Honor Society Question

[yangstar]

On campus I know that Alpha Phi Omega [co-ed service frat] is big on giving letters to their littles/bigs and they'll wear em time to time, but primarily when they're doing philanthropy. I've seen Phi Delta Epsilon [co-ed health] wear their letters recently, I think a lot of them just crossed that's why. Other than that it's primarily NPC and IFC greeks wearing their letters.

[emb021]

Originally Posted by yangstar

On campus I know that Alpha Phi Omega [co-ed service frat] is big on giving letters to their littles/bigs and they'll wear em time to time, but primarily when they're doing philanthropy. Other than that it's primarily NPC and IFC greeks wearing their letters.

APO is not an 'honor fraternity'. We are more like social/general GLOs, as we have a pledge program, etc. Most APO chapters give their members letter shirts (some do jerseys, jackets, etc), and most APO chapters encourage their members to wear letters or APO-related t-shirts when we are doing stuff, whether it be a service event or a fellowship event.

[ForeverRoses]

When I was in school (way back when), the groups that were strictly honor societies didn't really wear letters. I was in AERho and Alpha Lambda Delta, but never had any clothing with those letters on it (ALD did give us some sort of pin, but I have no idea where it is).
However we had service oriented greek orgs as well as major specific orgs (pre-law, business, etc.) and all of those did wear block letters/jerseys/hats. In some cases, those members were more "die hard" than those in the "social" groups. I remember one business frat hazing their pledges and thinking that if we had done what they were doing, we would have been kicked out in a heartbeat (they had their pledges blindfolded and were taking them on a "trust walk" around the building- up and down stairs, etc)

[emb021]

I think part of the answer to this is on the make up or character of various GLOs. Sort of the similiar theme that's come up here as to which groups are 'real greeks' as opposed to being in a group that has greek-letters for their name (and the big mistake that too many make is that only the general/social GLOs are the 'real greeks').

When we speak of GLOs (and I include those GLOs that don't have greek-letter names, like Farmhouse etc), we are speaking of a wide range of different groups:

* general/social GLOs (your various NIC, NPC, NPHC, and such fraternities and sororities)
* service GLOs (basically APO, GSS, and OPA)
* professional GLOs
* honor GLOs

Is a particular GLOs just a group with a greek-letter name, or do they use fraternalism to bring their members together into a strong brotherhood/sisterhood? Not all do. At a minimum, such groups have an induction ceremony, but those that use fraternalism usually have a pledge program (a new member training program to educate the soon to be members on principles, history, traditions, etc of the group) that helps instill the principles of the group as well as all the rest.

Obviously the general/social GLOs do that. The service GLOs also do this. I don't know about the professional GLOs. The honor GLOs don't do this.

Thus, being in GLOs that are fraternal, will create the loyalty to the group that leads you to wear your letters and insignia.