All right make sure i’m centered here um good afternoon good evening to all those joining us today uh my name is law masango dibo uh islamic law and order i am the director for the center for student diversity and inclusion here at miami university uh and and it’s a pleasure and honor to
Share this space with y’all um and today i’ll just be moderating a conversation about black greek letter organizations here at miami university um i am a member of one myself kappa alpha size so shout out to the brothers there um but uh but before we go into our actual discussion
And and see who we have on our panel just wanted to give you kind of an overview about uh black greek leader organizations uh and so uh they came about um starting in 1906 uh with with alpha phi alpha um and it really came about because at the time collegiate black men
And women were not allowed to even be a part of the fraternity sororities on campuses and so in an effort to build community to make sure that we had the resources to support each other to matriculate and and gain that sense of brotherhood and sisterhood uh the divine nine was formed uh that
Includes i already mentioned alpha phi alpha alpha kappa alpha sorority incorporated uh capital facade fraternity incorporated omega sci-fi fraternity incorporated delta sigma theta sorority incorporated five beta sigma fraternity incorporated zeta five beta sorority incorporated sigma gamma roll sorority incorporated and iota five theta fraternity incorporated uh
And and so we have some members uh respective members uh from miami who represent these various organizations and wanted to uh bring them on and have a discussion about just what greek life has meant to them uh what what these organizations the work they’ve been able to do in them
Uh and so first i’d like to invite uh our members from alpha phi alpha uh to the stage with me and so we got a brother shantae and evan and if y’all can just you know go ahead and take it away and just let us know a little bit about your
Organization about your chapter uh and just the impact that has had um on your own experiences yeah for sure uh thanks a law i could start um so i my name is evan anderson i’m the current chapter president of the delta upsilon chapter of alpha phi l fraternity incorporated
I’ve been a member since fall of 2018 and i’ve actually been the president since the past two years um so just talk a little bit about our chapter and kind of some of our accomplishments and kind of our presence on miami’s campus um annually um so actually in 2019-2020 school year
We received the nphc chapter muslim proof chapter of the year award um and we and i as president actually achieved um the mphc most outstanding chapter uh president of the year i’ve also had some some of my lyme brothers who came in with me um who have standing as the uh asg
President student body president um among other leadership opportunity um cabinet um places as well so um we have a lot of leadership leaders in our fraternity and a lot of um a great presence on miami’s campus as well um for me some of the unique opportunities i’ve been presented with
Since i’ve been a member um actually even before i was a member as well um just kind of want to go into some of those unique opportunities that i have been presented with so the first was my freshman year i actually had the opportunity to go to
Washington dc um twice in my freshman year and i was kind of led with by one of our old alumni brothers uh brother and um he kind of helped us get to dc um and then i have also had the role of the vice president of the black leadership coalition
Which is um also the president of that organization so kind of gave me some leadership opportunities there um i’ve actually had an opportunity to be an intern in the office of diversity inclusion um but now it’s known as the center of student diversity and inclusion um so also i’ve been intern there for
The past two years and that was another position that was held held by some of the alumni brothers who kind of passed it on to me um we had the opportunity to travel to toronto with the fraternity um for a regional conference and finally um the fraternity was a great help in
Assisting me into becoming the um actually finding my full-time job um after post-grad so um just some of the opportunities i’ve been presented with and kind of you know the presence we’ve had on miami’s campus currently just kind of wanted to touch on touch on those couple things
All right evan i’ll take it from there first of all i wanted to make sure that uh we thank everyone involved with this program for bringing us together to have this discussion uh but i’d be remiss if i didn’t uh congratulate evan and all his accomplishments all his leadership activities
Applaud you brother uh you’re a great be not just for the fraternity but for the students throughout campus not just those that look like us but those across the board so congratulations on those accomplishments uh as i mentioned my name is chante pennyman i graduated from miami in
2000 with my undergraduate degree in uh accountancy it’s a little different than what you see up on your screen but i stayed for two years after that uh to get my mba in management information systems so uh really my journey within alpha on miami’s campus i initially
Got exposure to greek life black greek life on miami’s campus visiting my older sister diana pennyman who became a member of alpha kappa alpha during her time at the university uh just seeing a lot of the work that they were doing on campus being that little brother
Hanging onto her coattails just kind of following around campus and seeing a lot of the leadership activities she was involved in but also a lot of the engagement that she had with other like-minded leaders so that was what initially sparked my interest as a middle schooler high schooler coming around just following her
