The social interactions of greek life
One of the greatest aspects of being in a National Panhellenic Association chapter is the idea that we are a “social” organization. What this often means is that we have to interact with different fraternities and sororities on campus within our council and others at UMBC. Within this there is also the aspect of forced interaction because chapters have to “keep up appearances.” Within the diversity that UMBC has within its Greek life we often run into problems were chapters who have different racial make ups than ours struggle with creating a bond because of that. Many organizations on campus especially within the National Panhellenic Association (PHA) and InterFraternity Council (IFC) have diverse populations that make up their members because of UMBC’s diversity. But there are still great differences between each of the different chapters in each of these councils and the chapters that make it up.
On the other hand UMBC also has two other councils, the multicultural council and the national Pan-hellenic Council. In general it is hard to interact with these councils due to their different organizations styles along with their members because of the different racial make ups within the groups. The chapters in these two councils are specifically targeted to a certain demographic (i.e. african americans, asian americans, etc.) . But the funny thing about this is that the council’s use this as a means for less interaction.
IFC and PHA normally only associate with each other because of the similarities that the chapters have but now we are running into an even greater problem. As the majority of the chapters are going against major traditional norms of membership and inviting more people from diverse backgrounds into their chapter. But there is one chapter that has stuck to traditional imagination of membership and has not expanded its diversity at the same pace of its counterparts on campus. Because of this there is a great divide between this chapter and mine for example. Likemindedness and diversity of thought often go against each other and create even greater divides.
The diversity of chapter does not only create challenges but the size of one does as well. Fraternities at UMBC range from 3–58 men while PHA sororities all have approximately 48 active women. This creates problems with program dynamics on top of racial and ethnic differences because some chapters greatly outnumber others.
All in all the Greek community at UMBC is very diverse but often sticks to its traditional social groups. The social groups that exist promote and celebrate with each exclusively 9 times out of ten.
