Greeks began centuries ago
Setting the record straight, Miken Davis, a Greek intern, said, “Frat boys? First of all they are not frats, they are a fraternity, and secondly, they are not boys, they are over the age of 18 – they’re men. It isn’t sorority girls – it shouldn’t have a negative connotation. It should be sorority women. They are over the age of 18.”
Surviving years through prosperity, accomplishments and traditions, fraternities and sororities have long been an environment for camaraderie as well as leadership.
During a bicentennial celebration of the American college fraternity at the 1976 NIC Annual Meeting, Betty Mullins Jones, member of Alpha Phi’s National Panhellenic Conference Delegation, said the first fraternity was organized by a group of students as a secret society called the Phi Beta Kappa on Dec. 5, 1776, at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. Their motto, “Love of wisdom, the guide of life,” led them through the first 50 years as a social group. However, in the 1820s, they became more distinguished as a scholastic honor society. Jones said Phi Beta Kappa created the characteristics typical of fraternities: a Greek letter name, a Greek motto, an oath of secrecy, a badge, a ritual, a seal and a secret handshake or grip.
Due to the rigid, structured and dogmatic education system in the 18th and 19th centuries, Jones said, fraternities filled a need in a the lives of these young students.
“Although clubs, particularly literary societies, flourished at this time, most of them were too large and too specialized to provide variety and to foster closer friendships,” Jones said.
At Wesleyn Female College in Macon, Ga., the first secret society for women was established in 1851. Instantly, after women were finally allowed to attend what had previously been all-male colleges, they too wanted “something of their own,” Jones said. On April 28, 1867, the I.C. Sorosis (created from the Latin word “soror” meaning sister), which later became known as Pi Beta Phi after its secret initials, was established at Monmouth College in Illinois and modeled the men’s group. On Jan. 27, 1870, Kappa Alpha Theta was founded as the first Greek-lettered woman’s fraternity at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind. Simultaneously and without first-hand knowledge of the existence of others, said Jones, Alpha Phi was founded at Lewis School at Mississippi in December of 1873. These groups then were incorporated as a “women’s fraternity,” because during that time, the word “sorority” did not exist, Jones said.
“This term was created for Gamma Phi Beta in 1874 because their adviser, a professor of Latin at Syracuse University, thought the term ‘fraternity’ ill-advised for a group of young ladies,” Jones said.
As for USU, Davis said they began by founding the Sorosis Sorority in 1899.
According to a PowerPoint discussion created by USU’s Greek adviser Stephanie Baldwin, 26 fraternities met on Nov. 27, 1909, to discuss critical issues fraternities faced. According to Jones, this group had founded the Interfraternity Conference. However, it wasn’t until 1910 that a formal organization was completed.
“In 1931, the (Interfraternity Conference’s) name was changed to National Interfraternity Conference, which was later changed in 1999 to North-American Interfraternity Conference to celebrate the membership of brothers in Canada,” states the NIC Web site.
According to the NIC Web site, today, the NIC has 71 member organizations with 5,500 chapters located on 800-plus campuses in the U.S and Canada with 350,000 undergraduate members. The NIC is led by a Board of Directors comprised of nine volunteers from member fraternities. The headquarter and professional staff are located in Indianapolis, Ind.
Accounts of “rushing and pledging agreements” or “compacts” among fraternities on various campuses and numerous stories of cooperation and mutual assistance were early histories of women fraternities, states the National Panhellenic Conference Web site; an organization that acts as a national voice for contemporary issues of sorority life. According to the NPC Web site, due to an obvious need of standards, Alpha Phi invited Pi Beta Phi, Kappa Alpha Theta, Kappa Kappa Gamma, Delta Gamma, Gamma Phi Beta, Delta Delta Delta, Alpha Chi Omega and Chi Omega to a conference in Chicago on May 24, 1902.
Baldwin’s PowerPoint states “that it wasn’t up until this time, there were no set guidelines, and women could be pledged to groups before enrolling in college and, indeed, even belong to more than one group.”
According to the NPC Web site, today the NPC has 26 member organizations, 2,937 undergraduate chapters and 3,937,073 members to help all women grow, give, lead and succeed.
By the mid-19th century, Jones said there was a change that occurred on the American campus that caused fraternities to acquire a secondary characteristic: the fraternity house. The amount of people in college expanded and there wasn’t enough housing, so the Greeks decided they wanted to live together and started putting together houses, Davis said.
“That’s when it became, ‘Oh, you’re not a chapter, you’re a house,'” Davis said. “Because we live together, it strengthens brotherhood and sisterhood and gives us somewhere to live maybe cheaper than living else where on campus. It’s incredibly convenient, especially here in Utah State. I used to roll out of bed five minutes to class and I could make it on time.”
Jones said fraternities and sororities were created to fill a void in lives, to foster friendships, to encourage sociability, to provide an outlet for free expression. Jones also said they are looked upon as agents of support for organizations and as instruments for self-improvement or leadership training.
-lottie.red@aggiemail.usu.edu