Footsteps but uh more miami exposure between my junior and senior year when i was able to participate in the junior scholars program and that with my uh whistle kind of tempted me to jump into that miami candidacy i initially thought i was going to go to an hbcu
But realized that miami was a great school right here in our backyard so wanted to go ahead and give it a try did some visits talk to some people and engaged with students there on campus so had the opportunity to go ahead and enroll and become a member
Of miami but while i was there first day of being there i was able to see the men of alpha phi alpha really engaged really involved in all aspects of uh student life not just black student life but being within the pwi involved with all aspects so that was
Something that really sparked my interest coming from a background where in all honesty i my school was 95 black so being able to step into a scene like this and see other men that looked like me succeeding uh was was very inviting so over those over that time got to know
Them ended up becoming a member of the organization in the spring of 98 with five other gentlemen one of which whose birthday is today peace of uh brian barry um but really formed relationships that have carried beyond our competing for chapter of the year uh when we were undergrad and uh
Being able to really get involved with bs double a uh mplp the various leadership programs really getting involved with a lot of leadership activities just like what um brother anderson said but really taking that and building upon that to the point to where i’m still involved with my organization here in columbus ohio
Still competing for chapter of the year just like we did back then but really diving into that service aspect that education aspect and building the the future leaders of tomorrow so uh with that i’ll pause and allow for the next group to go but just really thank you all for this
Opportunity to speak more about this great organization yeah thank you absolutely uh thank you both for sharing your stories your perspectives and i know we’re going to chat with y’all a little bit later um but but i think also something powerful and uh what brother sean mentioned and getting
The campus and seeing folks uh that looked like him that were moving uh and that inspired him to get more active on campus and i think that’s a common thread you’re gonna see uh as far as why a lot of folks get involved with greek letter organizations
In the first place now i’d like to uh bring to the stage uh the the ladies of alpha kappa alpha sorority incorporated um and so they can go ahead and share their experience as well um i’m having trouble sharing my screen i wanted to share something with you all but uh for
Whatever reason it is not coming up so emily perhaps if you could help me with that uh i’m sora carol perry ayers and um just wanted to kind of give you our story pamela carter and i saw pam and i are going to give our presentation and then sword jordan is going to
Finish up at the end so um emily if you have any suggestions for how i can do this please let me know all right um i know i know it’s not showing the powerpoint that’s the question okay so anyway i will begin uh it doesn’t seem that long ago that
Sore pamela carter coleman’s or joe brown slade saw sharon brown walker saw linda simpson thompson and i saw carol perry ayers wanted to start a chapter of alpha kappa alpha sorority incorporated at miami university back then there were only the alphas and the deltas we wanted another choice however something different something that
Represented who we were as women after much resistance from miami’s student affairs office why would you want another black sorority on campus what’s the problem you have the deltas isn’t that enough my mother serene sore lorraine p uh perry was miss aka as a child she would take me with her to
Sorority meetings so it was clear that my mother had a plan for me and that plan included the aforementioned young women as well this was the inception of uniquity our line name our name was an understatement at best we were five unique women with five different majors and definitely five different personalities
We joined together however as one and made the treks to columbus each weekend to pledge throughout the sigma omega chapter our dean of pledges or soror mary clear she was tough um but they were so excited and happy to pledge us but we had to know our stuff
We would drill each other on the way there and try to keep joe brown awake on the way back freeze-outs which were rolling down all our windows and screaming to the top of our lungs always did the trick we came back to columbus in early may and crossed may 1st 1976
So i’m gonna let sora pam go on and i’m gonna try to figure out how to share my screen good evening i’m pam carter coleman class of 78 and then i got my masters in 1979. um i’ll continue our story our work was far from done however we
Knew there was a great interest to start a new sorority and soon genesis was conceived with kimberly caldwell valerie raspberry miller denise shuttleworth verona smith eaton latonya abercrombie gary engelhard rope dixon angela young carolyn young carolyn cooks brandon and shari smith johnson genesis joined uniquity to charter the lambda mu chapter of
Alpha kappa alpha sorority incorporated on may 7 1977 just to show how far the ladies of our chapter have come initially we had a closet in the eop office later we were given a closet in a minute and now lambda mu has its own suite and richard hall
Sharon brown walker served as the president of uniquity and i served as our first bachelors after lambda muse chartering i went on to serve as bastards of my graduate chapter here in washington d.c romeo omega and i’ve helped many regional committee positions over the years
