A club is an association of people united by a common interest or goal. A service club, for example, exists for voluntary or charitable activities. There are clubs devoted to hobbies and sports, social activities clubs, political and religious clubs, and so forth.
A student society, student association, university society, student club, university club, or student organization is a society or an organization, operated by students at a university, college, or other educational institution, whose membership typically consists only of students and/or alumni.
Clarkson University is a private research university with its main campus in Potsdam, New York. Clarkson has additional graduate program and research facilities in the New York Capital District and Beacon, New York. It was founded in 1896 and has an enrollment of about 4,600 students studying toward bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in each of its schools or institutes: the Institute for a Sustainable Environment, the School of Arts & Sciences, the David D. Reh School of Business, the Wallace H. Coulter School of Engineering, and the Earl R. and Barbara D. Lewis School of Health Sciences. The university is classified as an R2 research institution.
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.
A gentlemen's club is a private social club of a type originally set up by men from Britain's upper classes in the 18th and succeeding centuries.
FarmHouse (FH) is a social fraternity founded at the University of Missouri on April 15, 1905. It became a national organization in 1921. Today FarmHouse has 33 active chapters and four associate chapters in the United States and Canada.
The National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) is a collaborative umbrella council composed of historically African American fraternities and sororities, commonly called the Divine Nine, and also referred to as Black Greek Letter Organizations (BGLOs). The NPHC was formed as a permanent organization on May 10, 1930, on the campus of Howard University, in Washington, D.C., with Matthew W. Bullock as the active Chairman and B. Beatrix Scott as Vice-Chairman. NPHC was incorporated under the laws of the State of Illinois in 1937.
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.
Sigma Phi Lambda (ΣΦΛ), also known as Sisters for the Lord or Phi Lamb, is a Christian sorority founded in 1988 in Austin, Texas.
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.
A colony is a probationary body of a national fraternity or sorority. It can be considered a new Greek organization that is awaiting official recognition from their international headquarters to maintain a chapter on their college’s campus. A group wishing to become a member of a fraternity or sorority must first petition for status as a colony. The entire membership of the colony remains as uninitiated associates, usually learning and operating under the guidance of an advisor from the national organization and/or from a sponsoring chapter.
A dining club (UK) or eating club (US) is a social group, usually requiring membership, which meets for dinners and discussion on a regular basis. They may also often have guest speakers.
Princeton University eating clubs are private institutions resembling both dining halls and social houses, where the majority of Princeton undergraduate upperclassmen eat their meals. Each eating club occupies a large mansion on Prospect Avenue, one of the main roads that runs through the Princeton campus, with the exception of Terrace Club which is just around the corner on Washington Road. This area is known to students colloquially as "The Street". Princeton's eating clubs are the primary setting in F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1920 debut novel, This Side of Paradise, and the clubs appeared prominently in the 2004 novel The Rule of Four.
The African-American upper class, sometimes referred to as the black upper class, the black upper middle class or black elite, is a social class that consists of African-American individuals who have high disposable incomes and high net worth. The group includes highly paid white-collar professionals such as academics, engineers, lawyers, accountants, doctors, politicians, business executives, venture capitalists, CEOs, celebrities, entertainers, entrepreneurs and heirs.
A fraternity or fraternal organization is an organization, society, club or fraternal order traditionally of men but also women associated together for various religious or secular aims. Fraternity in the Western concept developed in the Christian context, notably with the religious orders in the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages. The concept was eventually further extended with medieval confraternities and guilds. In the early modern era, these were followed by fraternal orders such as Freemasons, the Rosicrucian Society of England, and Odd Fellows, along with gentlemen's clubs, student fraternities, and fraternal service organizations. Members are occasionally referred to as a brother or – usually in a religious context – frater or friar.
Hazing in Greek letter organizations is defined as any act or set of acts that constitutes hazing and occurs in connection to a fraternity or sorority.
In North America, fraternities and sororities are social organizations at colleges and universities. They are sometimes collectively referred to as Greek life. Generally, membership in a fraternity or sorority is obtained as an undergraduate student but continues thereafter for life. Some accept graduate students as well. Individual fraternities and sororities vary in organization and purpose, but most share five common elements:
- Secrecy
- Single-sex membership
- Selection of new members based on a two-part vetting and probationary process known as rushing and pledging
- Ownership and occupancy of a residential property where undergraduate members live
- A set of complex identification symbols that may include Greek letters, armorial achievements, ciphers, badges, grips, hand signs, passwords, flowers, and colors
Delta Phi Lambda is a 501(c)(7) nonprofit Asian-interest sorority in the United States. It was founded at the University of Georgia in 1998. The organization is a co-founder and member of the National Asian Pacific Islander Desi American Panhellenic Association (NAPA). Its campus chapters are members of their local Multicultural Greek Councils (MGCs).
