruit members should you choose to start something from scratch.

As far as naming conventions, you can call your local whatever you want. 2-3 letters, 4 letters, whatever. It doesn't matter how we feel about it; it matters what your members think.

Points taken, and yes you are right widen it to literary arts is a wonderful Idea. We just an interest group right now, forming different ideas and getting help where possible. We thought about starting a chapter with another frat but that was quickly dismissed. We currently do have an organization up and running we currently have 47 members But all of us are poets, I will spread the word about changing it to literary arts to get w wider audience for recruitment. As for the naming goes me personally wanted to make sure that people will take us serious with having four letters. Everyone(members) agreed with it. Thank You for the info. And yeah any recruitment tips will be helpful as well. Everyone says that is the hardest process.

Read through Greek Chat for discussions about recruitment and consult with organizations on your campus to see what's worked in the past. Are you are a registered student organization? Are you coed? There are certain university rules to follow about how to exist and how to advertise on campus. Follow them to a "T." You don't want to anger the administration; it will make it much harder for your org to thrive. Figure out what you need to do to follow the rules on your campus and ask for some mentoring from other groups on campus. See if you can get someone from the English dept to serve as a faculty adviser, and talk to someone who works in the office of student activities to get suggestions for recruitment.

You should definitely follow the advice of these very helpful, experienced ladies before you go further with this--they are right on :)

But to answer your question, I know of only two four-letter groups, and they are both small(er) national sororities: alpha Kappa Delta Phi (the alpha is lowercase), and Sigma Alpha Epsilon Pi (my sorority!).

Just for the sake of asking, sigmagirl10 - what are the challenges you face using 4 letters? I imagine getting merchandise from major vendors would be one of the biggest, since most vendors only have spots to select up to 3 letters.

Additionally, folks aren't used to seeing combinations of more than four letters, so you're going to run into some issues with folks even remembering your org's name, except that it's the long one in Greek letters.

You might go a different route and pick a Latin or Greek word which suits your organization's purpose. Acacia, Triangle and Farmhouse are both non-greek letter names which are well known.

The literary arts angle seems to me to hearken back to the roots of the modern fraternity in literary societies. There are still a few fraternities/societies that retain some of the litetary society characteristics. Alpha Delta Phi (Fraternity if you want to be all-male, or Society if you want to be co-ed) and St. Anthony Hall (Delta Psi) come to mind. I believe there are St. Anthony Hall chapters that publish poetry journals. A chapter in my area hosts public event such as "Poetry, Prose and Pancakes" and "Haiku Kung Fu."

Starting a fraternity from scratch is hard, hard work. Starting a fraternity from scratch that has a chance of living on after the founders are no longer in school is even harder work. Before you and the rest of the interest group completely dismiss the idea of starting a chapter of an existing fraternity, I'd take a good hard look of what's out there and see if there is an existing group that matches your interests, that would be willing to expand to your campus and that can give support to your efforts.

I think the main challenge is when people ask what it is and why we have four letters (and sometimes the very rude "that doesn't sound like a real sorority")--since it's not what they're used to!

In terms of merchandise, it can be annoying. My chapter actually worked (presumably still works) with GreekU/123Greek pretty extensively and our paraphernalia chair my junior year was able to get them to add a fourth letter option for all of their stitched letter and embroidered apparel, and they also made our lavaliers, and even ended up adding some of their pre-designed screenprinted shirts for Sigma. Something Greek also has four letters (at no extra cost) for the majority of their custom apparel, a lot of their engraved stuff as well, and we have found Greek Life Threads to be really helpful, always willing to add a fourth letter if we chat them or write it in the notes on our order (again at no extra cost). So I think we (my chapter and nationally) have all really appreciated that! The problem we do run into is with prefab merchandise that isn't customized by the seller--for example, a lot of the more appealing non-lavalier necklaces, and other jewelry (rings, etc.).

Um, hello, us.

:o Sorry -- for some reason, when I think "arts" I tend to think more of performing or visual arts rather than literary arts. My apologies.

http://i1195.photobucket.com/albums/...n/Lulz/cry.gif

lol

But seriously, GXP is focused on art, music, theater, literature, and those professions which advance the arts such as publishers, agents, entertainment lawyers, A&R reps, etc.

Yes we know its hard work, But with out that hard work many fraternities and sororities would not be here. We have looked at all other ideas. We voted and if the vote was 90% or more we will either find an existing fraternity to start a chapter with or start new. We would rather try and give it our best shot and all we can do is hope for the best. We do appreciate all advice given and we do take your words into consideration as well. Me myself I love the feedback and thank each of you all.

Hmmm. 4 letters, fraternity for poets. Could that be Pi Omicron Epsilon Tau or for the non Greek who wants to make it look "right", Rho Omicron Sigma Tau?