Bringing the Councils together

[LUC Kappa]

at loyola university, we formed a greek council that holds members of the NPC, IFC, and MGC councils and together they help plan greek week. we did this for the first time this year and it worked out great, everyone participated because everyone was involved in planning it. and we are expecting bigger and better for next year....I tell you the moment all your councils get together the better, because you end up making a greek week so unique and great!

[mccoyred]

I want to know why its the NPHC and MGC folks that are at fault here? Maybe they don't want to work with you because you all are too self-righteous!

[ZChi4Life]

Originally Posted by mccoyred

I want to know why its the NPHC and MGC folks that are at fault here? Maybe they don't want to work with you because you all are too self-righteous!

I was wondering the same thing...

And I wonder has anyone ever thought to ask those two councils why they don't want to participate?

[susan314]

Originally Posted by mccoyred

I want to know why its the NPHC and MGC folks that are at fault here? Maybe they don't want to work with you because you all are too self-righteous!

Just to be clear in case anyone misinterpreted my post about the office space...as I said in the actual post, the NPHC exec board may not have ever set foot in our shared office space b/c they simply didn't have use for an office space. (I don't know how organized of a group they were as a council - perhaps each individual NPHC fraternity/sorority just went off and did their own thing, and the council itself wasn't very active.) Or, there could have been some past event that happened long, long ago which caused bad blood between the different councils that none of us were aware of...I'd hate to think that was why they didn't return calls or show up in their own office though.

Unfortunately, since their exec members never returned any phone calls, we never knew what the situation was. I'd like to think it was that the NPHC council just wasn't active - if they needed the office space, I'd like to think that they would have used it. Their whole half of the room sat untouched all year - empty desks, empty walls. Even though they never set foot in the room and technically it would have been really convenient to use one of their desks, we never did. On the off chance that one of their officers did drop in one day, we didn't want them to think that we were taking over their fair share of the room. Our phone calls were made to try to be courteous office mates (ex - we're scheduling a meeting for our group and are trying to decide between X, Y, and Z dates/times, please let us know if any of those options would conflict with any plans you have). Not trying to force a joint meeting or some sort of group agenda, or anything like that.

I always thought it was unfortunate that they didn't use their office b/c it would have been a great opportunity to get to know their exec board. I'm not saying that any joint events would have necessarily come of it - certainly it would have been a positive thing if we would have happened to discover a way that we could have worked together on an event that both groups were interested in. However, even just being in a shared office on a regular basis and having the sort of casual conversations you might have in that situation would have helped both groups get to know each other.

[DSTCHAOS]

One perspective:

We were required to send a rep to attend the weekly PanHel meeting.

As I've vented about before, we also did the Greek Week stuff. The Greek Week events were cool and it was fun to mingle with the other GLOs. Many of them were in our classes and close pals of ours, anyway.

But the problem is that BGLOs were relatively new to the campus and were excluded from almost everything until the BGLOs, themselves, pushed for more visibility and consideration. There was also an issue with the BGLOs having fewer members. It's difficult to delegate tasks regarding PanHel meetings and events like Greek Week when you have fewer members to delegate to. With fewer members, it's hard enough running the yard and having tons of programs a semester () for your OWN organization without having to take overall GLO stuff into consideration. So we opted to focus on running the yard and having tons of programs a semester () and often got criticized for being separatist and BLAH BLAH BLAH. However, the separatism definitely worked both ways but actually BEGAN and was mostly perpetuated on the opposite end.

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by DeltaBetaBaby

(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?)

Anyone can honor outstanding African American high school students if that is a component of the group's philanthropy.

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by ekDZ1535

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.

Exactly!

It's just like any other invitation to attend or participate in events on college campuses. Almost every event is open to anyone who wants to attend--Greeks and nonGreeks of any race, ethnicity, gender, GLO affiliation, etc. To figure out why people don't come out despite your attempt at inclusion requires more than just a surface level invitiation.

[ZChi4Life]

Originally Posted by DSTCHAOS

Anyone can honor outstanding African American high school students if that is a component of the group's philanthropy.

Precisely!

[Axid angel]

i think the main thing people should do is ask why some organizations don't participate. sometimes it is as simple as they haven't been asked. if you ask one and there is no response ask again. keep asking until you get an answer. you'll get on their nerves and they will have to answer eventually. i liked getting to know the members of the npch and mcgc organizations on my campus. the way they do things is different but there is still some common ground. i think there is a need for diversity for educations sake.

[ZChi4Life]

Originally Posted by Axid angel

the way they do things is different but there is still some common ground. i think there is a need for diversity for educations sake.

My thoughts exactly!

[SalukiPhiSig]

At Southern Illinois University - Carbondale, we have an Inter-Greek Council which is composed of members of IFC, PHC, NPHC, and MGC. They meet every other week and the respective sub-councils meet on the weeks that IGC doesn't.

I guess that I've become so used to how we do things that I assumed having an Inter-Greek Council was pretty common.

Not to mention, if it had not been for IGC, I wouldn't have met some of the women of Delta Xi Phi Multicultural Sorority whom I've planned philanthropy/community service events with.

[mccoyred]

Originally Posted by ekDZ1535

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.

Well said! Thanks!

[ladygreek]

Originally Posted by SalukiPhiSig

At Southern Illinois University - Carbondale, we have an Inter-Greek Council which is composed of members of IFC, PHC, NPHC, and MGC. They meet every other week and the respective sub-councils meet on the weeks that IGC doesn't.

I guess that I've become so used to how we do things that I assumed having an Inter-Greek Council was pretty common.

Not to mention, if it had not been for IGC, I wouldn't have met some of the women of Delta Xi Phi Multicultural Sorority whom I've planned philanthropy/community service events with.

Gooooo Salukis!!!!

Charter member of the Delta chapter there.

[ladygreek]

I have a basic question. Is there something wrong with the councils not working together?

[ADivinePIe]

Originally Posted by ladygreek

I have a basic question. Is there something wrong with the councils not working together?

I believe there is. I think that it is important for the councils to work together so that all chapters can be supported and encouraged to participate in not just "Greek" events but school events at large. Some of the biggest events on our campus at Indiana University are not put on by IFC and PanHel, but our school's student foundation. The event is still primarily greek, but MGC and NPHC are not participants in these events. I want them to participate for the greater good of our school and our GC.

Furthermore, I believe that the divided/segregated councils goes further than just Greeks. I think it’s important for the greek councils to work together to set an example for more of the other student organizations to work together.