Greek Letter Organizations

Fraternities and sororities, or Greek letter organizations (GLOs) (collectively referred to as 'Greek life'), are social organizations at colleges and universities. A form of the social fraternity, they are prominent in the United States and the Philippines, with much smaller numbers existing in France, Canada, and elsewhere. Similar organizations exist in other countries as well, including the Studentenverbindungen of German-speaking countries.I was initiated into a college secret society—a couple of hours of grotesque and good-humored rodomontade and horseplay, in which I cooperated as in a kind of pleasant nightmare, confident, even when branded with a red-hot iron or doused head-over heels in boiling oil, that it would come out all right. The neophyte is effectively blindfolded during the proceedings, and at last, still sightless, I was led down flights of steps into a silent crypt, and helped into a coffin, where I was to stay until the Resurrection...Thus it was that just as my father passed from this earth, I was lying in a coffin during my initiation into Delta Kappa Epsilon. Fraternities and sororities, or Greek letter organizations (GLOs) (collectively referred to as 'Greek life'), are social organizations at colleges and universities. A form of the social fraternity, they are prominent in the United States and the Philippines, with much smaller numbers existing in France, Canada, and elsewhere. Similar organizations exist in other countries as well, including the Studentenverbindungen of German-speaking countries. Similar, but much less common, organizations also exist for secondary school students, as do fraternal orders for other adults. In modern usage, 'Greek letter organization' is often synonymous with the terms 'fraternity' and 'sorority'. Two additional types of fraternities, professional fraternities and honor societies, incorporate some limited elements of traditional fraternity organization, but are generally considered a different type of association. Traditional fraternities of the type described in this article are often called 'social fraternities'. Generally, membership in a fraternity or sorority is obtained as an undergraduate student but continues, thereafter, for life. Some of these organizations can accept graduate students as well as undergraduates, per constitutional provisions.