sororities found at smaller schools
 

It seems that every time I hear of a chapter of Alpha Sigma Alpha or Tri Sigma, that it's at a smaller school. Is this correct, or a false observation?

Just curious! :)

This is for the most part relatively true. Both of these sororities were founded in the same city, along with two others, and they were traditionally established at what were considered teacher's collges. I know this is true for Sigma, I'm not as sure as for ASA. But I think they were established at teacher's colleges also. This is probably also a reason why neither seem to have a lot of famous or very famous alums.

Courtney

my Farmville Four girlfriend is right. :D

We did have many chapters at larger schools but this was when we were non-NPC. When we went NPC, lots of the women had to surrender their memberships in ASA which needless to say was detrimental to those chapters. It's very odd to see obits for Bucknell alumnae and see "she was a member of Phi Mu and Alpha Sigma Alpha." There are still quite a few chapters of ASA at larger schools...Penn State and Delaware among them. I know Tri-Sigma is at Pitt and UVA.

Alpha Sigma Tau is the other surviving member of the Association of Education Sororities. This all applies to them too.

I always wondered why all the chapters of AST and Tri Sigma were at small schools...at least, the ones I heard of. Thanks for the explanation. :) My sister thinks UK, even though it's a pretty big school, used to have a Tri Sigma chapter, but I think she's mixing it up with Phi Sigma Sigma.

How interesting!!!

Exception to the rule: Tri-Sigma used to be at Arizona State

I have noticed Tri Sig at smaller school (La Tech I think has one...)

Alpha Gamma Delta and Alpha Omicron Pi were at Texas Woman's University for years and then Tri Sig came along.....so I guess AGD and AOPi were the exceptions there b/c they are normally found at larger schools :)

Tri-Sigma used to be at my alma mater Western Michigan University (which was establised in 1903 as a teacher's college and continues to draw may Ed majors today). We have a pretty large school with a decent sized Greek system. In the 80's it was THE thing to be a Tri-Sigma. Unfortunately, they left iin 1994 I think. :(

We have both here (7 PHC total) and I would say we're a medium sized school, and maybe small compared to our brother VA Tech.

Thet are actually both really popular groups here and have (relatively) large chapters and a large demand during rush.

But keep in mind Radford WAS a school that specialized in teaching and education majors! Plus, Tri-sig was the first PHC sorority on campus here wayyyy back in the day. This is pretty interesting...^_^

I think Tri-Sigma (I don't know about AST or ASA) has had some good success in colonizing on larger campuses since they became an NPC. For example, I know that they have a chapter at UNC-Chapel Hill that is relatively new and fairly strong.

Yes, for a period of a bit over 30 years, from the mid 19-teens to 1947, teachers' colleges had a separate national sorority system, the Association of Education Sororities that 33Girl refers to. The AES sororites were

Sigma Sigma Sigma
Alphga Sigma Alpha
Alpha Sigma Tau
Delta Sigma Epsilon (founded 1914, merged into Delta Zeta 1956)
Pi Kappa Sigma (founded 1894, merged into Sigma Kappa 1959)
Theta Sigma Upsilon (founded 1921, merged into Alpha Gamma Delta 19959)
Pi Delta Theta (founded 1925, merged into Delta Sigma Epsilon 1941)

So the location of some of the chapters of DZ, AGD, and SK can also be explained by taking the prior history of schools as teachers' colleges into account. Of course, many former teachers' colleges are in no way "small" schools now.

And yes, during the period when NPC and the AES were separate, it was acceptable to have dual memberships in one NPC group and one AES group. That could happen when a woman transferred from a teachers' college to a school with NPC sororities, or vice versa.

excellent report
 

an excellent synopsis of the old teachers' college sororities.
Best and must succint I have ever seen.
The traditional men's teachers' college fraternities were
Phi Sigma Epsilon, merged with Phi Sigma Kappa now
Sigma Tau Gamma--thrives
Kappa Sigma Kappa, now defunct; kinda imploded
Phi Lambda Chi, mostly in AR & OK
Kansas State Teachers College of Emporia was the headliner
for most of these. It is now called Emporia State University.
There were some others, mostly regional, who considered themselves as "educational," never NIC, pretty well gone now.
Check out an old Baird's for more data if'n a mind to...
Biggies like Sig Ep and TKE and several larger sororities have
made severe dents in these organizations, but Tri Sigma holds
it's own yet...quite strong on their old turf, believe me...

Thank you, Erik, for the info on the teachers' college fraternities.

i know that tri sigma and i believe ASA were both at IU at one point in time....

ASA is currently at indiana state, and there are 9 NPC sororities there total, and i wouldnt necessarily call it a small school...

roxydiva

Yes, ASA was at IU in the early 90's for 6-8 years or so. IU is in the top 10 of my "where my GLO would recolonize if I were queen of the earth" list. :D

Does anyone know if Miami University of Ohio was originally considered a teacher's college? We were founded there and, although we have our share of chapters at large universities, we have lots of chapters at smaller state schools as well (I think we're at most of the PA state system schools for one)