Not Just Another Sorority Chick :: Greek Life College Sororities Fraternities Essays

Not Just Another Sorority Chick Randall Bass writes in his book Border Texts: "A culture is a network of beliefs, customs, practices, behaviors, and values. A community is a network of human relationships. The two together-culture and community-go a long way toward defining how and when we feel a sense of belonging and connection to our surroundings." (Bass 111). Essentially, these two concepts can go hand in hand. An individual can belong to a community that has its own culture and therefore, feel that they belong. This definition clearly describes the community that I belong to, which happens to be a sorority. Greek organizations, which include sororities and fraternities, are organizations in which members can discriminate (not by race but rather by personality) in the process of selecting new members. A sorority is a Greek organization that unites college women under a unique culture rooted in the virtue of sisterhood. Its members are obviously female, at least 18 years of age and college students. There are two types of sororities: typically white sororities and black sororities. Typically white sororities usually have white members, but they accept women of all different races. Black sororities traditionally have black members, but I am unsure if they would ever accept a woman from a different race. The same goes for fraternities, which is the other half of Greek organizations. There are typically white fraternities and black fraternities with the same guidelines. All four of these different organizations make up the concept of Greek life. They are all similar but they each have their own ideas and rituals that set them apart and make them unique and individual. Regardless of what they chose to do in their own chapter, all Greek organizations on campus at Oakland University must abide by the following three rules: no hazing, no underage drinking, and all members must maintain a 2.0 GPA to remain in good standing. These rules will hopefully crush any stereotypes that people have about Greek organizations, like we only party and drink, we haze our new members before offering membership, or that we are all unintelligent. If any of these rules are broken, then the organization could be fined, put on probation, or even removed all together. Aside from these basic guidelines, there is one other thing that is important to Greek life: the value of loyalty. A member's first loyalty belongs to the chapter that they are a member of, but loyalty also exte nds to all other chapters as well.