Dartmouth College is host to many fraternities and sororities, and a significant percentage of the undergraduate student body is active in Greek life. In 2005, the school stated that 1,785 students were members of a fraternity, sorority, or gender-inclusive Greek house, comprising about 43 percent of all students, or about 60 percent of the eligible student body. Greek organizations at Dartmouth provide both social and residential opportunities for students and are the only single-sex residential option on campus. Greek organizations at Dartmouth do not provide dining options, as regular meal service has been banned in Greek houses since 1909.
Fairmont State University is a public university in Fairmont, West Virginia.
In the United States, an honor society is a rank organization that recognizes excellence among peers. Numerous societies recognize various fields and circumstances. The Order of the Arrow, for example, is the National Honor Society of the Boy Scouts of America. Chiefly, the term refers to scholastic honor societies, those that recognize students who excel academically or as leaders among their peers, often within a specific academic discipline.
Professional fraternities, in the North American fraternity system, are organizations whose primary purpose is to promote the interests of a particular profession and whose membership is restricted to students in that particular field of professional education or study. This may be contrasted with service fraternities and sororities, whose primary purpose is community service, and social fraternities and sororities, whose primary purposes are generally aimed towards some other aspect, such as the development of character, friendship, leadership, or literary ability.
While the traditional social fraternity is a well-established mainstay across the United States at institutions of higher learning, alternatives – in the form of social fraternities that require doctrinal and behavioral conformity to the Christian faith – developed in the early 20th century. They continue to grow in size and popularity.
While most of the traditional women's fraternities or sororities were founded decades before the start of the 20th century, the first ever specifically Christian-themed Greek Letter Organization formed was the Kappa Phi Club, founded in Kansas in 1916. Kappa Phi was a women's sisterhood that developed out of a bible study and remains one of the largest nationally present Christian women's collegiate clubs today. Later organizations added more defined social programming along with a Christian emphasis, bridging the gap between non-secular traditional sororities and church-sponsored bible study groups, campus ministries and sect-based clubs and study groups.
The University of Maryland, Baltimore County funds a number of notable student-run organizations and clubs on campus.
The Professional Fraternity Association (PFA) is an American association of national, collegiate, professional fraternities and sororities that was formed in 1978. Since PFA groups are discipline-specific, members join while pursuing graduate degrees as well as undergraduate degrees. PFA groups seek to develop their members professionally in addition to the social development commonly associated with Panhellenic fraternities. Membership requirements of the PFA are broad enough to include groups that do not recruit new members from a single professional discipline. The PFA has welcomed service and honor fraternities as members; however, Greek letter honor societies more commonly belong to the Association of College Honor Societies.
The North American fraternity and sorority system began with students who wanted to meet secretly, usually for discussions and debates not thought appropriate by the faculty of their schools. Today they are used as social, professional, and honorary groups that promote varied combinations of community service, leadership, and academic achievement.
Fraternities and sororities at the University of Virginia include the collegiate organizations on the grounds of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia. First founded in the 1850s with the establishment of several fraternities, the system has since expanded to include sororities, professional organizations, service fraternities, honor fraternities, and cultural organizations. Fraternities and sororities have been significant to the history of the University of Virginia, including the founding of two national fraternities Kappa Sigma (ΚΣ) and Pi Kappa Alpha (ΠΚΑ).
Epsilon Psi Epsilon (ΕΨΕ) was the first collegiate, professional fraternity for students of Optometry. It continues today on the Ohio State University campus.
