NALFO/NPC

[OPhiAGinger]

Originally Posted by PersistentDST

I can say that if I caught wind of a person who went through the process was initiated into a NALPO organization and then "quit" the organization and tried to get into my organization, it would be a swift NO.... This chapter took their time and energy and decided to pick the OP to be in their lifetime sisterhood, and she quit.

About ten years ago Omega Phi Alpha had an issue with one of our chapters that is relevant to this discussion. This chapter was very successful at attracting large pledge classes, but they also had a really big retention problem. Even with the large pledge classes, they seemed to turn over almost their entire chapter every 3 semesters or so. Eventually we discovered that women on that campus viewed OPA as a pathway to the NPHC sorority of their dreams. They would pledge OPA, get initiated, and rack up an impressive amount of community service hours performed on OPA chapter-sponsored projects. If she was successful in securing an invitation to join the other group, she would immediately dump OPA. Regardless of the fact that they made a lifetime commitment to OPA, they were using OPA just to meet the service requirement of the other org.

The issue eventually resolved itself, but I'm curious about how the NPHC leadership would view a situation like this.

[DrPhil]

There is nothing wrong with membership in a social GLO and a service GLO. That is not "dual membership" in the sense that we are discussing in this thread. As for violating a service GLO's "lifetime commitment", not every chapter of service GLOs teach "lifetime commitment". Those that do will have difficulty overcoming the varying cultures. If someone has always been told a service GLO is a club to join to get more involved in the community but nothing more longterm and dedicated than that, there will be people who will view a service GLO as transitional.

ETA: That doesn't mean none of these people did community service before joining the service GLO. Some people join service GLOs because they love service and want to further their community service. When I was interested in joining APO it was after years of community service in high school and college. I ended up not joining for a number of reasons but some of the members of that APO chapter expressed a lifetime commitment to service but not necessarily a lifetime commitment to APO as an organization.

[Sen's Revenge]

Originally Posted by OPhiAGinger

About ten years ago Omega Phi Alpha had an issue with one of our chapters that is relevant to this discussion. This chapter was very successful at attracting large pledge classes, but they also had a really big retention problem. Even with the large pledge classes, they seemed to turn over almost their entire chapter every 3 semesters or so. Eventually we discovered that women on that campus viewed OPA as a pathway to the NPHC sorority of their dreams. They would pledge OPA, get initiated, and rack up an impressive amount of community service hours performed on OPA chapter-sponsored projects. If she was successful in securing an invitation to join the other group, she would immediately dump OPA. Regardless of the fact that they made a lifetime commitment to OPA, they were using OPA just to meet the service requirement of the other org.

The issue eventually resolved itself, but I'm curious about how the NPHC leadership would view a situation like this.

On the NPHC side, I tell aspirants that they are dead-ass wrong for using APO, OPA, or GSS service hours to count toward community service toward an NPHC org. My rationale is that you are SUPPOSED to do service for a service GLO, and you are REQUIRED to do service for a service GLO. For an NPHC org, we only ought to be counting the service that you didn't HAVE to do to maintain your membership in something else, but the service you WANT to do, unselfishly.

In my opinion, the work really needs to be done on the NPHC side, for those orgs who require prior service.