Um i sir i served as dean of pledges for this in fact seth’s mother uh was on that line in addition uh while working at in miami’s admission office from 1980 to 81 i joined sigma omega chapter in cincinnati and served as graduate advisor to lambda mu pam we are so
Blessed that our charter members are still healthy and we’re thankful for the contributions of our lambda mew ivies beyond the wall we love our lambda muse sorors and they have all been a blessing to our lives this is the rest of our our presentation here
Um this is our mock uh we used well we i’m hoping that thesaurus still have it perhaps not but the annual mock playboy club was something that we did it’s probably not politically correct to have a playboy club anymore but that was kind of our biggest contribution
In addition we’ve had our reunions every five years since then this was the 30th uh reunion this was the 40th reunion unfortunately i wasn’t able to make it nor was i able to make the chartering because i studied abroad that year but this is our latest with the latest sorors of lambda mu
All right so sword jordan thank you for that it was amazing presentation um good evening everyone my name is jordan thompson and i am a senior studying public health with a minor in fashion from cleveland ohio on campus i am the modeling director for miami university fashion design
A student employee in the greek office and the president of alpha kappa alpha sorority incorporated landmark chapter i was initiated into the land of new chapter in spring 2019 and my experience has been nothing short of rewarding it has been a great opportunity to network and develop my leadership skills
Meet some amazing like-minded women who are now my lifelong sisters and give back to the community in ways i never imagined some of my favorite things that we’ve done during my time in the chapter are volunteer with kids at the booker t washington community center we also made reusable feminine products
For women in haiti and recently due to the pandemic we have been reading the students at richard allen academy through zoom to highlight some recent accomplishments we were awarded the 2020 andrew herman mphd chapter of the year award i was awarded the 2020 nphc rising leader award
And our chapter had the highest gpa across the entire tri-council last semester i’m very proud of the work and accomplishments my chapter continues to do along with the rest of our mpht chapters here and i wanted to say thank you very much to everyone that worked to put this
Together this program is amazing and i’m really excited to hear from everyone else and see what they have to share about their organization and their experience so thank you excellent thank you all for sharing and thank you for the history and the photos i’m glad y’all still got that
Uh and so uh with that i would like to invite uh our next group uh special group to me and so uh if our brothers doug banks um and jason steele can come on introduce you out of kappa alpha psi and they’ll tell you a little bit about
Uh miami’s chapter the organization and uh just the impact it’s had on their own lives well thank you and and greetings to you brother masango divo um i’m doug banks i’m a march 1979 initiate of kappa alpha psi fraternity i’m a charter member of kappa delta chapter
And currently i reside in cleveland ohio where i’ve served as vice president at the federal reserve bank of cleveland uh which i’ve enjoyed the privilege of working for for the last 35 years i’m going to go over a little bit of chapter history and then i’m going to pass it over to
Brother jason steele to bring you up to up to date where we stand today so cap alpha psi was was instituted january 5th 1911 just 125 miles due west of oxford in bloomington indiana at indiana university so as you can see that we have midwest routes and and we grew
Uh from there uh i can trace back the first presidents of kappa alpha psi on miami’s campus back to 1951 a transfer student from howard university who was an ohio native transfer to miami university in 1951 actually to join the air force rotc he since went on to become a brigadier
General in the air force and one of the things he shared with us when he joined us for the 30th reunion on uh on campus in oxford was his desire to start a chapter back in 1951 and similar to the resistance that the akas presented the alphas in the deltas were already existence
And the thought was why do you need another historically black fraternity on campus when you have your choice of alpha phi alpha we can also trace back there was another effort in in in 1957 and 1958 where three students from miami university went to the university of cincinnati and
Pledged to become capital men at the beta ada chapter of university cincinnati again they they were not met with with the being able to to provide the impetus for creating a chapter so then we fast forward to 1978 when six men gathered together became interested uh with the help of james beth carter
Who was actually pam carter’s dad and he came and wondered why there was no capital presence on on the university campus being this close to the center of the kappa uh creation uh that brought in a universe that brought in the update alumni and through that effort fostered the chapter with the founding
Line new breed that consisted of six men three sophomores two juniors and one graduate student those men became uh the impetus for my interest in kappa alpha psi and i became on the second line in march of 1979 and from there became the poll mark and my first order of business as palmark
Was to ensure that we had an existence on miami’s campus by the creation of a charter and that charter was bestowed on uh on us april 26 1980. you know kappa’s history is very rich it really goes back to the members in in their involvement
One of the things that we did in my time was create the office of associated student government the office of vice president minority affairs so the capital is along with others uh champion and uh one of our members became one of the first uh vice presidents of asg
