Greek Life in Foreign Lands
 

Hi everyone!

As every Brother of Alpha Phi Omega knows from his or her days as a pledge, we have a great deal of undergraduate chapters in the Philippines. We also have many alumni associations for our Filipino Brothers and Sisters in their home nation as well as North America, the Middle East, and Europe. I dare say that the sun never sets on Alpha Phi Omega.

I am wondering which Fraternities and Sororities, if any, have active undergraduate chapters abroad? For purposes of this thread, Canada does not count, but the Caribbean does.

Looking forward to your responses!

Shout out to pirate00!

Does Hawaii count as "abroad" since it's part of the US? If so, our AGD-Delta Sigma chapter is located there.

sorry. . .
 

That would be a no on Hawai'i, but a yes for American territories such as Guam, American Samoa, and Puerto Rico (the shining star.)

:)

I know that Tri-Sigma Sorority is the only NPC organization so far to have a collegiate chapter in Europe--and that's the Eta Mu chapter at the University of Maryland-Mannheim in Mannheim, Germany.

Chi Phi
 

Chi Phi Fraternity used to have a chapter in Scotland.

Man, I wish DZ had chapters in Europe because that would make visits to other chapters a lot more fun! :D I'm not holding my breath, though, because most of the Europeans I've talked to don't understand Greek life (and don't care) as there really isn't a big Greek presence there. I don't know how many times I've explained the concept to the foreign people I know, but it never really sinks in and they can't understand why on earth being Greek is such a big thing in America. I think my boyfriend's ma actually thought it was a cult by some of the things I said (I mentioned Greeks having secret handshakes and rituals that we aren't supposed to share), and I got laughed at for wearing my letters around, but I'm still trying! :cool:

Our chapter has a brother (just went inactive because he got some kind of job with the Japanese Embassy) that is from Tokyo. I would recommend extending bids to international students every opportunity you get! This brother was extremely active with international student associations, ate dinner weekly with the president of the university and always had some kind of Confucious quote to bring light to a situation in meetings.

We talk about having diversity -- that is the kind of diversity we REALLY need to bring around.

As far as international expansion, for most US national GLO's it may pose a bit of a problem. European legal systems, liability law, etc can be really tricky (much different than the US system). I'd be willing to bet that one of the main reasons you don't see GLO's abroad is as much legal as it is cultural.

LHT
Kevin
MT 5
University of Central Oklahoma

Re: Greek Life in Foreign Lands
 

I know that Beta Sigma Phi (a non collegiate sorority) has chapters all over the world.

Furthermore, I wanted to point out that there are fraternities and sororities in other countries, they are just not "Greek letter" fraternities and sororities. They have them in Germany and they have them in Latvia (both my grandparents were in Latvian fraternal organizations). These fraternities are sometimes referred to as "student corporations"!