PHC History at Mizzou!

[STL Kappa]

So, out of my boredom over spring break, I've decided (or decided about an hour ago, rather) to make a little history of ALL the PHC sororities at the University of Missouri!! (Who needs Baird's, right?!) I've always found it interesting to hear about sororities that have been on our campus, and I never understood why at such a big school (6000 Greeks total I think and about 1000 women participating in fall recruitment a year) it's been so hard for some sororities to thrive. 13 chapters seems small for such a large school. (And it's not like any chapters are struggling... several are upwards of 200 women.) Anyone else agree? Can anyone offer some insight into why? Anyways... if something doesn't look right to you, just post and I'll fix it... thanks to everyone who has already contributed!!

By the way, these are only national organizations... locals have not been included.

I don't know if ANYONE is gonna be interested in this (considering there are about three Mizzou women on here!!), but I AM!!

Alpha Chi Omega (Alpha Nu)
Status: Active
Founded at MU: 1922

Alpha Delta Pi (Alpha Gamma)
Status: Active
Founded at MU: 1915

Alpha Epsilon Phi (Alpha Beta)
Status: Closed
Founded at MU: 1929
-Inactive since 1997

Alpha Gamma Delta (Epsilon Alpha)
Status: Closed
Founded at MU: 1922
-Inactive in 1975
-Recolonized in 1981
-Inactive since 1988

Alpha Omicron Pi (Delta Alpha)
Status: Closed
Founded at MU: 1986
-Inactive since 1994

Alpha Phi (Omicron)
Status: Active
Founded at MU: 1910
-Recolonized in 1998

Chi Omega (Rho Alpha)
Status: Active
Founded at MU: 1918

Delta Delta Delta (Delta Xi)
Status: Active
Founded at MU: 1915

Delta Gamma (Mu)
Status: Active
Founded at MU: 1909

Delta Phi Epsilon (Phi Nu)
Status: Closed
Founded at MU: 1978
-Inactive since 1984
(To throw in my two cents... this seems soooo weird to me!! The DPhiE national headquarters is in St. Louis, but there are NO chapters in Missouri. Anybody know how that worked out that way??)

Gamma Phi Beta (Alpha Delta)
Status: Active
Founded at MU: 1921
(From what I'm told, Kappa helped to bring Gamma Phi to Mizzou!! Don't quote me on it though!!)

Kappa Alpha Theta (Alpha Mu)
Status: Active
Founded at MU: 1909

Kappa Delta (Epsilon Iota)
Status: Active
Founded at MU: 1975

Kappa Kappa Gamma (Theta)
Status: Active
Founded at MU: 1875 (We're the oldest!! )

Phi Mu (Chi)
Status: Active
Founded at MU: 1913
-Inactive in 1944
-Recolonized in 2001

Phi Sigma Sigma (Omega)
Status: Closed
Founded at MU: 1935
-Inactive since 1955

Pi Beta Phi (Missouri Alpha?)
Status: Active
Founded at MU: 1899
(Kappa founded first and Pi Phi founded second... Monmouth Duo is taking over the woooooorld!!)

Sigma Delta Tau (Alpha Lambda)
Status: Closed
Founded at MU: 1957
-Inactive since 1968

Sigma Kappa (Epsilon Mu)
Status: Closed
Founded at MU: 1968
-Inactive in 1973
-Recolonized in 1990
-Inactive since 2004

Theta Phi Alpha (Theta)
Status: Closed
Founded at MU: 1921
-Inactive since 1927

Zeta Tau Alpha (Alpha Psi)
Status: Active
Founded at MU: 1924
-Inactive (1930s?)
-Recolonized (1950s?)

So, to slightly summarize...
- Of the 26 organizations in the National Panhellenic Conference, 21 have at some point had a chapter at Mizzou.
-Of those 21, only 13 of the chapters are currently active.
-Of those 13 active chapters, only 10 have avoided recolonization and periods of dormancy.

