questions from a nonmember
 

I am a sister of Sigma Alpha Iota which is a professional music sorority. I heard about AOE and that the sorority is an Agricultural sorority. (Please correct me if I am wrong!) But SAI does everything with music. We have music philanthropies and all that jaz (haha pun intended) and I am curious about an Agricultural sorority.

Is your sorority heavily involved in nature? I suppose I am just wondering about the agricultural aspect. Haha.

I would love to know more about your sorority in general!

??? Sigma Alpha and Ceres are the agricultural sororities.

Hi, pas!

Alpha Omega Epsilon is a social and professional sorority for women in engineering and technical sciences. You may be mistaking us for Sigma Alpha, an agriculture sorority. (oops! Carnation beat me to it. I forgot about Ceres.)

The website and facebook page will have more information. Please let us know if you have any other questions. :D

But the question is an interesting one. Does AOE do engineering/techy philanthropies?

There's a very, very small regional (Midwest) sorority, Clovia, that is for women studying or interested in agriculture. I thinks it's primarily for young women who were part of 4-H in high school, but they may accept other women as well. Like I said, they're very small, but they may be open to starting new chapters if that's what you're looking to do.

No Greek letters, though.

Our nationally supported Philanthropy is Dress for Success which isn't engineering/tech focused, but each chapter has the option to choose their own philanthropies. Several do mentoring and programs for introducing engineering and sciences at elementary through high school levels :)

Ah! I'm so sorry! I should have known! I'm constantly doing research and mixing things up if I don't have my notebook in front of me. Sorry!

So do you accept members who are not engineering majors?

I am curious, how did your founders decide to start an engineering based sorority?

I think it is wonderful that there are many specific sororities out there to support women in various career and academic areas. :) I love SAI and their purpose of music. I just came across your sorority on a history blog and I'm interested to learn more. Ha

I think with groups like AOE, ASK, and Phi Sigma Rho is that the women were studying in male-dominated fields and formed the groups for a sense of fellowship with other women in the program. Also, the engineering and other science/tech majors are so different from other majors in that they can be so demanding of one's time. Founding professional sororities may have allowed the women to cater the organization and programming to fit their unique situation.

XiDelt hit the nail on the head.

Yes. It varies across chapters what non-engineering majors are accepted (ie: Chemistry at school A may not be as math focused as it is at school B). Long story short, we have a Degree Recognition Committee (DRC) that deals with evaluates and recommend majors to the International Board. It is up to each chapter to let the DRC know what majors they'd like to be up for evaluation.

Once you are initiated, if you change your major or leave a science/engineering major you still retain your membership :)