This question is basically out of my own curiousity
Please bear through all the background info, so my question makes some kind of sense!
Where I attended school as an undergrad, greek life was pretty small. There were a total of 9 GLOs. (Please note, I am not including BGLOs because we didn't have NPHC chapters exclusive to our campus (they were city-wide chapters), so they therefore had little if any involvement in on-campus greek life).
Out of these GLOs, 3 were national. And all members of
PFA (APO, Phi Mu Alpha, and Phi Beta). The remainder, obviously, were local chapters.
Greek life was governed by the Greek Council. The 3 local sororities were
also governed by their own PanHel Counil. (This was secondary to the Greek Council, though).
All of the chapters had reps on Greek Council. While the locals were a little more centered on partying and the PFA members more so on their professional aspects, all of us were also focused on community and campus service. We did things together, all of the chapters participated in Greek Week, Greek Sing, etc. (or at least were invited and encouraged to do so).
So one day I was looking for a link to a webpage of one of my fellow collegiate chapters (to link to our chapter site), and couldn't find it. I went on the university's webpage, and couldn't even find Phi Beta listed (actually, I finally did.. listed among honorary orgs, but no webpage). When I emailed the then-president of that particular chapter, she informed me that the school doesn't recognize professional fraternities (therefore, any PFA members) as "fraternities" in the sense that they do w/ the NPHC, NPC, and NIC fraternities and sororities (I don't think their campus has any locals currently). They view them
strictly as honorary organizations. Which means they don't participate in any greek councils, events, etc.
In my experience, greek was greek. PFA GLOs simply had an academic/professional focus that also shaped their service and purpose. It wasn't until talking to other people that I found out that
many schools take this attitude w/ professional GLOs.
So, after all that, the
BIG QUESTION is:
How are/were PFA orgs treated/viewed at your school (and by you)?
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SilverTurtle@greekchat.com
Phi Beta Fraternity
Phi chapter
PFA vs. NPHC, NPC, NIC, and locals
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