Theta Nu Xi establishing at Pitt
 

Pitt NEWS
Students try to establish first multicultural sorority
by LAUREN BAN
Staff Writer
August 29, 2002

If three Pitt students have their way, the University will soon play host to its first multicultural sorority ever.
The three juniors, Teresa Bernaciak, Erika Strauss and Natasha Khan, upon completing the national selection process, were all admitted into the Theta Nu Xi Multicultural Sorority Inc. in April 2002.

As members of the sorority that boasts "sisters of diversity together as one" as its motto, they will be representing and introducing the sorority to Pitt's campus.

Members of the sorority recall that during their freshman year, it was hard to find a sorority that fit who they were. They did their own research and found out about Theta Nu Xi, a multicultural sorority that satisfied their need for diversity.

"Being in a city where it's very multicultural, it only makes sense that there should be an alternative sorority like ours. Sometimes it's hard for people to fit in in an all white or black sorority. Ours provides a happy medium," Strauss said.

As with any sorority, the new members of Theta Nu Xi are responsible for upholding the sorority's mission statement, which stresses the importance of diversity and multiculturalism "through academic excellence, involvement in and service to the campus and community, as well as being living examples of sisterhood across different races, culture, religions, backgrounds and lifestyles."

The sorority, whose Greek letters appear like the English word "one," will also adhere to their five beliefs that include service, scholarship, sisterhood, multiculturalism and leadership.

"Service is a huge factor in our sorority and pretty much everything we do as a group will uphold one of these beliefs," Khan said.

While they will not be holding their rush until the spring, the womens' immediate objective for the fall will still be to work to recruit their founding chapter here at Pitt.

If they accomplish their goal, Theta Nu Xi will be the first multicultural sorority ever at Pitt, and the first new sorority at the University in 14 years.

For more information on Theta Nu Xi e-mail them at ThetaNuXi@aol.com or call (412) 897-7817.
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My opinion:
To be honest, i'm not sure how well they're going to do.... attitude towards Greek life in general at pitt is pretty apathetic. The latest reports i read say only 8% of women are in sororities. We have about a 9% African American population, yet the NPHC sororities that are hear each only have a few members. No one seems to care about being greek. Rush numbers went up a lot last year and overall membership has increased due to COBing. But it's still not much.
Question for anyone who might know... it says they're not going to rush until the spring. Does Theta Nu Xi usually participate in panhellenic rush or does it have it's own rush?
Good luck to them, this is a tough place to be greek sometimes. I give props to one of the girls, I was in band in high school with her. She's a dedicated person, so i know she will try her best for them to succeed.

Very cool that Pitt is getting a new sorority.....but like you, I wonder how they are going to do. Just from what I have seen, Pitt's geographic location does not seem conducive to Greek life.

Good luck to them! It will be interesting to see how things turn out given the attitude most Pitt students have toward the Greek system.

Danielle; did you ever figure out what that "mystery" greek house we saw up on The Hill is all about???

Yea
 

I'm so happy to hear about mysisters. :) I just go our newsletter yesterday and I was just overcome with proud to see all people who have joined since Fall '01.

kddani, Theta Nu Xi has a separate rush process. I wish them the best of luck also

I wish them the VERY BEST OF LUCK!!!!!

Unfortunately, the lack of Greek Support is becoming more and more!

Why?

Are We elitest-No

Are we stand offish-No

Do we a small % do more on Campus-Yes

Do we participate in more functions on campus than anyone else-Yes

Do We do more for Charitys than anyone else-Yes!

Is our Houseing usually cheaper than Dorm Life-Yes

Now I pose a Question to some of the Brightest People I know, What in the Hell can We as Greeks Do To Turn This Around?

Carnation Has Stated in previous Posts that Shorter College has all locals who Haze and THE SCHOOL (!) wants to go with Nationals!

When was the last time you ever heard of this!:confused:

We as Greeks MUST PROMOTE OURSELVES TO THE REST OF THE SCHOOL!

You have to make them want to Join to be part not of an elitest group, but a group who does things and will do things after you graduate!

It is up to each and everyone of you!

Just Do It!:D :)

I was not a LXA for 4/5 years, I am a LXA for Life just as each and everyone of you are in you respective Org. or you alums would not be on here!

I already talked to our NPC delegate about this. They can join panhel as an associate member, but if you look at their national web page their philosophies on recruitment don't seem to fall in the typical panhellenic selection. There is mention of the chapters not being expected to have more than 30 members, so I think that was what she may have been referring to. If they can pull it off, go for it. I do have to say that Pitts location is an unfavorable one for a greek system.

BTW, which fraternity house are you talking about? The one between Sig Ep's and ZBT? Something Psi right. It's like a dental fraternity or something, if I remember correctly. The people I've seen there are always older.....

Wasn't there a post mentioning something about Pitt getting an engineering-related sorority too last year? I thought it was Phi Sigma Rho, but I can't recall.

i think the engineering sorority is already in existance... a year or two ago they tried to petion panhel to join but were denied for multiple reasons, most strongly because they only allow women that are involved in engineering, thus discriminating, which is a no-no in panhel.

Kddani, that does not make any sense. A social fraternity or sorority can decide on their own membership requirements as long as they do not discriminate on race, religion (you know those legal ones). A fraternity can chose to select members on GPA, major, etc.

If it is Phi Sigma Rho, I know at Purdue they are full members of Panhel. They are clearly a social sorority just like Kappa Delta, Theta Phi Alpha, or Delta Gamma!

I don't know exactly how they work, but this is what our panhel rep told us when I was on exec board the past two years. Like I said, I know very little about them and if they do exist on our campus they're pretty much invisible, especially because there's a lot of engineering women in panhel sororities that don't even know anything about them. But we were told that they only accept engineering students.
While it's true that all sororities have their own membership requirements, etc. I don't think that openly saying that they'll only take engineering women wouldn't sit well with everyone. I don't know the rules of panhel off the top of my head, and i'm way to tired and sick of reading to look them up :D
I don't quite see what the benefits of joining panhel would be for them. Participating in panhel rush- what's the point of girls having to go to a house, and them being like oh, we only take girls who are engineers? They don't really have the same interests that we do or the same functions.
Unfortunately even though I don't know much about them or even what exactly their letters,they just didn't fly with our panhellenic. I don't know how much they're like NPC sororities. Do they have ritual? Do they have a nationals with strict standards and rules, etc? What would they benefit by joining panhel?
In general, Pitt just isn't a very greek-friendly campus. We're a large, very urban campus where there's a ton of stuff to do, as opposed to a campus in the middle of nowhere or a small town where your options are limited. We also have a large commuter population so that helps even less.
Don't mean to rustle any feathers, i'm just stating what I know. And that is that they weren't admitted to our panhel because of the fact that they discriminate against non-engineering students.

I would like to wish Theta Nu Xi the best of luck with their up coming recruitment/colonization on be half of the SigEp chapter here at Pitt. All my brothers were interested when they read the article on Theta Nu Xi today.

FYI the “mystery” House on the hill is either Psi Omega or Omega Psi. I think it’s the first one. It’s a dental fraternity just like Delta Sigma Delta; the only difference is the brothers actually live in the house. DSD has undergrads living up stairs but leases the commons room as their house.