Alpha Kappa Lambda. Alpha Phi Alpha. Alpha Tau Omega. Beta Chi Theta. Beta Sigma Psi. Beta Theta Pi. Beta Upsilon Chi. Chi Phi. Chi Psi. Delta Chi. Delta Kappa Epsilon. Delta Lambda Phi.
Delta Sigma Phi. Delta Tau Delta. Delta Upsilon. Iota Nu Delta. Iota Phi Theta. Kappa Alpha Psi. Kappa Alpha Society. Artifacts, symbols, rituals, and shared assumptions and beliefs add significantly to the shared initiatives of scholarship, leadership development, service to others, and fellowship among members.
The American fraternity traces its genesis to the emergence of literary societies in the late eighteenth century. Debating and literary societies, whose names evoked memories of ancient Greece, emerged as purveyors of forensics, but their main contribution was that they were primary social clubs contrasting with the bleak campus dormitories. The elaborate lounges and private libraries they maintained outstripped those operated by colleges.
As quickly as the literary societies filled the curriculum vacuum of the early college student, the fraternity emerged to fill the social needs of the more independent college students. The need for a distinct counterpart for women became evident early on college campuses, especially in women's colleges. For many years, societies for young women bearing Greek and classical names were common at women's colleges and academies and were organized similar to fraternities.
Sororities were chartered as women's fraternities because no better word existed. In Gamma Phi Beta was the first to be named a sorority.
From the beginning, the norms and values of fraternities were independent of the college environment. Since the founding of Kappa Alpha at Union College in Schenectady, New York in as the oldest secret brotherhood of a social nature, fraternities developed with different personalities and histories on each campus.
The trappings of an idealized ancient Greece were added to those of Freemasonry to create secret societies dedicated to bringing together young men who were seeking conviviality. Members historically met weekly in a student dormitory room or rented facility for social and intellectual fellowship.
To fight the monotony of mid-nineteenth-century colleges, fraternities institutionalized various escapes of a social nature. In the s the chapter-owned house became a reality and gave a physical presence to the fraternity movement. Supported by prosperous and influential fraternity alumni, the chapter house relieved the need for housing on many campuses. The popular German university model of detachment from the student replaced the English model of providing room and board. Colleges and universities began to shape college life rather than oppose it, and the institutions reluctantly began accepting the fraternity system.
As more and more fraternities occupied their own houses, their interest shifted from intellectual issues to that of running and sustaining a chapter house. The chapter house had great influence upon fraternity chapters.
The increasing prominence of the chapter house in the s illustrates the power of this social movement on most colleges and universities.
The total number of fraternity houses in the nation increased from in to 1, in , and the subculture was strengthened at state universities, where half of the students belonged to a fraternity by To keep the chapter house full, current members instituted a recruiting method to secure new groups or classes of new members.
New students were "rushed" or recruited to become new initiates, commonly called "pledges. This was the beginning of the most troubling and reviled custom, hazing.
Old-fashioned hazing generally was punishment for household jobs not done; it was left to later generations to introduce road trips, asinine public stunts and practical jokes, and forms of psychological and physical discomfort. After surviving the Great Depression and World War II, fraternities returned to campuses in full and more diverse force.
As American higher education became more democratic, the fraternity movement confronted the discriminatory nature of its membership polices. Slowly, Greek organizations began to admit members more reflective of the college-attending population. The war in Vietnam and the cultural changes that followed had a negative effect on fraternities.
Their traditional and historic loyalty to the college was in direct contrast to social movements of the time. As in the past, fraternity and sorority membership rebounded. During the period between and students joined at a greater rate than at any time in the system's history.
Fraternity and sorority membership appears to be trending up. In , the latest year for which data are available , That was an increase of nearly 2 percentage points from the survey. During the academic year, about , undergraduates belonged to fraternities nationwide , according to the NIC.
New members numbered about 99, There were 6, fraternity chapters on about college campuses. Total undergraduate sorority membership was more than , Greek life is linked to high grades and community service. According to the NIC, the all-fraternity grade point average in the academic year was 2. Fraternity undergrads served 3. The Greek system is as old as America.
Other organizations, such as the Kappa Alpha Society, sprouted at Northeastern colleges during the first half of the 19th century. The first Greek letter group for women, Kappa Alpha Theta, began in Many students joined these groups as a way to gain an instant circle of friends. Historically divided by race. In the beginning, membership in Greek organizations was segregated across racial and ethnic lines.
The first fraternities were all white, and none of them admitted African-Americans until the midth century. Its first non-black member joined in the s. Sigma Alpha Mu, when it was formed in , was open only to Jews; starting in , the fraternity allowed any man "of good moral character" to join. Little data is available about the current racial makeup of American fraternities, but Princeton is an exception.
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