Institutions with national sororities
 

By my count there are now a total of approximately 765 institutions of higher learning that have functioning systems of national sororities on campus. I find that pretty amazing! I have done a decade by decade list which pretty much tells the history of sororities. The losses during the early years represents a tightening up of the rules, eliminating chapters at institutions not fully at college level. In later years it is surprising that many of the losses were the institutions closing, not the removal of a Greek system. The gains during the 1920s show how popular sorority life became at that time. The frenzied pace during the latter part of the twentieth century reflects a repositioning of sorority administrator attitudes, and the need to find chapters to replace the many lost at the older Greek systems.

The first column of numbers represents the number of institutions in which national sororities were introduced (or re-introduced from previous closures). The second column reflects the number of schools where national sororities ceased to exist.

1868-1880 35 added, 8 lost, net gain of 27
1881-1890 35 added, 21 lost, net gain of 14
1891-1900 24 added, 3 lost, net gain of 21
1901-1910 60 added, 25 lost, net gain of 35
1911-1920 45 added, 6 lost, net gain of 39
1921-1930 75 added, 5 lost, net gain of 70
1931-1940 48 added, 3 lost, net gain of 45
1941-1950 65 added, 7 lost, net gain of 58
1951-1960 63 added, 10 lost, net gain of 53
1961-1970 120 added, 6 lost, net gain of 114
1971-1980 124 added, 18 lost, net gain of 106
1981-1990 122 added, 18 lost, net gain of 104
1991-2000 74 added, 12 lost, net gain of 62
2001-2008 26 added, 8 lost, net gain of 18

In addition to the above there are several institutions where there is a minor Greek presence via multi-school chapters of NPHC or multi-cultural groups, but not representative or recognized enough to be called a functioning Greek system. Plus, there are additional schools on which there are local groups functioning as sororities, societies or social clubs.

I am going to do an accompanying thread which lists the national sororities that were the first group organized on the above campuses.

Interesting. DST's growth spurt occured in the 60s-70s, which seems to correspond to the the gowth spurt in the list.

Yep but does that contrast with the reported "worst of times for GLOs?"

The whole era was one of contrast. On one hand it was the peak of campus unrest--civil rights movement, Vietnam war, Black power movement, etc. By the same token PWIs were offering more opportunities for Blacks to attend, which in turn increased the pool of young women (and men) who wanted to join a NPHC organization--thus the number of charterings.

During that time existing chapters on PWIs also grew in membership, which I think was a reaction to the need to form solidarity groups. In my own case, the presence of DST at SIU Carbondale with from 1 to 50 within two years.

Then spurred by radical groups the anti-BGLO movement kicked in (the whole "Our Kind of People" resentment phase,) and in the 80s the numbers dwindled. I don't know, but WGLOS may have had the same thing happen, because of the whole "Woodstock" movement.

So as we said in that other thread the "worst of times" varies by type of organization.

Even for NPCs, you wouldn't pick up the fact that the 1960s were the "worst of times" because this is number of schools with a Greek Community instead of number of chapters. In the 60s, 120 schools added Greeks, with only 6 closures. Or does this include NPHCs too?

During the 1960s through the 1980s so many dramatic changes were taking place in the Greek world -- some good, some bad, often counter-balancing each other.

The bad: At many old and established Greek systems chapters were closing regularly (just check your own sorority's chapter roster).

The good: To counter balance this sorority administrators were seeking new institutions to establish chapters where Greek life had not previously been offered.

The bad: The percentage of students who elect to become Greeks is much lower today at most institutions than they were in the 1950s.

The good: Many more schools offer the opportunity for Greek membership today which probably evens out the loss at other institutions.

I am sure there are many other factors like this.

I know that more than a couple sororities have a policy of closing "weak" chapters, with the option of recolonizing in the near future. That could explain the more recent closings/recolonizations.

Is it not true that Greek Life runs in cycles?

We now seem to be in and upswing of expansion or going back and rechartering closed chapters.

Many GLOs will have a policy of closing chapters because of numbers and may or not return.:(

As far as GLOs starting out from the begining, I contend, they were at that point in time were all locals and then expanded.

I don't know.

My head is exploding.

Are you contending that all GLOs began as locals that decided to become national?

Wouldn't that mean that their original intent was to be a local sorority or fraternity versus, the obvious, that they only had an Alpha chapter/local designation (but always intended to expand)?

As I said, they each started as an individual chapter at a school or, the Alpha Chapter. So they were in retrospect only a local whether they wanted to or were going to try and expand.

The only one I know of that started as a National was TKN who got a group of locals together to form themselves. They later in 1939 merged with LXA.

Interesting.

It really hurts for me to type this, but at least in regards to DST what Earp has said is technically true. We first incorporated Alpha Chapter and it was years later after establishing more chapters that we incorporated as a national body.

Sorry, I did not mean to infer that some local sororities are different than their national counterparts. The "functioning like" was in the plural to describe all three kinds of groups. However, I have found that there were campuses where groups were called sororities but their memberships were assigned instead of selected--a big difference. I guess I need an editor to clean up some of my phrases!