Ethnic diversity: North vs. South

[minDyG]

Originally Posted by Taualumna

But what about diversity within so-called "white" ethnicities? The original poster stated that there were few non-"English" sounding last names....i.e. few names that sounded they were from "The Continent"

Yeah I would just attribute that to the ancestry of the majority of the population here...there are certainly Italians, Poles, Germans, and Eastern European NPC sorority members in the mix but they're just not in the majority, same as the general population. I was addressing the point shinerbock was making in this quote.

[NutBrnHair]

I went to a local comedy club several months ago. The opening act was a comic from New Jersey. He starts his routine with the question: "Heyyy how many Italians in the house??" :::::::::dead silence::::::::::::: He continued by making jokes about the Olive Garden, etc. I felt sorry for him.

[fantASTic]

Ethnic diversity is...not necessarily what people think it is all the time. At our COE for the university I attend, which I spoke at, they mentioned to us that we need to be more 'diverse' in the people we have in our sorority. Apparently, all the NPC sororities were told this. It's a bit difficult when you have a school with a small minority population that doesn't want to interact with WASPs. What they need to realize is that true diversity doesn't come from different skin colors or last names or heritages, though they can help. It comes from people who are from different walks of life. We have a girl in my sorority who is from a very small town. She's very country, loves horses, so on and so forth. She's VERY different from me: I grew up in a big city and have done very few of the things she has. Because of the way we were raised, we often have differing opinions and different experiences with things. We're diverse; people just assume we aren't because we both happen to be white.

[BabyPiNK_FL]

I do want to encourage those who are still collegiate members to encourage their panhellenics to reach out to those who would not normally consider NPC organizations. It breaks my heart to be one of only a handful of black women in my organization and in an NPC on my campus period. Why?

It's an amazing experience and it's just so sad like when I went to SEPC and there were only a handful of black girls or women that are not white period. A lot of women just wave it off because they don't see themselves fitting in. As a Panhellenic Council officer who is involved in the recruitment process I personally seek out women who think sorority life is not for them or are not the same ethnicity as the women who make up the majority of the sororities on my campus. They love it when I show them that they too can find sisterhood in our organizations.