Greek Umbrella Organizations

Greek life is in general a very secretive life style, filled with many different rituals and customs, beliefs and reasons for being founded. It has its own culture, and every organization is different. On the Armstrong campus we have the National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) Greeks and the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) Greeks. The NPC, founded in 1902, is an umbrella organization for 26 (inter)national sororities. Each member group is autonomous as a social, Greek-lettered society of college women and alumnae. NPC is a conference and not a congress, it does not create any legislation except for how its own meetings are run. Other than the basic Unanimous Agreements which all groups have voted to observe NPC only gives recommendations,

For this project I will be solely looking at the organizations on Armstrong State University, and Savannah State University campuses. These organizations hold all kinds of social, philanthropy, cultural, and community enriching events, in order to uphold the principals upon which they were founded. A quick way to see a good bit of their rituals and ideals is to view one of their most public, for some, and entertaining ceremonies. For the NPHC organizations it is what was once known as a probate and more recently referred to as new member presentations, to avoid the stigma that hazing has placed on probates and redefine their image. Family, friends, other organizations, and everyone and anyone are encouraged to come and take part as a member of the crowd during these shows For the NPC sororities this is a more private event and difficult for anyone unrelated to the happenings of the event to take part

They spit, speak quickly and in unison, their history and the Greek alphabet along with greeting the other Divine Nine (also referred to as D9) members that might be in attendance. They also do some of the culturally significant symbols, gestures, and/or rituals of that organization. Most recently we had the charter line for the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity come out to us on the Armstrong campus. Being the charter line means that they were the first to found a chapter on this campus, a difficult task, because first they must find a group of like-minded young men to go on this journey through “the burning sands” in order to make it to “Que land”, or cross into becoming a man of Omega Psi Phi. That entails many different things that they must learn in their course of study; they have to learn the history of Greek lettered organizations, the history of the NPHC and its affiliate organizations names, Greek letters, founding dates and places, headquarters locations, pledge clubs, and colors, the date in which they were incorporated into the NPHC, then the history of the organization that they’re aspiring to enter, its governance, membership, graduate and undergraduate chapters, structures by regions, any national observances, the founders, all of the presidents of that organization past and present, whatever property that organization owns,