Abstract
In his Manual of American college fraternities (1890), William Raimond Baird stated, “college students have always shown a more or less marked tendency to form themselves into societies” (p. 9). Even today, when I reminisce about College I do not think about tests, papers, or classes, but rather I focus on friends, activities, and events, and the larger collegiate experience. I want to explore how these self-constructed “micro” societies and affinity groups impact student development, and how these experiences differ on demographically different campus types. My goal is to provide information on, and discuss the experiences of, Black Greek Fraternity (BGF) members at predominantly White and historically Black institutions through semi-structured interviews of several BGF members and their own personal experiences. It is important to note that the findings of this chapter are in no way meant to be entirely representative of the organizations, the institutions, or all BGFs. Rather, the goal of this chapter is to provide insight into their members’ experiences for those who might be unfamiliar with Black Greek Letter Fraternities and explore how those experiences are, in part, shaped by campus demographics. My research shows that although there are some differences in BGF student experiences on predominantly White institutions (PWIs) and historically Black campuses (HBCUs), overall the commonalities outweigh the differences.
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© 2014 Marybeth Gasman and Felecia Commodore
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Daly, D. (2014). Black Greek Fraternity Experiences on Predominantly White and Historically Black Campuses: A Comparison. In: Gasman, M., Commodore, F. (eds) Opportunities and Challenges at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137480415_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137480415_13
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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