Fraternities and Sororities

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Members of the Tau Kappa Epsilon and Kappa Alpha Order fraternities pose with Greek letters as insignia of their connections
Fraternity house of the Fraternity Alpha Chi Alpha at Dartmouth College

The fraternities and sororities are student organizations in the Anglo-American tradition. Their distribution is concentrated in North America . They are almost always separated according to sex and denote their connections mostly with Greek letters . Colloquially Fraternities are called Frats called, according to its members than boys Frat and the fraternity house as a house Frat .

The fraternities and sororities - like the European student corporations - have their presumed historical origin in the student orders of the Enlightenment of the 18th century.

The term fraternity primarily describes a college fraternity , i.e. a brotherhood of students . In addition, there are other so-called forms of association such as honor fraternities , also known as honor societies , which are more like room societies to support graduates in their further career path. The professional fraternities are of particular importance for university life. They can be accepted without an initiation rite and whose membership requirements are usually only linked to defined specialist qualifications. These free professional associations often maintain liaison houses at universities with appropriate vocational training courses, but students are rarely accepted before graduation.

Student associations

Female students apply for membership in a sorority
House of a fraternity

The fraternity ( English for brotherhood, plural fraternities ) is the Anglo-American form of the student union, while female students can organize themselves in a sorority (English for sisterhood, plural sororities ). As a fixed overarching designation, these two terms are named together ( fraternities and sororities ), which in German are reduced to the single common word connections .

It is likely that the American fraternities and sororities with the student orders of the 18th century share roots with the European fraternities . Some fraternities know how to wear color in the form of a couleur ribbon , which may only be worn at their own events. In practically all fraternities and sororities there is the pledge status corresponding to the fox . In American connections there is a rather extreme treatment of the pledge with various more or less humiliating rituals. The so-called hazing is mostly limited to a single "hell week" (hell week). But there are also significant differences to European student associations, especially the German-speaking ones : fraternities and sororities have no scale and no, or only a rudimentary, comment .

In contrast to some European associations, membership fees are paid by the student members. Many connections maintain residential buildings for their members, which, unlike the corporation houses in Germany, are mostly located directly on campus.

A single connection usually maintains representations, so-called chapters, at several, sometimes even very many, university locations. The names of the connections are usually composed of three Greek letters , and each chapter has a name composed of mostly two Greek letters as an addition to the connection name. This form of connection is therefore also known as the Greek system .

Memberships in fraternities or sororities are more common in the USA than in Germany. As a rule, they are not considered to be “conservative”, but instead have the reputation of hosting many and sometimes excessive parties, for which the term “Greek life” has become established. The reputation is partly due to a different party culture than at German universities, which is particularly influenced in the USA by the higher minimum age for legal alcohol consumption: The consumption of alcohol (including beer) is only allowed at the age of 21, whereas in the US Bachelor students usually complete their four-year study period at the age of 18 to 22. As a result, alcohol is taboo for most Bachelor students; If you still drink it at a party, the event becomes illegal. In addition, due to the legal situation, American students usually come to universities with little or no alcohol experience. For this reason alone, fraternities and sororities, as frequent party organizers, are in a different area of ​​tension than corresponding German connections, which in turn affects the audience they attract.

The political influence of certain connections, at least of the members (see in particular Skull and Bones ), cannot be denied . A national orientation is the norm, but - like other American nationalism - this is almost always strongly liberal and pro-democratic in color. Most American associations do not see themselves as elitist , although some are de facto.

historical development

Members of the Fraternity Phi Kappa Sigma (around 1872)
Members of the Sorority Tau My Tau (1909)
Crest of the Fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi

Today there are a very large number of different connections, although the orientation of most connections is also international, so there are often individual connection houses with their own orientation. Most of the national associations arose from such individual association orders, later associations have often split off from older associations.

The spread of the connections at the universities led to resistance to limit their influence, and at the beginning of the 20th century most connections had little more than to organize the maintenance of the connection houses. Connections reached a new high after World War II, but were again sidelined by the alternative cultures that existed in the 1960s and 1970s. Since the 1980s, the connections have been recovering and gaining new popularity.

First major connections in North America
year connection development
1780 Phi Beta Kappa Secret society, still built in the style of Masonic lodges.
1825 Kappa Alpha Student union, induction ceremony ties in with Freemasons
1831 Sigma Phi First inter-university connection
1831 Alpha Delta Phi First with extended support, "for the whole man"
1833 Skull and Bones First connection with the annual secret association.
1837 Mystical Seven First connection with the fraternity house on campus
1839 Beta Theta Pi First connection with mass alignment.
1857 Sigma Phi First connection with own dormitories.
1870 Kappa Alpha Theta First female connection
1899 Delta Sigma Phi First connection that allows Christians and Jews alike.
1899 Tau Kappa Epsilon First connection that hell week abolished in 1928 .
1904 Alpha Kappa Psi First connection with a focus on professionalism and economy.
1906 Alpha Phi Alpha First African American connection.
1931 Phi Iota Alpha First Latino connection.
2013 Alif Laam Meem - Alpha Lambda Mu First Muslim connection.

Umbrella organizations

The umbrella organizations were founded primarily to improve public image, but also offer other services to train supervisors and to exchange various connections. Individual connections, regardless of their name, are often assigned to a certain group on a campus (e.g. according to ethnic criteria), which then belong to a corresponding umbrella organization.

There are also organizations that are committed to supporting certain functions.

Processing in film and literature

See also

literature

  • Jack Anson, Robert Marchesani Jr. (Ed.): Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities . 1991. ISBN 0-9637159-0-9 .
  • Gerhard Habermehl: On the question of the common roots of German student associations and American fraternities. In: Einst und Jetzt , Vol. 49 (2004). Pp. 149-161.
  • Craig Torbenson, Gregory Parks (eds.): Brothers and Sisters: Diversity in College Fraternities and Sororities. Associated University Presses, Cranbury 2009. ISBN 978-0-8386-4194-1 .
  • o. A .: Fraternities in Canada . In: W. Stewart Wallace (Ed.): The Encyclopedia of Canada , Volume II. University Associates of Canada, Toronto 1948. pp. 393-394. ( online )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. frat - English »German - PONS. In: de.pons.com. Retrieved October 3, 2017 .
  2. ^ Peter Kaupp: Freemasonry and Boy Customs. Continuity of religious traditions in corporate students. In: Einst und Jetzt , Vol. 46 (2001). Pp. 33–68, here: p. 68.
  3. ^ Sawyer Library
  4. focus.de: Haudrauf-Humor: US comedy "21 & Over" , accessed on November 30, 2013