One of the things that we we also championed uh some of you that may be in the audience uh may be familiar with this but maybe not the origins and that was created during my time and that was the bridges program so we we presented a proposal to
Miami university about how to really attract minorities from largely ohio and the large cities in ohio to come down and our premise was quite simple if they come to uh if they come to the campus and see how beautiful it is and see uh how it is accommodating for
Student life they’ll make a decision uh to stay and want to come in the fall so with that the bridges program has been uniquely positioned as it’s attracted hundreds of students and fostered the uh the kind of the kind of uh uh spirit that folks wanted to be part of
The mayan university campus the other thing that i want to share with you is that kappa man we our models achievement uh over the years we we’ve given back we’ve been part of all of the black alumni reunions the the creation of the black alumni advisory committee uh we’ve also championed a scholarship
That we’ve created and we’ve given over 40 scholarships in the last 10 years since uh 2011 to 40 students so that they can continue their education at miami and go on to graduate so we’re quite proud of that and i’m going to now pass it off to
Jason steele so that he can tell you what what miami what kappa man is doing on miami’s campus and continuing the tradition of achievement on miami’s campus so um my name is jason steele i was a spring 18 initiate of the kappa delta chapter so i’ve been
I remember since my freshman year so i’ve got to actually experience the growth of the chapter um over all the years um we started off with a very small number where the members were you know we had to take up uh all the positions between just
Two members and now we’ve grown to had seven members at a point in what nine members are more and now have seven members so i’ve just been able to see the growth of the chapter and grown throughout that many of the events that we’ve done have been centered around
Giving back to the community um one of the events is the bomb we have kids from bonn hill academy come down uh just show them the campus they had the opportunity to eat inside of a dining hall got to sit on uh on dr colt’s lecture i’m just getting
Experience of uh what being in college is and give them something to expire to early in their uh education um this recently this past semester uh centered around the the recent election we had we had a voter registration event where we partnered with uh when we all vote um
A company in cleveland and they sent us a qr code and what we did is posted on our instagram and people had the opportunity to just scan that qr code to get registered in this monumental registration just so we everybody have their verses versus voices heard and things such like that
So we just um throughout my time here we’ve just tried to do events and things that have impacted those around us and and just reach back and make sure that everybody’s getting the opportunity to experience what college is like and one of our recent accomplishments
That we are very proud of is we’ve had multiple members in our chapter that made the dean list last semester and then uh two semesters ago we actually had the highest gpa out of all fraternities and sororities on miami’s campus so we’re trying to keep that that uh
Model of achievement going and i feel like we’re doing a pretty good job so i’ve been happy that i better ever be a part of this chapter and see what we never do over the years excellent uh appreciate you both uh for sharing that uh and also just a common theme that you
Know we heard uh from the ladies before you and i know something that we’re going to hear all the way through is just this theme of trailblazing uh of going against the grain um for something you believe in so definitely appreciate you for leading the way and continuing that legacy
Uh as you all have been so thank you uh and so uh next i want to bring up uh our uh our brothers from omega sci-fi uh so nathaniel snow um and uh brother colby uh they can get on they’re on here excellent and then y’all could do the
Same you know share a little bit about the history your experience uh being in the organization and such um nathaniel you’re muted if you don’t like it here we go um just thank you for having us um i’m the thing you should know proud member of omega sci fi fraternity incorporated
Tells our chapter um i attended miami from the years of 1990 um five to nineteen up to 2000 and crossed omega scott phi spring 98 however um when i got to miami miami didn’t have a chapter for omega sci-fi so tarza at the time was a metro chapter
Which consists of students from miami uc and xavier so um just happened to to join that organization um when i got to miami um miami had some great things going um while i was there i was president of bsaa members of mugs and a lot of things just involved in
Just there’s plenty so um you know the things that we did then it was just to try to unite the um you know black students come together we had some things that we had to resolve on campus but we tried to um come together and be
A family and we were family we were family and although we wore separate ladders we all can come together and on one accord because the common goal was to just graduate and and work towards our career objectives so um so over the years tauzei was a metro chapter and it was until recently
Um with uc getting another charter and um xavier in the future by the end of the charter uh miami just took on tulsa so now tal’s eyes recognized at miami university as of january of 2020 so um who i have with me i have kobe burst who is the current vice bachelors which
