Sorority for Graduate students-what do you think?

[FuzzieAlum]

There are a lot of "professional fraternities" out there, some of which are grad student only (dental and law) and some of which include undergrads (econ and business). These aren't honor societies - they're rather social, they may even have houses, but they have a definite focus on the advancement of their particular discipline. However, they are co-ed, unlike the majority of social fraternities and sororities. And membership does not conflict with membership in an NPC, NIC or NPHC group.

I've often wondered why there are professional fraternities for some disciplines and not others. Why not one for public affairs and policy? Why not one for liberal arts? Engineering? Etc.

If that's the sort of thing you're looking at starting, there would be a lot of takers.

If you're looking for plain, general sorority membership, you can initiate as an alumnae. However, life as a member of an alum group sounds rather different than what you are describing. You won't be surrounded by other grad students, for example. And while initiation into a collegiate chapter could be terrific, only Phi Sig offers it (I believe), and there you would be surrounded by undergrads, and it sounds like that's not what you want, either. And while if you want to form a social sorority for grad students only, I would say go for it - I'm not sure how many takers there would be. Many women who didn't go Greek as undergrads still don't want to in grad school, and women who are already Greek might be afraid it would conflict with membership in their org.

However, there is precedent here as well. Women who are members of NPC orgs also join non-academic sororities for adult women such as Beta Sigma Phi, Psi-Ote and Tri-Kappa. (You could even start a grad-student specific chapter of Beta - since they do have a couple of collegiate chapters, they might very well be open to the idea.)

In sum, you have several options, ranging from joining an existing group to starting your own. I would examine closely what it is you want out of the experience and choose accordingly.