Importance of Sororities/Fraternities in the South?

In My Humble Opinion
1

In a conversation with a friend over the weekend, she talked about the importance of sororities where she grew up in the South. So important are they she said, that she joined one while attending college in Chicago as a mid-twenties married woman just so that if she were ever to move back to the South, her potential daughters would have an easier time joining one when their time came.

I knew that Greek life was important at a lot of schools, but I didn’t know it was THAT important. I’m from the PacNW where it’s not really a big deal, at least where I went to school.

Can any Southerners corroberate her viewpoint on this? How important were sororities/frats where you’re from? Was their societal pressure for you to join, and if so, did you join because of this pressure or so that it would be easier for your children would be able to join down the line?

I’m really interested to hear more about this as it’s all Greek to me (ba-dum-bum…)

2

Not where I went to school (Texas A&M) when I went to school (1991-1996). We had frats and sororities, but they weren’t anywhere near dominant in school life… if anything can be dominant in a school of 42,000. I think they’re a little more prominent now than they had been, but I don’t get the impression from talking to younger siblings and children of people I know, that they’re the primary student organizations.

3

They’re less important now than when I went to school (1999-2004) and becoming less relevant every year. Colleges are increasingly hostile to Greek organizations, to the extent that some are refusing to recognize them as student groups or banning them outright.

Partly it’s a media issue; everyone loves a good hazing story but nobody cares about charitable work, community service and other good things Greek organizations do. It’s also a risk management problem; other student groups don’t provide housing, which ups the ante considerably.

I would never have joined a fraternity to make it easier for my kids to get in; I joined because I liked the membership. On the other hand, my kids will probably never be President if they don’t join.

The only reason they still exist at all, IMHO, is that Greeks generally get better grades, are more involved in other campus activities, and are vastly more involved (including financially) as alumni.

That said… rush Phi Delt!

4

Really? Heh, another Phi Delt here.

I pledged at an old SWC school but simply because it was a great group of guys having a blast together. Plus, a lot of the charitable endeavors were very worthwhile. We’ve stayed close and we will send emails to all the group anytime anyone’s kid needs a job or whatever but that wasn’t even a consideration when we first joined. At 18 that thought wasn’t even on the horizon. Being a leagcy certainly helped but in no way guaranteed you as a shoo-in.

5

The only one that is relevant is the last- they are one of the healthiest alumni donor pools- if not the best. As far as grades, that is going to be self-promotion as what is the control group for that comparison? Another statistic I have heard is that frat and sorority members take longer to graduate (with the caveat being that they graduate at a higher rate). So I think that the lone reason is simply alumni clout and donations.

6

The control group is all students, but IIRC social fraternities/sororities generally compare favorably with other student organizations with the exception of field-specific groups (ie., business fraternities, engineering clubs and so on).

That said, I agree that if it came down to grades or money, the universities would generally pick the money.

7

I grew up in a Southern college town (my Daddy was an engineering professor). During my childhood, teen and twenty-something years, Greek association was very important to the money-and-power set in our state. The friends made in Greek associations apparently served as a social network for those in the upper crust. Kids who went out for, but did not “make” rush were devastated and sometimes went home in shame rather than attend the university after failing at rush.

There wasn’t any societal pressure for me personally to join, because my family’s social status was not anywhere near what it would take for a sorority to accept me. However, among other kids my age who did qualify, there was great pressure to do so.

It was not uncommon for sororities or fraternities to accept people as what they called a “legacy”, meaning that some older member of their family was a member of that organization and so there was some pressure to accept them. Often they were not allowed into the ‘inner circle’ of the Greek organization, however, and seemed to be members in name only.

I’ve no idea if it’s still like this. I graduated in 1988.

8

I’m not sure if my experience is universal, but legacies at my school got automatic bids - invitations to pledge. Initiation - full membership after the pledge period - was not automatic, and they were held to the same standards as everyone else.

9

Disclaimer: everything I know about American fraternities is based on garbled memories of American movies…

What is “rush”? I have an image of mobs of first-year students charging the doors of the fraternity houses and only a favoured few being picked from the crowd to enter.