Is president of the chapter at tarzan he just want to tell you some things that’s going on on campus right now and what um omega sci fi tiles is doing um i’m cody birch across 618 towson university um as of now we’re just working on our uh some more
Events to host uh we have did a adopt-a-block which was like a cleanup um before like the weather came so we were doing that um we also are in the works of having like a game night uh like a virtual game night uh we’re trying to find people who still have like
A wii system so uh don’t like the pandemic we’re just trying to figure out ways to still stay interactive with our community mm-hmm and just to piggyback um currently i’m the advisor of tells uh and some other thing is they had a rape prevention program when they brought in
Miami university police to come speak to young ladies but it was all virtual because of the pandemic which we are in so they’re being you know very active on campus and i’m taking up some leadership roles we have a couple of uh members who now are one of them or is
Captain on the football team so um we’re doing those things and just trying to move and continue to move in the right direction to keep up the tradition of excellence at miami university so um so that’s pretty much really it um over the years we have a lot of
I think we had we we counted we have like 42 men because what we found out prior to 1985 um students who had went to miami who wanted to be become part of omega south fire will have to pledge at wilberforce university over at upsilon chapter um however because of what tells
I came into existence the metro chapter so we have right about now we have about 37 alumni that came through the tarzai metro who attended miami at one time or or another so um so you know we a small chapter but we’re growing and so with the foundation set and put
In place we have these young men going and aspiring to be great great people so that’s it appreciate y’all for sharing and i think uh anything you touched on something important just by saying a lot of the folks uh whether it was joining omega sci fi or any of these organizations all came
Under one banner of community and trying to graduate and i think that’s just an important thing uh to reiterate so thank you for that and so next uh we we have uh the the ladies of delta sigma theta uh coming to join us and actually alumni doctor jeannie holmes
If okay there it is there we go there we go thank you so much once again i am jeannie johnson holmes i was at miami university mid 90s to late 90s and i was initiated into the zeta mute chapter of delta sigma theta sorority incorporated in spring 96
So some of the people you’ve heard already were on campus at the same time that i was and when nathaniel said we had unity on campus he told the truth we didn’t come in all the way uh already knowing that there was a lot of
Unity but we had a lot of situations on campus that thrust us into that situation so delta sigma theta is a sisterhood dedicated to public service and it has been at the core of what we are and what we do since our inception in 1913.
Um you can tell a delta by what she does it’s not about the colors that we wear or the the letters on our chest it’s about what we do and we have a five-point thrust that’s really the focus of what our public service is but i want to just point out the
Delta sigma theta our first act as a sorority was an act of defiance it was an act of speaking up it was an act of social justice and that’s what we really stand for we were the only organization black greek organ organization to march in the women’s suffrage movement in 1913
Unfortunately because of segregation and just outright prejudice we were put in the back of that line but we stood against what howard university told us we should do we stood against what some of the people at the university um and some of our our uh charter members thought we should do
And we decided that standing up and giving a voice to a cause that was important to us was important enough to found who we are we brought that same amount of vigor and speaking up to miami university’s chapter when it was founded it started off in 1965 as a joint chapter between
Um university of dayton and miami university and then in 1969 we we broke away and we were large enough to start our own chapter so we were started in our chartered in march on march 29 1969 and since our inception i think a couple of people have said already that it was only
Alpha phi alpha fraternity and it was just a sigma theta as the only uh african-american black greek letter organization on our campus and true to who we were when the akas wanted to start a chapter we fought with them against the university and even when we uh in the late 90s the
Sigma lambda gamma uh latina sorority decided that they wanted to start what they call a car a colony uh and we helped them during that time so it’s been a part of our route it is a part of who we are and helping other people um
When it comes to what my experience was on miami’s campus i got to tell you i had no intention of actually joining the sorority i thought that i needed to just study i had wonderful deltas in my life i had wonderful akas in my life
And i just didn’t think that i had time to do this but as i walked around miami university’s campus there were a couple of people who stood out nicole ward janelle watson tyree ayers um these were phenomenal women they were leading organizations they were they had um jobs with the university as resident
Advisors they were um great in academics they were always being heralded as these mentors and these people that we should look up to and it wasn’t until i went to a couple of parties that i actually realized they were all deltas but they were so active in the
Other parts of the community that it made me think you know what if they can do it i think i can and i liked what the zeta mu chapter actually stood for it wasn’t all about delta it was how we as deltas could give back and make our campus better for everyone so