[FSUZeta]

stl kappa, i'm not from missouri, but i find this very interesting. and i agree with you-i am always saddened when any chapter of any sorority or fraternity closes. i do know that during the "hippie"(viet nam war) era, membership in most greek organizaitons suffered. guess everyone was "stickin' it to the man." that might account for the demise of some chapters on your campus, i.e.,membership drops as a whole as fewer girls participate in formal recruitment, the strong remain strong. even though quota figures may be down, the stronger chapters reach the lower quota figure. the mid-sized chapters begin to struggle or do year round cob and the struggling chapters have to close. now please understand that i do not know the reputations of any of the sororities on your campus, now or in the past ,so i am just speculating. i also realize that few of the closed chapters at mizzou left in the 70's, but lower recruitment numbers from that era might have caused problems that carried on into the 80's and 90's.

i went thru formal recruitment at florida state in the fall of 1975. at the time there were 17 sororities, all housed. after formal recruitment two chapters left campus, one the following year and one that tried to recolonize was not successful.all the chapters that left had lower membership numbers and that 1975 recruitment was a make or break for them. this was near the end of the above mentioned era. one bad recruitment can have a huge impact on a chapter, and in some cases they are not able to recover.if they do hang on, it can take them many years to recover. i do think that all of the npc sororities understand better how to help their chapters who may need a bit of help, so maybe fewer chapters will be closing.

[OleMissGlitter]

STL Kappa, I am not familiar with your Greek system but I find it sad that some groups did not strive at Ole Miss (University of Mississippi) where almost 30% of students are Greek. (The Oxford campus has about 12,000 students). There are tons of threads about Ole Miss Greeks so I won't go into that. Anyway, great information

[texas*princess]

Wow.. I think that's SO amazing that some of the GLOs have been there since the 1800s!

[AGDAlum]

Good research!

I'm a Mizzou woman and was president of the MU Panhellenic in 1973.

A couple of points:
The KD chapter was chartered in 1975, after AGD closed.

I think the APhi chapter was chartered earlier than 1910; since the national was founded in 1872 and soon began extension, wouldn't they have gotten to Omicron long before 1910?

IIRC there was a Phi Sigma Sigma chapter for a short time in the late 50's/early 60's. Their house was at Providence and Kentucky, just west of SigEp and south of PiKA.

What's happening to the AGD/SigKap house?

AGDAlum

P.S. There are lots of reasons why some chapters prosper and others do not.

[Peaches-n-Cream]

Originally posted by STL Kappa
So, out of my boredom over spring break, I've decided (or decided about an hour ago, rather) to make a little history of ALL the PHC sororities at the University of Missouri!! (Who needs Baird's, right?!) I've always found it interesting to hear about sororities that have been on our campus, and I never understood why at such a big school (6000 Greeks total I think and about 1000 women participating in fall recruitment a year) it's been so hard for some sororities to thrive. 13 chapters seems small for such a large school. (And it's not like any chapters are struggling... several are upwards of 200 women.) Anyone else agree? Can anyone offer some insight into why? Anyways... if something doesn't look right to you, just post and I'll fix it...


Delta Phi Epsilon (Phi Nu)
Status: Closed
Founded at MU: 1978
-Inactive since 1984
(To throw in my two cents... this seems soooo weird to me!! The DPhiE national headquarters is in St. Louis, but there are NO chapters in Missouri. Anybody know how that worked out that way??)

DPhiE's HQ was in Stanford, Connecticut during this time. HQ didn't move to Missouri until 1993.

[STL Kappa]

AGDAlum...

KD info has been changed... thanks for the correction!! (I gathered as much as I could without my handy little book from Recruitment... I knew some of it would be wrong!!)

As for Alpha Phi... I checked their website for the chapter at Mizzou, and the information is correct. (You can see it at http://students.missouri.edu/~aphi/) It was nine years (1881) before a Beta chapter was founded, and the sorority sometimes went for three or four years between founding new chapters... maybe that explains why it took so long?

