NIC and social/professional orgs?

[33girl]

OK, I've got a *NEW* topic to discuss.

I know there are certain fraternities in the NIC that are geared to a certain major (FarmHouse and Triangle are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head). Do you have to be in that major to join? If so, isn't that discrimination? On the other side of the coin, does Triangle, for example, have to have a certain %age of engineering majors? I mean, what would be the point of having an engineering fraternity full of education majors.

I hope someone can answer this - we didn't have any of these type of fraternities at my school and the whole concept confuses me.

Originally posted by 33girl:
OK, I've got a *NEW* topic to discuss.

I know there are certain fraternities in the NIC that are geared to a certain major (FarmHouse and Triangle are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head). Do you have to be in that major to join? If so, isn't that discrimination? On the other side of the coin, does Triangle, for example, have to have a certain %age of engineering majors? I mean, what would be the point of having an engineering fraternity full of education majors.

I hope someone can answer this - we didn't have any of these type of fraternities at my school and the whole concept confuses me.

I'm a member of a social / professional women's fraternity ceres. We were formed out of farmhouse little sister groups in 1984 and have grown from there as more women are studing ag now. I don' know about triangle. But we an FH don't require you be an ag major only an appriciation of ag or the rural lifestyle that it represents. So we are differnt than most other greeks on or campus. We are more casual and we get a lot of rural girls who wouldn't go greek otherwise. I like to think that having chapters like these add diversity b/c we have a lot of people who wouldn't be interested otherwise.

[equeen]

I'm pretty sure that you have to be majoring in either a science, engineering or architecture discipline in order to be considered for membership in Triangle (if there are any Triangles around here, please confirm this). Similarly, my sorority (Alpha Sigma Kappa - Women in Technical Studies) also seeks members based on field of study - a female student may be considered she is majoring (or doing post-graduate studies) in any technical field.

One's major or field of study is more a qualification for membership in an organization with very specific goals for specific individuals, rather than a tool for discrimination. For example, my sisterhood aims to promote friendship, leadership, and excellence among women of technical fields. It also seeks to establish networking and mentorship, both within our membership as well as outside of our memberhsip. So it makes sense that women who are majoring in technical fields, as opposed to fields such as education, business, fine arts, etc., would be most interested in seeking membership.

If you take a look at the history of various GLOs with a major/field of study emphasis, I'd be willing to be you'd discover that they began with a few students of the same major/field realizing that their were a lot of opportunities in working together as friends and colleagues, and therefore they formalized that relationship as a brotherhood or sisterhood. My sorority began that way - a group of women, who were already friends, and loosely organized to begin with, realized that they wanted to maintain their friendships and professional contacts, and in essence formalize it. So it's more a question of focusing the effort to achieve the vision of the organization, as opposed to finding ways to be exclusive.

I hope this is the kind of information you were looking for, 33girl.

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equeen
A Lioness has her Pride!
@>--;--
Alpha Sigma Kappa - Women in Technical Studies

[This message has been edited by equeen (edited October 10, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by equeen (edited October 10, 2000).]

I'm a brother in Triangle Fraternity for Engineers, Architects and Scientists. (That's the full, formal name... ugly and hard to type. That's why you usually just see "Triangle".)

We are a full member of NIC, and we are a social fraternity, not a professional or service fraternity.

We restrict our membership only to approved technical majors (minor caveat: a man who is enrolled as, for example, a chemical engineer at the time of initiation remains a brother if he changes his degree to English later).

Why do we do this? First of all, these are majors that tend not to have social lives. There's a reason for all sterotypes, generally that there is a grain of truth. One of the predominant reasons they do not get involved in aspects of social life is that the degrees being persued require an unusually high amount of time in study and lab work. Much of Greek life works against people whose time is consumed by academics. In a fraternity where everyone is under the same academic burden, there is no pressure to have social events at academically disadvantageous times (such as parties on Thursday nights... these basically don't happen). There is a reason that most fraternities have few if any math/science/engineering majors.

Two, technical majors have an odd effect on conversations in most social circles. In the Triangle environment, it would not be unusual to have (TRUE STORY) the chip and salsa bowl at a restaurant analyzed as a real world example of Internet network protocols for shared resources. Two people go to dip simultaneously, both back off, pause for random bits of time until one commits, then the other proceeds. Most geeks get a lot of taunting and/or disinterest from non-geeks because geeks continually analyze the world around them. The atmosphere of an all technical fraternity changes that paradigm.

Three, the benefits of knowing lots of people in your profession -- and having lived with such people -- are endless. The Triangle network is no different from any other fraternity network in this respect, save that ours focuses on technical jobs, a resource that wouldn't otherwise exist. A social fraternity creates a fundamentally different bond than a professional society.

Is it discriminatory? Yes. It excludes some people from membership. The question is not whether this is discriminatory, but rather if this is ethical. Discrimination on the basis of race is considered (in this country) unethical because it is not something the person controls, and basics of birth should not cut a person off from access to services. But other types of discrimination are perfectly protected under the First Ammendment freedom of assembly. You have to decide whether "future profession" is more like race or more like creed (which a private organization can discriminate on, and often do -- see Boy Scouts, Mormon church, many political societies, etc).

[equeen]

Thanks for posting Triangle's perspective, Jabber!

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equeen
A Lioness has her Pride!
@>--;--
Alpha Sigma Kappa - Women in Technical Studies

*GASP*

Is that a Jabberwocky I see?

[33girl]

Thanks all for the info!!! I understand a lot better now. The only exposure I had to any org like this was a transfer student who walked around in a Triangle jacket and we all said "OOOOOH, WHAT'S THAT???" No engineering major at my alma mater.

[ZChi4Life]

Hey Jabber,
That was a great post!!! Kudos to you for breaking it down so eloquently!