My experience was that deltas were leaders not only in our sorority but all across campus and we did a lot to make sure that there was unity um i also learned that you can tell a delta by what she does and the second was we’re really stronger together
When i first came on campus i have to be honest with you and over the years there’s ebbs and flows about friendships but there wasn’t a lot of unity when it came to the sororities but we tried hard and we mended a lot of bridges that had been burned in the past and
Because of some of the the social injustice that was happening on our campus we had to be unified and we learned how to overcome some of those obstacles and i’m so proud of our sorors um along all sororities in nphc these days i hear we’re doing great things the zeta
Mute chapter was recently awarded the highest we have the highest gpa of all sororities on campus i think our gpa was second highest among all fraternities and sororities on campus but we continue to fight the good fight together with one another and i am just so pleased that miami is continuing this legacy
Of strength some notable zeta mu deltas include congresswoman martha fudge who is now the hud secretary appointee under the biden administration we have uh representative uh joyce beatty who is and i’m sorry they’re not zadon view but they are uh admirable and wonderful uh deltas
We do have the ceo of democracy now who you’ve probably seen on cnbc or cnn uh yvette simpson who is a miami alumna she she did not pledge our chapter but she is a great supporter and she was a great friend while here you see us in the political arena you
See us in the arts you see us in business our chapter alone has several people who are vice presidents of diversity equity inclusion we have executives at amazon we have executives at kroger we have executives uh even at paypal so i want to let you know
That we come from good stock we come from excellence and miami’s mph see a campus and and our environment is one we create leaders we cultivate leaders and we really try our best to cultivate unity thanks a lot amazing thank you uh for that and also for holding it down uh solo
Look there’s a mu for you all right um but thank you very much next i wanted to bring to the stage uh dls rates uh from phi beta sigma thanks for having me man very awkward doing this with uh with no audience feels like i’m in a recording studio um but welcome everybody
Uh thank you all for having me my name is d ellis rates i’m from cleveland ohio born and raised and um i really just want to talk a little bit about you know the history of my fraternity fight with the sigma fraternity incorporated our history here at miami as well as
What that means to me so dating back to 1914 580 sigma was born from a necessity that my founders saw in the black community at the time and as most people know black greeks were born from being excluded from white spaces and so we decided to make our own
And so you have to you know give huge props and shout outs to you know the alphas in the akas or for blazing that trail and um the reason that there are different fraternities and stories is you know because not all of them have you know the same
Goals values things like that and i i want to make it very clear that i’m not saying this to say that um there is one better or superior or anything like that it’s just differences of how we get to the same goal right and so our organization was born
Based on the idea of inclusion and inclusivity we champion that inclusive we and we try to uphold that as much as possible so fast forward to today uh if i get a similar came to miami in 2000 uh as an official charter uh our charter line crossed in 99 and we were chartered
In april of 2000. so that makes us uh one of the younger chapters on miami’s campus and for me personally i got to miami in 2010 at that time our chapter was inactive there were no sigmas on the campus it was on the alpha there was kappa
And then there was akas that uh developers and zetas and so i was one of those students who i mocked the greek organizations all the time um they were easy to make fun of too it was it was very easy my sister was an aka so she brought me around greek
Organizations all the time um she brought me the step show she brought me icebreakers and things like that so i got to kind of see firsthand um the public the social side of what greek life was and i clowned it because it was silly to me like i was very
Very much so not i was not down with it at all you know it was very stumpy arty to me i was like this is this is silliness um but that was mainly because of what i was exposed to right and once again this isn’t a uh i’m not condemning anybody or anything
Like that because one way or another seeing greek life in the black community did inspire me to try to join it however i joined it for a very very specific reason and that reason was to shift the narrative around black greeks at the time and it was a very very specific time and
A very very specific narrative and i didn’t think that me joining a well-oiled machine would deal with the same results as if i created a new legacy and so i went looking for how the you know the best way to make that happen was and so uh when i learned about fiber
Sigma and their charter not being expired yet um i believe the last members were on campus in about 2004. so that meant by the time i was a freshman last that spring um that was 2011. so the charter wasn’t expired so that meant we could try to you know recharge it
And so that’s exactly what me and a couple of other brave souls decided to do uh we decided to set off on a journey to to reclaim and you know revitalize a chapter that hadn’t been around for almost a decade and we succeeded you know we i crossed in 2012.
