As a curious foreigner, the culture of fraternity/sorority houses is all very alien to me, but the use of the Greek alphabet seems almost universal.
Is there an origin story for this?
Do the particular letters chosen mean anything?
How does a house pick what “its” title will be, and do they have to claim it so that no other house uses it? Or is it one of these “lost to time” things?
Thanks!
[Chose “other” but i guess it’s sort of sociology!]
In: 506
There are two types of fraternity/sorority: Social and Professional.
Each major profession has a corresponding fraternity [Professional Fraternities are always open to all genders, but professional sororities are usually women only as per USA Title IX]:
– Theta Tau: The Foremost Fraternity for Engineers ENGINEERING LEADERS for Service, Profession, and Brotherhood
– Sigma Phi Delta: Another Engineering fraternity was founded on April 11, 1924 at the University of Southern California [because obviously we need two]
– Alpha Omega Epsilon is a professional and social sorority composed of female engineering and technical science students
– Sigma Alpha Iota is an organization which promotes interaction among those who share a commitment to music
– Psi Chi is the International Honor Society in Psychology
– Delta Chi Xi: Dance
– Kappa Pi: Art
– Phi Psi: Textile arts and manufacturing engineering
– Zeta Phi Eta: Communication arts and sciences
Greek Letters are used because in Western Europe and UK colonies, only “Educated” people read Greek. Greek is still taught at Oxford, Cambridge, and seminaries so that scholars can read old texts and translations of the Bible. By using Greek letters, the fraternities and sororities are being pretentious.
In the USA, most fraternities and sororities have a “national charter” and “campus chapters”. Students pay fees to be members (another way of being exclusive and pretentious), and some of the fees are sent to the national charter which uses the money to support itself and possibly start new chapters at universities that don’ t yet have a chapter of that fraternity or sorority.
When a new fraternity or sorority is founded, that is the “Alpha Chapter”. For odd historical reasons, a university near me has a dozen Alpha Chapters…
[Social fraternities and sororities are for socializing.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_fraternities_and_sororities)
Social fraternities and sororities are intended to create a social hierarchy, preserve historical privilege, and provide “networking”. It isn’t what you know that matters. It is who you know. One of my worst Engineering students barely graduated and immediately started his career as Vice President of Engineering for a medium sized tech company. He was drinking buddies (fraternity brothers) with the company President’s son.
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[Edit]: When I was a student, I lived next door to TAU KAPPA EPSILON fraternity. They hosted epic parties worthy of “Animal House”. The university eventually banned TKE from campus because too many students drank themselves to death during rush events, and many other unsavory things may have happened…
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