[AKA_Monet]

Originally posted by wannabeina
What I hear you saying is that if I become an undergraduate member, the community service aspect is secondary to academics until after graduation.
Would it be safe to say that the day to day goal for an undergraduate member is to support her sisters in making it through their college years?

As my Sorors have pointed out, you MUST (and that is a very important and critical word) strike a balance... The sooner you learn that, the better off you will be. Now, you can go through life, living with excuses as the rules of the incompetent and build mountains to nowhere... You can be quite happy just going to class, doing the bare minimum and become mediocre... You can lack aspiration, see little use for extending yourself and expanding your understanding in your life... But at the end of your life, what will your dash mean between the year of your birth and year of your death? (ponder that question for yourself, discreetly)...

To bluntly answer your question, you have to do both, do well in school and do all voted and approved activities for Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. if you become a member. How do most of my younger sorors do that while in school, with a parttime job to pay for school and sorority activities? That is amazed me the most when I was a graduate advisor. I think my younger sorors were very eager and energetic to be of service to all mankind. My job, as graduate advisor (and on the NPHC graduate advisor's board) was to slow their roll a bit and make sure they are doing their work. Just to let you know, my undergraduate sorors constantly work with the graduate sorors, that is the rule in my Sorority (I am unable to speak for other NPHC Sororities or other Sororities in general).

The other issue is academic success and maintain our mantra of supremacy in service... Like my Sorors said, the undergraduate sorors are given academic internships to Pillsbury and Daimler-Chrysler for the summer. That was negotiated at least 10 years ago through the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Educational Advancement Foundation (EAF). When I was a graduate advisor, I determined through working with my younger sorors and then other NPHC members, that many who attended non-HBCUs where encountering overt and institutionalized racism from their fellow classmates and professors in their major. Although, I myself was a graduate student, I was given access to the professors and started asking questions regarding my younger sorors and other NPHC members academic records--basically was their truly a learning problem or absences to class. Those incidences turned out to be completely falsified, that in fact my younger sorors and NPHC members were being outright biased against for whatever reason. I reported my findings to both my Regional Director and my graduate chapter--who sponsors my younger soror's undergraduate chapter. I also reported that to the NPHC graduate advisory board. Within a few months, some of the incidences encountered were minimized simply because a few of my graduate sorors, who are lawyers, judges, city council and federal national party committee members made some phone calls for me asking stronger questions I had yet to consider. But that took a concerted effort with all parties involved.

Originally posted by wannabeina
The chapter on my campus is currently suspended, so I have no way of asking or watching them to see what their priorities and goals are. Because they are suspended, I am aware that I may have to wait for an invitation into a graduate chapter.

How do you know they are suspended? Did you go to the Student Affairs office (or whatever you call it on your campus) and ask? You have yet to know what suspension entails or what lengths it takes to have a chapter suspended--and you have yet to be privy to that kind of information. The best you can do is to send a physical letter to the National Office of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and request membership information as it becomes relevant. You can also participate in a public graduate chapter event as much as you would like. My graduate sorors always welcome those who have a seriousss interesting in my Sorority.