And we you know still have a chapter today and thank god for that um because it could very easily have just been our line and then that would have been it but so the reason that we did that is because we wanted to be the people’s prep
We say that we mean that um sigma isn’t about any sort of stereotype sigma isn’t about fitting a mold or a box or you know being any certain kind of person it’s just about being a good man who believes in brotherhood scholarship and service those are our three
Base principles and service of course is the most important to us uh our you know motto is culture for service and service for humanity and that has always been something that we’ve stood on above all else sure when i was in undergrad did we throw parties we did
Um did we you know compete in step shows and stroll offs we did but more than anything we probably pride ourselves on events such as sleep out for the homeless such as our fundraisers to give to charities like the angel house down in hamilton as going to cincinnati and dayton and volunteering
During their their marches during you know their community cleanups things are like things of that nature because we don’t really you know go in for the showy part of you know what greek life was um for me it was all about trying to make sure that these letters weren’t something that i
You know where um to show it was more so about something that i i used as a beacon to notify others that this was you know we were about service and we were about trying to change the community that we were in of course miami had its own you know
Culture and its own community that you know benefited in one way or another from having black greek organizations but they were more so reliant on the others and so i i saw an opportunity to change the narrative around black greek life um and so that’s what we did and that’s
What i hope that we are continuing to do as we uh move forward um so um fun guys to be honest um mainly because we’re not bound by any kind of uh you know strict requirements or anything like that and i’m not saying that everyone else is either but
I believe that that’s like a national you know across the board you know you won’t be able to tell who’s a sigma and who isn’t um because you know it’s not something that we use to define us you know we define what sigma is by our actions
And i believe that our commitment to service to excellence and to brotherhood above all else speaks for itself and that’s really what we really want to you know always always champion um to me it really helped me become a leader when i was in college i
I you know i was a clown that’s really what i like to do i like to calm people i like to have a good time i like to entertain but it wasn’t until i you know saw an opportunity to change a narrative and to you know forge
A trail that i really took it serious when it came to leadership leadership wasn’t something that i really cared about until i joined sigma and so i can think that i can thank uh the alphabetical chapter for that as well as xyro for uh helping to you
Know show me what leadership means show me what brotherhood and sisters uh sisterhood means and to kind of forge my own path and figure out who i was outside of the silliness um and that is the fastest seven minutes you will ever see ever um
Let us know if uh what we do after this now you’re good i appreciate you sharing your story there uh and i think the ellis mentioned something uh you know quite interesting and just hit his take on fraternity life when he got to campus i know for myself um
I went to university of cincinnati uh and so coming in both of my parents are from cameroon west africa i’m the oldest i had no older people that were like in greek life or could show me the ropes and so when i got to uc’s campus i was
Like yo who are these guys in red who them you know and the black and so uh my concept for for black greek life uh was distorted uh but you know it’s i think it’s a very common story that once you you know become a little bit more active
And you start to see um you know whether it’s the things that you want to see and examples or maybe you feel like there’s something missing uh and how we tend to come together and find community in our organizations so thank you for that uh and then last but certainly not least
I wanted to bring up alumna kamika alexander from the zyro chapter of zeta five beta uh to share with us a little bit about your story uh about what zeta has done for you and says all right thank you for um having me and inviting us here
Um my time in miami was from undergrad from 96 1996 to 2000. um also returned back in 2004 to get my master’s in education and i have a jd from the university of cincinnati college of law just in general our our overall organization zeta phi beta sorority incorporated a community conscious action oriented
Organization was founded in on january 16th 1920 at howard university in washington dc um our five founders set off to create an organization that was founded around the principles of scholarship service finer womanhood and sisterly love like a lot of people who have presented today
I did not have i didn’t know that i would be greek when i arrived on campus i was active in the community events the black community and the events on campus but i didn’t have a you know background of legacy in any organizations but just interacting on
Campus um i fell in with my people you know people that i could um that i we had a lot of commonalities in um that was around about probably 1998 and there were two young women on campus um who wore zetas um through the forest park chapter by sigma zeta
Um after meeting those young women and then also other women who were interested in the organization um we were able to um you know band together and uh crossed over into zeta in 1999. um i am a charter member of the uh zyro chapter um on campus we chartered the chapter
Um on april 28th of 2001. um i have nine other fellow charter members i mean one thing i found interesting um from the um the presentations of the or the other organizations um was it sort of brings to mind the theme that i think we all have as
Um you know in the black community of trailblazers and then those individuals creating progress for others because our introduction to the miami campus was um you know pretty we were definitely supported by the university and by greek affairs as well as embraced by the rest of the community which i’m
I’m sure was everyone else’s experience as well um but um we were chartered in 2001 um we actually this year we will have our um 20th anniversary um as a chapter on campus and it’s it’s just been pretty amazing to sort of look back and see how far the chapter has come