You were correct about Phi Sigma Sigma, and the original post now reflects that. I had NO idea they were once at Mizzou!! (Find something new everyday!)

And finally the AGD/Sig Kap house... right now it's just sitting there on Curtis. Quite a while ago (beginning of last semester) we were asked to vote on how soon Sig Kap could come back (not a determining factor, more of just a way for panhel to get the opinion of the other 13 chapters), but we weren't ever told the result. I don't believe MU is going to open the campus to expansion right now, so I wouldn't imagine another sorority would occupy the house. A few rumors have flown about Pi Kappa Phi trying to get the house... their old house on Richmond (between ATO and Farmhouse) was turned into apartments after they left campus, but they recolonized.

Hope that helps!!

[AGDAlum]

As for Alpha Phi... I checked their website for the chapter at Mizzou, and the information is correct.

And finally the AGD/Sig Kap house... right now it's just sitting there on Curtis. Quite a while ago (beginning of last semester) we were asked to vote on how soon Sig Kap could come back (not a determining factor, more of just a way for panhel to get the opinion of the other 13 chapters), but we weren't ever told the result. I don't believe MU is going to open the campus to expansion right now, so I wouldn't imagine another sorority would occupy the house. A few rumors have flown about Pi Kappa Phi trying to get the house... they're old house on Richmond (between ATO and Farmhouse) was turned into apartments after they left campus, but they recolonized.

Hope that helps!! [/B][/QUOTE]


Thanks for the info (re APhi). PiKapp rented the house from AGD
from 1975 until AGD recolonized. I heard they were not kind to it, esp. when they heard that AGD was taking it back. The house on Richmond used to be ZBT. SK bought the house from AGD and put a lot into upgrading it, trying to make it less 60's modern (which was a major drawback) and more contemporary.

BTW, to give you an idea of how chapter size has changed: when I went through formal recruitment (fall, 1970), quota was 33 and total was 67.


AGDAlum

[STL Kappa]

Total at 67... that's only two more than quota last fall.

[Tom Earp]

Bairds is good, but a lot depends on which year you have?

They are the defining book on GLOs.

The newest one really sucks.

As Greekdom Grows, there have to be things left out. With the up and coming LGLOs, and MGLOs, it gets huge.

Yes, it gets watered down for the masses. Far Cry from My 1930 to the current Bairds.

[SDTSarah]

According to the SDT website, the Alpha Lambda chapter of SDT was founded on September 7, 1957. No information on when it closed, though.

[STL Kappa]

DPhiE's HQ was in Stanford, Connecticut during this time. HQ didn't move to Missouri until 1993.

It still seems strange to me to have headquarters in a city or, in this case, state where no chapters exist. (Especially since the Mizzou DPhiE chapter had already been inactive for nine years when headquarters was moved to St. Louis.)

Just found it interesting... that's all!! Perhaps there are more sororities with a similar situation??

And... for the sake of not writing another post... I'll just say here that I've updated the original post to reflect some corrections/additions. Thanks to AGDAlum, exlurker, and SDTSarah!!

[Peaches-n-Cream]

Whoops! I meant Stamford, CT not Stanford.

I really am not sure why they moved our HQ to St. Louis, but I would guess that it is because St. Louis is less expensive than Connecticut and the NYC area.

[angelove]

This may be a hijack, and if it is we can start a new thread, but are there any schools that have had all 26 NPC sororities at one time or another? (There may already be a thread about this, so if there is, I apologize, but when I tried to search there were way too many threads that came up.)

[AZ-AlphaXi]

from my spanking new Baird's manual (20th edition thru 1991)

it looks like

Syracuse has had every NPC chapter except Tri-Sigma (25 of 26)
Penn State has had every NPC chapter except AST (25 of 26)
Univ. of Illinois has had every NPC chapter except AST (25 of 26)
UCLA has has every NPC chapter except AST and Tri-Sigma (24 of 26)
Indiana Univ. has had every NPC chapter except AST and Phi Sigma Sigma (24 of 26)


thanks 33girl for the update for ASA!!