Gripe/Rant -*English* Alphabetizing of chapters.
 

I'm fine if a University Greek Life office (for example) alphabetizes the fraternities and sororities Alphabetically by English (especially, if they have Farmhouse) so that Zeta Tau Alpha is last, but it just seems *wrong* for a Fraternity/Sorority to have their list of chapters using the English Alphabetization of the letters of Combination of letters.

The particular GLO whose website that I went to does give out chapters letter were given in Greek Letter Order (Alpha - Omega, then Alpha Alpha - Alpha Omega,etc), however when searching for chapters with "all" selected for all pulldowns, the chapters return in the order:
Alpha
Alpha Alpha
Alpha Beta
Alpha Chi
Alpha Delta
etc.

Urg...

I agree....

If it is listed correctly elsewhere, it may simply have something to do with the programming that runs that drop down menu. I know our database automatically lists them alphabetically and I can't change that, even though when we have the ability to list elsewhere it is done in Greek alpha order.

And maybe it's a help for those who have been out of school so long that they've forgotten the order????

Actually, I heard recently that at one campus, while "going in order of sororities" to pick Greek Week partners, the Delta Delta Delta chapter went last, even after Pi Beta Phi, because the chapter is called "tri delt." Really? All other chapters went by their actual letters. At the meeting, the PanHellenic director went from Delta Gamma directly to Kappa Alpha Theta. What's really funny is at this university's website, the sorority houses are posted online and are in correct order. Seems like the Panhellenic officers need a refresher course in Greek alphabet!

<geek>

As a database administrator, I can tell you that the drop-down is probably populated by a SQL query that goes something like this:

SELECT chapter_designation FROM chapter_list WHERE status = 'Active' ORDER BY chapter_designation

That would create a list of all active chapters, ordered by designation ... based on the English language.

A better way to do it would be to set up the chapter_list table with an id column, so that Alpha chapter would be 1, Beta chapter would be 2, etc. Then the query becomes:

SELECT chapter_designation FROM chapter_list WHERE status = 'Active' ORDER BY id

That would create a drop-down with all active chapters in the correct Greek-alphabet order.

You could also order the list by the chapter's original founding date. That would be useful for GLOs where the "normal" order isn't used. For instance, AEPi's Mu Tau chapter at MIT was founded well before the Eta Psi chapter at Harvard.

If you were generating a list of chapters at a given campus, you could do something like:
1 - Alpha Epsilon Pi
2 - Delta Tau Delta
3 - Farmhouse
4 - Chi Phi
and then sort by the index number. If you sorted alphabetically by name, Chi Phi would pop up after AEPi and before DTD.

But if you're not familiar with the Greek alphabet, you probably wouldn't think to do that.

</geek>