So, a fraternity (and sorority) is a residential house? Do students choose their fraternities and sororities in first year then? Do or can they change later?

When I was at university (Waterloo, starting in '81), almost all first-year students lived on-campus, in the residences. (I suspect there were exemptions for mature students and married students, but I don’t know for sure.) In second year we could live off-campus, searching for apartments and other housing offered in the city of Waterloo. I suppose we could have joined fraternities then, if they existed at Waterloo, but I don’t remember hearing of them. If they existed at Waterloo, they didn’t seem have the importance there that you have put on them.

Do the fraternities and sororities have anything to do with what the students are studying? In other words, if you’re studying mechanical engineering, you tend to live in the mechanical-engineering fraternities as well?

Are the fraternities and sororities mandatory? In other words, does the university provide no other forms of housing? Or are they just one choice among many?

10

All I can say is that when I was in college some guys and I tried to organize the Independents as an anti-Greek statement, mostly as a lark or joke.

We did go as far as calling ourselves Gamma Delta Iota for God Damned Independents. Not much came of it.

11

Rush is the recruitment period at the beginning of the fall semester. Students choose a fraternity or sorority to “go out for”. There are lots of parties and other social things during which the existing members are supposed to be assessing the qualities of the wanna-bes. Think of it as an extended, weeks-long audition, if you will. Back when I was at University, rushees often had to do stupid public stunts, such as “stand in the middle of Pizza Hut at lunchtime and sing Mary Had a Little Lamb while wearing a Bo Peep costume”. Fraternities often had elaborate and dangerous hazing rituals.

Bear in mind this is all from the viewpoint of an outsider, so I might not have all that exactly straight.

Sometimes rush is open to the general student body, other times it is by invitation only.

Yes. Yes. No.

Not that I can tell. These organizations are strictly social. There weren’t many engineering students in them, being geeky was not something to be admired.

No. The University has dorms. Since rush is at the beginning of the semester, the new pledges will already have dorm rooms. Not all of the frat/sorority members live in the frat/sorority house.

12

I’m not all that familiar with the Greek system, but just wanted to throw out there that not all fraternities and sororities have houses. My college had a handful of sororities, but none of them had houses. The members met in meeting rooms on campus or other semi-public locations.

FWIW, this was definitely not in the south.

13

The National Panhellenic Conference, the umbrella organization for the 26 major sororities, changed the term “rush” to “recruitment” some time ago. (The eight newest in the group were admitted 50 years ago, so a lot of us are still calling it rush. It’s hard to remember the new terminology when you’ve been using the old words so long.)

My sorority, aside from requiring "new members’ (we’re not allowed to say “pledges” any more) to take a test demonstrating that they know the history of the organization and how it’s run, doesn’t make them do any stupid stunts, and if they’re caught doing anything like that they’ll be in deep shit. You don’t get to wear your badge until you’re initiated, but other than that, a lot of the stuff we had a lot of fun doing would now be considered hazing. I really had a lot of fun when I was a pledge doing scavenger hunts and things like that, but some people don’t know when to stop.

Housing really depends on the school. Some urban schools have no housing at all, because the students all commute, and the fraternities and sororities all meet in a room at the student center. Other schools, everybody has a mansion. And there are different rules everywhere about how many students can live in the house.

While most fraternities are entirely social, Triangle, a member of the North-American Interfraternity Conference (meaning it’s a “real” fraternity, not a professional fraternity like, for example, Phi Alpha Delta, the law fraternity, or service fraternity, like Gamma Sigma Sigma), is open only to students of engineering, architecture, and the physical, mathematical, biological, and computer sciences.

Also, Alpha Gamma Rho is strongly affiliated with the agricultural sciences, but is not restricted to students of agriculture. There are several others like this.

14

At most schools, there is a separate fraternity rush at the beginning of each semester (or at least fall and spring). Sororities are often limited to a single annual rush period because the NPC (see Sigmagirl’s post) is a bunch of Nazis.

