Bringing the Councils together
 

At my University we have all four councils. But the only councils that work together are IFC and PHC....NPHC and MCGC dont participate with the other councils. I want to find a way to get the councils to work together...any thoughts?

Councils can be a real challenge - I would first take a look and see if your IFC and PHC send any representatives to NPHC and MCGC meetings? Would those councils be willing to have a rep be there? That way, IFC and PHC can attend more of these councils events, update them on what's going on, and open up the communication lines a little bit more.

Often, NPHC and MCGC have been left out of the loop in the past with things such as Greek Week, Week of the Scholar, and other such "all-Greek" events. Whether it's right or not, some of these members may not feel so inclined to extend the all-Greek love, so it's going to take more work on the PHC/IFC end to show sincere commitment to Greek unity and interest in collaboration outside of for your own good (not that you are - but we all know how things can be perceived at times).

Take things a step at a time - see if you can start a Greek unity committee, or other such group, combining members from all councils to discuss ways to close the gap - maybe it's by each semester hosting a philanthropy together, maybe it's in Panhellenic sororities inviting MCGC groups for socials (vice versa all-around), or other specific tasks that you can work on together to enhance your GC. Eventually, if this group is going well, you could examine creating a strategic/long-term plan for your community, identifying key areas where you all can work together, setting long-term and short-term goals, etc.

All in all, find a few ways to reach out and create face-time between members to exchange updates, ideas, and most of all support.

You want to find a way to get the councils to work together? OK, fine.

But specifically doing what? And why the need? Have you asked why the NPHC and NMGC orgs don't participate? Perhaps it's as simple as "they haven't been asked."

Your dilemma is an interesting one, but way too broad. Why do you want the councils to work together? What are the goal(s) that can be accomplished by doing this? And more importantly, what are the respective councils willing to compromise in meeting this goal?

Please give some specifics and some background on your campus' situation. Your dilemma raises way too many questions at this point for a lot of us to sufficiently offer suggestions.

I don't know if things are different at my old school now, but NPHC was not at all involved with IFC or Panhellenic while I was still a student.

When I was on Panhellenic Council exec board, we technically shared an office with NPHC. However, I never met a single person from their exec board. (Panhel and NPHC shared a very large corner office. IFC had the "office" immediately next door to us, which was nothing more than a glorified closet.)

The NPHCers never set foot in our shared office - we made several phone calls to their exec board members, and not a single phone call was ever returned. (Our exec board was required to set office hours each semester where we'd be available to anyone who wanted to walk in with questions. We tried to reach the NPHC exec board to make sure that none of the times we were considering for office hours conflicted with any of their plans for the office space, etc.)

To this day, I still don't know why the NPHC group never set foot in our office space or why they wouldn't return phone calls from any of us. Did they simply not have a very active exec board, and therefore didn't have any use for office space? Did something happen in the past which caused bad blood between Panhellenic Council and NPHC? I don't know.

Why wouldn't the councils want to work together? What's wrong w/ building a united Greek community on campus?

From my very recent experience working in Greek Life at a university, having all four councils (or however many there are) work together can help in terms of breaking down stereotypes btwn the councils. As you know from GC, all four councils are different and offer different perspectives on Greek life. I think it's important that collegiate councils come together for that purpose, as well as to show the student body that they can all come together as members of the Greek community.

I could go on, but I think there are many benefits in having councils work together... at least for Greek Week and other all-Greek events the school may plan.


In terms of advice, I thought ekDZ1535 gave a lot of good suggestions. I think it's key to remember that getting the councils to work together won't happen overnight. I think it's important to get the councils to communicate with one another first, and then go from there in terms of what can be done to get them to collaborate on some projects.
Good Luck!

At my school, in addition to the 4 councils (IFC, NPC, NPHC, and DGC), we have the University Greek Council, which oversees all 4. It is another organization that has positions held by anyone who is greek. They coordinate events that get us to do things together.

NPHC and DGC are often left out of (or choose to ignore/not participate in) Greek Week. But usually, the same week as Greek Week they hold their Greek Extravaganza (Greek Extrav) which is a huge step show. Those running Greek Week made attendance at the Extrav worth points toward the Greek Week trophy, so there were tons of IFC and NPCers there! I think the other organizations really appreciated it. Also, greek council organized a "Greek Stroll" which included one person from EVERY greek organization on our campus (there's 44). They all learned a easy step routine and 'strolled' to the stage.

(On a side note, Greek extrav was quite possibly the coolest thing I've ever seen. I applaud those of you who step and spend hours perfecting your routines! People came from ALL OVER the state to watch the show. The only bad thing was that they made all the greeks go in one entrance and visitors another, so once in the arena all the NPC and IFC people were on one side and all of the visitors there for an amazing step show were on the other side.... it was pretty bad).

Also, during greek week, each organization had to submit 2 nominees for greek court, no matter what council they were in. Once court was announced, I believe there was one person at least from every council. That was an improvement from previous years as well.

I think it's all about getting the councils excited about participating in the other councils events and traditions. A little give and take, you know?

There's nothing wrong with it, but you have to ask how much the orgs have in common besides the use of Greek letters. On some campuses, joint programming makes sense. On others, it does not. The problem lies in partnering just for the sake of "unity" or "diversity" or something of that sort.

DeltaBetaBaby,

You hit the nail on the head as to why I posed the line of questioning the way I did. Hence why I asked, "What specifically will the councils be uniting to do?" What purpose will it serve other than unity for unity's sake? If that was to happen, what unity that does arise from that will be short-lived and will revert back to status quo in short order.

One way we try to bring together chapters within the CPH is common programming that meets national requirements. So for example, a lot of chapters are supposed to have programming on alcohol/drug abuse. If the CPH can put on that program, it serves a need for most of the chapters. I have no idea if NPHC groups have the same requirement. If they do, it makes sense to include them, if they don't, well, you can invite them, but why would they show?

(I don't mean to pick on NPHC groups...it would work the other way, too, if the NPHC groups had a program to honor outstanding AA high school students. What would the NPC groups want with that?)

wow, talk about pulling out examples through stereotypes. i hope in your head that was hypothetical.

What are you talking about? Delta gave two very concise examples which would demonstrate two different situations. It should be obvious that Delta's not insinuating that all NPC/IFC members do drugs and drink too much, and that all NPHC orgs sponsor AA high school students.


I think it's the opposite problem. We invited the NPHC groups to participate in Greek Week. Two accepted. Of the two, one teamed up with DZ [because the NPHC groups were too small to compete on their own, and they knew this going in]. The other group was supposed to be with us. We called and called them to organize stuff and discuss it, and never once did they call us back. Not one person showed up to anything from that group.

I agree with Susan; at least here, it's more effort on the NPHC side that's needed if intercouncil relationships are to work.

What is hypothetical? This is something I know the NPHC groups did on my campus. Is it now inappropriate to note that NPHC groups do activities geared toward African Americans?

I actually included that example because, unlike the above posters, it was not my experience that the NPHC groups were to blame for lack of unity. It was definitely a two-way street on my campus.

i started to respond, but i'll PM you since it takes the thread off-topic and what not...

Okay, back on topic.

One thing that worked very well for my chapter was inviting NPHC or MCGC orgs to join our homecoming float. Campus rules allowed up to 4 orgs, but most Greek floats were on CPH sorority and one IFC fraternity. Groups from the other councils were traditionally much smaller, and couldn't do a float on their own.

For them, it meant a chance to participate in a campus-wide activity that they didn't have the people/resources to do alone. For us, it meant we got to hang out with some new people (admittedly, we were most interested in the male people).

Obviously homecoming floats are the right activity for every campus, but you should take a look at what you already do that may interest groups from the other councils, as well as what you'd like to get out of a relationship with some of those groups. If you can find common interests, great. If you find that doing something with another council makes about as much sense as co-programming with the rugby team, don't bother.

(One exception would be those huge displays of Greek unity that you don't even want to do for your own council, but do for show, i.e. groundbreaking on a new house, installation of a chapter. You should do those for any chapter on your campus, regardless of council.)

I think you raise one of the issues with inter-council relations - everyone expects everyone else to come to them. I'm going to be frank in that the hoo-rah of Greek Week tends to be a favorite among the PHC and IFC groups and has traditionally been a week put on by these groups. So now one day PHC and IFC decide to include NPHC and they're expected to fit their mold for Greek Week? Just because you invite someone to participate doesn't mean that they should - I saw our councils do the same thing at first - Greek unity was inviting other people to our stuff...umm, no. Greek unity is reaching outside of your chapter and council to understand others. Each campus is different in terms of this and each chapter within the council maintains a different culture that's going to influence the success of doing so. But that's why the focus needs to be on understanding your campus, collecting others who also want to build inter-Greek relationships between councils, and figure out through communicating with one another what those ideal relationships should look like. You have to meet people where they are and not every chapter/council is going to be ready to participate with you in Greek Week, join in on the all-Greek stroll, etc. It's wonderful when those things work - but in terms of the question at hand, you have to invest the time to understand your community's needs and how far councils/chapters are willing to go to make these relationships a priority.