How's the special interest orgs on your campus?
 

What I mean by special interest, I mean orgs like APhiO or PhiMA.

What is their reputation?
Social orgs in special interest letters?
Extremely anti social greek?
Just another club?
NPHC wannabes?

Delta Omicron fits into this category.

Our presence on campus tends to ebb and flow as to whether we are a social org in special interest letters, or a strictly professional group. When I was an active, we were much more of the former. (social) I didn't even know until after I was active that we were "supposed" to be a professional group.

Thus, our reputation goes up and down. When we're more social, well, we tend to be bigger and more people know about us. When we're more "professional", we're smaller and unknown. It also (some may say unfortunately) depends on who the sisters are dating at the time... if a lot of the sisters are dating IFC greeks, then we tend to be known more on campus and in the greek community. For example.. in my college years a lot of us were dating LXA's or Pikes... so we had socials with them, and got involved in other greek events that at other times we weren't invited to because we weren't NPC.

I (as you can probably tell) lean heavily towards us being more social and less "just another resume builder". However, our nationals seems to be pushing us towards the latter.

Re: How's the special interest orgs on your campus?
 

If you knew anything about APO, those questions are meaningless.

APO is all about Service. Most APO chapters have a good rep. Where they have problems are on campuses where all the social greeks think they are the only 'real greeks' (read some of the other threads on that topic here). Our fellowship program is to enchange our overall program, but we keep service foremost in mind as our purpose.

APO is non anti-social greek. Many of our members are members of social GLOs. 13 of our 14 founders were social greek. While there are many non-social Greek in our membership, and yes, I'm sure some joined APO because they 'couldn't get in' to a social GLO, any sort of anti-social GLO attitude won't make you welcome by many in APO.

APO is NOT another club. We are not some service club. We feel that fraternalism makes us stronger then that.

"NPHC wannabes" Huh? That makes no sense.

Re: Re: How's the special interest orgs on your campus?
 

Without opening this can of worms too far, I believe she is referring to APO chapters that stroll, step, have a call, etc. to the displeasure of the NPHC groups on their campus.

I think that many APO chapters go through cycles...there will be a time where everyone is either social Greek or pro-social Greek, and then there will be a time where the opposite will be true and "we're not really Greek" will be a selling point in rush. I was active 7 semesters and I think we swung back and forth about 3 times. ;)

Re: Re: How's the special interest orgs on your campus?
 

Wasn't Dionysis an APO member?

Anyway, at my school the special interest orgs were strictly service/professional. No mixing with IFC/NPC/NPHC, no participation in Greek Week/Homecoming, no NPHC wannabes.

Re: Re: Re: How's the special interest orgs on your campus?
 

My experience is that those APO chapters that engage in those activities are usually either at HBCU or have a large number of members who want to engage in that because of their cultural background. Those chapters typically will also model their pledge program to what is done in NPHC groups (use of 'lines' and the like).

You comments about the cyclical nature of chapters as their membership changes is also true.

Also, you may want to note that she wasn't asking about only APO, but about 'special interest' orgs in general. IE. orgs that do not fit under the NPC,NPHC,NIC umbrella.

I understood that. Many of those groups are members of the Professional Fraternity Association, which APO is also a member of.

I think there is a group for the honorary GLOs.

Re: How's the special interest orgs on your campus?
 

I'll answer for Phi Sigma Pi (National Honor Fraternity).
Reputation -- I'm not sure that we really have a reputation on my campus, past people who are friends with those of us in it. We're a small chapter, and we're not that well known on campus.
Social orgs in special interest letters -- I'm not really sure what you mean by this...but we are a primarily social org. I would say that's why most brothers join my chapter. We do other stuff, like service and fundraising, but a lot of it is the brotherhood.
Extremely anti social greek -- Yes and no. I'm also a social greek, and was before I joined PSP, so people could hardly say to my face that they hate all social greeks. I highly doubt that anyone in the chapter is that narrow-minded, anyway. Some of them do very much dislike the "greek" way of doing things, though, and adamently swear up and down that they don't want our chapter to become any more "greek". Then those same people were all very enthusiastic when we started participating in Homecoming things last year...
Just another club -- Nope. We have brotherhood and chapters across the country.
NPHC wannabes -- nope. We're pretty much off on our own, doing our own thing. Most of us would probably look like idiots if we tried to do a step routine anyway. :D

Well since I am in one of these GLOs I can honestly reply. :D

I think most of the campus sees us as "wannabe Greeks". :rolleyes: It seems to be changing though, and we are getting larger so more people are learning what we're all about.

We don't hate social Greeks at all! Two of our sisters are also DZs, actually. :D

Re: Re: How's the special interest orgs on your campus?
 

My thread is about REPUTATIONS and how people percieve these chapters, not facts about these orgs.

I am a founding member of an APO chapter, so yes I do know a lot about APO. :)

And yes, these questions do make sense. If you knew anything about interaction on college campuses then you would've understood my questions.

Re: Re: Re: How's the special interest orgs on your campus?
 

Since I've been a student at 4 different colleges at one time or another, and lived on campus for several years at two of them, I am quite familiar with campus interaction. :)

Your questions didn't make a whole lot of sense.

A lot of the 'reputation' of the non-social GLOs on many campuses is many times due to the preconceived attitudes of the other orgs on campus (both social GLOs and others). If you read some of the threads about 'are non-social GLOs greek', you see that many social GLO members put non-social GLO in a certain category without having interacted with those orgs or their members. Just as many GLO members have to work over the general publics perceptions of GLO (ex: Animal House, Old School, etc) and show they aren't like that, so too many of the non-social GLO have to get over attitudes of them being 'not true Greeks', etc.

On campuses where non-social GLOs have done a good job of getting social GLO members to join, this attitude may not exist. But when you have to get over the 'I can only join one GLO' mindset, it can be hard on other campuses.

Does this answer your questions?

These questions have already been answered in various threads over the years.

My own two cents is that the initial question was neither relevant, nor conducive to productive discussion.

And just because one helped "charter" an APO chapter (we only have 14 founders) really is not a testament to how much they know about Alpha Phi Omega.

Re: Re: Re: Re: How's the special interest orgs on your campus?
 

I have to respectfully disagree with this.

My collegiate chapter of DO had a bylaw that stated you could either be in DO or one of the NPC groups on campus, but not both. I think that actually helped us, "reputation" wise. In my mind (and with this confirmed by some NIC/NPC folks on campus), that put us on the same level as them, by making DO our first and only devotion. I think if we had allowed dual membership, we would have suffered from "less-important" syndrome.

However, that is only the environment on our campus, I can't speak for anywhere else.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: How's the special interest orgs on your campus?
 

Ever since I have been a member of SAI, there has been at least one sister in the chapter who was also in a social GLO. Right now, like I said, we have 2 DZs. THey've never treated one like it was less important; however I can definately see how some might do that.