Students don’t choose a single organization to “go out for”, though. You can try to worm your way into just one, several or all of them, assuming you can find the time.

Rush is always open to the general student body. Sorority rush generally requires prospects to sign up in advance; fraternity rush is usually a “just show up” kind of deal.

No, no, no. Some organizations have houses. Some don’t. Some schools require social greek organizations to have houses. Some ban fraternity/sorority housing completely (or just ban sorority housing, on which more below*).

You can rush any time you like. Lots of kids wait a year; some even wait until grad school, although some schools only allow organizations to register undergraduates as “active members”.

You can’t change horses mid-stream, though. Fraternities and sorority initiations generally require fairly solemn oaths, and once you’ve been initiated into one, no other will take you (even at a different school). Membership is a lifetime deal, unless you are separated (thrown out for doing something really bad).

*In some places, fraternities are allowed to have houses, but not sororities. There are probably schools where the reverse is true due to risk management implications, but I don’t personally know of any. Lots of rumors abound about how this is due to city/county/state ordinances which define more than 5 unmarried women living together as a bordello, and the like. It isn’t true.

15

There is something called Continuous Open Bidding, which occurs after formal recruitment is over. It allows those sororities which have not reached their maximum numbers. (There’s a limit per house, so no one group will get too large at the expense of the others – it’s kind of like NFL revenue sharing or something. :D)

So if an interested student goes through “recruitment” and is interested in sororities AAA, FFF, and RRR, she will be asked to fill out a form listing her preferences in order. The sororities also fill out forms listing the women whom they wish to extend an invitation to pledge. These go through a matching process and some people get disappointed. Some women get an invitation from their second or third choice, accept it, and live happily ever after because it turns out to be the right choice after all.

Some decide to “suicide” and say “If I can’t have AAA, I won’t pledge at all.” This is a dangerous tactic but, if offered a pledge from another sorority, some women might accept anyway to save face; others might wait till Continuous Open Bidding to see if a space might open up.

COB is much less formal and less high-pressure. The downside is that if you pledge later, you don’t get to join your pledge class from the beginning and lose the sense of cohesiveness. There’s a lot to be made up with service projects and scholarship stuff that you have to meet; your GPA has to be a certain level before initiation and if you’ve been screwing around, you won’t have as much time to fix it before initiation day if you pledge late. Your chapter sisters are there (or should be there) to keep an eye on you.

16

I went to college in Southwestern Virginia from 2005 - 2008. There were fraternities and sororities but I never had any desire or felt any pressure to join them. The school was fairly hostile to them, actually… They weren’t even allowed to display their letters on their houses except during rush week.

17

Y’all please remember I’m only relating what it was like back when I went to University, at the school I went to. I’ve no idea what it’s like today, there or anywhere else.

But rush wasn’t always open RNATB. Not at that school, during that era. :slight_smile:

18

At least at the University of Alabama, Greek presence dominates campus politics and is widely considered mandatory for future political career in the state of Alabama. Candidates running against the official Greek-backed candidate often report having their tires slashed, being followed, and having their families harassed. Hell, they burned a cross in 1976 to protest a black candidate.

19

Interesting. Googling around, I find that there is some “Greek” presence at many Canadian universities, even Waterloo… but they they mostly seem to have arrived after I was at university, during the late eighties, nineties, even later. There seems to have been some activity at a few schools–University of Toronto, for example–earlier, but Canadian fraternities and sororities in general seem to have gone into eclipse after the Second World War. I wonder why.

Canadian Greeks–fraternity and sorority members, that is. Given that Toronto has a significant Greek–the country–population, and an actual Greektown, this could be confusing.

20

Pi Kappa Alpha checking in here… married to a Tri-Delta. You’re right, legacy bids are almost automatic. Fraternity association was pretty important when I went to college in the South (back in the 70’s). My daughter starts college in a couple of years, and is already excited about Greek life. As a 4th generation legacy, we’ve told her not to worry about getting a bid. :stuck_out_tongue: