I thought I'd post a thread that shed some light on how "recruitment" works for NPHC fraternities.
Overall, I believe that most NPHC fraternity men would say "We don't recruit...aspirants come to us." Which, on the whole, is true, but has some asterisks thrown up in there.
For this post, I looked on the websites of all five NPHC fraternities. It was so weird looking up membership information for fraternities other than my own!
The websites are:
www.alphaphialpha.net
www.kappaalphapsi1911.com
www.oppf.org
www.pbs1914.org
www.iotaphitheta.org
Every fraternity is different, so nothing I write here is intended to be definitive.
Most black men come to college with at least a passing awareness of NPHC fraternities. Our teachers, pastors, deacons, mentors, and male family members were most likely members. Some of us come to college knowing which fraternity we intend to pursue. Others just know they want to be part of a brotherhood of some sort and do their research from there. Still others come to college with little to know awareness and are taken with a particular group.
I have never seen an NPHC fraternity "recruit." Most will publically advertise an information session and welcome any interested man to come learn more about the org. At my alma mater, they were generally held in on-campus apartments of the members. At other schools, they were held in classrooms or auditoriums. At minimum, they would be business casual events.
Some orgs would have public information sessions and then interest meetings that were more formal and invitation-only. It really depends on the campus and the protocol of that particular organization.
Also dependent on the campus is whether or not it is okay to hop from different interest meetings. In some places it is encouraged -- in others, it is frowned upon and grounds for being blackballed. In my opinion, it's better to have your mind made up about a specific org before you attend any membership-related event.
Once you attend the interest meeting, you will learn what you need to know about membership intake from that point.
Also important to know...if one is interested in an NPHC fraternity, get to know the members. Befriend them if possible. It's just the right thing to do. Like I somewhat said in another thread, BE a brother to be a BROTHER.
Sidenote: NPHC fraternities have a very active alumni component, and therefore active alumni initiation. Part of the reason for this is that historically, African American male college graduates did not have the same social and civic outlets as their Caucasian counterparts in the early 1900s. So GLOs provided those outlets. Also, alumni initiation was encouraged for those college graduates who came from colleges with no Alpha chapter due to small minority enrollment.
I am an alumni initiate into APhiA and I am more than happy to answer questions related to my pursuit of membership.
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