Since the time that we have chartered um the chapter um when we first started um we had some events that were our signature events um and that was one of them that comes to mind is is my own sands anaya mcmurray um and we had a speak on it which is a
Poetry competition so that’s only thing that i really i remember and we enjoy um from that time and then also the soul food event on campus um i know now that they have some other events that have become signature events They have an event that they did with the uh delta zeta mu i’ve been called heels i think that was a dancing um sort of event um and then z harmony which i thought was um kind of needed was a dating sort of um show event um and so there
The the chapter is still very active um on campus um and you know our experience was it was we wanted to bring something else different um to the campus um and it was a lot of hard work but i will say that i think that even though we came in without a template
Um for what we should do we were able to get a lot of support from the um the aka chapter in the delta chapter and just mphc in general um to support us in um you know making a mark on campus and we were able to do that um and it’s been
Great to see that happen um i will say that um you know what i learned as far as my experience um with the chapter um i definitely learned leadership skills as everyone is brought up and i think that’s very important when especially when you’re chartering the chapter
Um it we have to just start from scratch um and make things happen so that was definitely leadership in action um i’ll also say that for me i’m at that time the the young women that i came in with um three other women um they were much smarter than
Than i was and much better students as well and so one thing i learned i think was like a collective responsibility because i i really wanted to make sure that um you know it wasn’t my gpa that was pulling us down um and so i became a much better student
From that my grades from the time that i um joined the organization forward were much better than they were um in the beginning um of my journey and you know they’ve always just been supportive um and we all have long relationships that have sort of transcended
Um generations um you know now i can say that the young women who are in the organization are the same age as my oldest child who was also in college so but we’re still able to sort of sit down and have conversations and relate to one another
And i think that speaks to the resiliency and um just the the legacy that was built with the chapter so um it was a it was a great experience that i had there in miami and it’s it’s been a pleasure to see that continue um on today so
Excellent thank you for sharing um and at this point want to uh invite everybody back on screen and have a little bit of a question and answer time pick your brains get to know a little bit more about y’all and your experience excellent all right so we we do have some questions
Uh from folks um i know we don’t have a whole bunch of time so i’m gonna try and maybe summarize mix up these questions and i’ll uh throw them to some of y’all to answer uh and so i want to start off with um just how and a lot of you touched on
This uh and so how have the uh the miami black um how has your black greek experience impacted you in your own life and whether that’s from your own organization uh the community around you that help support the mentors you know it goes deep uh but what has been that impact
Uh in your own life from your organizations uh and if we can have uh kamika start us out and brother sean you can take it from there i’m sure i mean the the impact in the organization like i said um you know just developing um friendships and um sort of having those connections
Um to reach back to you know we one of our zyra zyro star wars is the um first black female dean of students at kent state university and we’re extremely proud of her and her achievements and you know we have um attorneys and um service members and people who are
Serving as front line physicians um in this battle with kovit and teachers for sure and so many just really amazing women um so that’s one thing that has been a support and a foundation for me is just the sisterhood um and i i treasured that uh from you know
As gaining that from the organization and um yeah that’s what i was saying and just to add to that um i think some of the the aspects of the greg black greek experience specifically my walk with an alpha was one of discovery even after i became a member so
Um i already spoke about some of that uh so some of those images that i saw before i became a member but seeing such men as joseph cox brother crutcher seeing those men operating in those spaces and what they did quietly without any sort of uh ask for accolades or or or
Recognition for what they did not only for the organization of alpha phi alpha on the campus but all the black greek organizations that you currently see there on miami’s campus um there was a point in time where the alphas were um one of the only organizations that had a
University-owned facility that was just for them there was a an alpha house but we worked with brother cox and was able to uh make it so that the brothers of kappa al-assad had a house right next to us at the top of uh fraternity row and just a symbol the symbolism the symbolic
View of seeing that at the top of fraternity row and have such men as joseph cox and uh one of my own mil uh mentors uh bill madison just knowing the power of those two and have them be able to look out their windows and see the pride of having those two
Sitting right there at the top of fraternity row i mean there’s so many experiences like that but i’ll i’ll stop there i know i can ramble on forever but uh it’s just a an overwhelming experience that i’m very grateful for him that’s beautiful and um and i think that
Ties me into my next question and i want to throw this to uh brother banks and the sister perry uh when we talk about community right and um just how the community had to support each other so miami university is known as the mother fraternities and sororities of greek life
Uh yet you know especially for y’all two organizations you had to fight to even have a place within that scope can you just speak to what is that impact um of how the the community the greek community on on campus helped you be able um to to charter your chapters uh to continue
A legacy in the face of even an administration uh that wasn’t really having it right what was that like um i’ll start off i i was i was gonna say you know back then and that was in the 70s late 70s um you know things were very very we’re very segregated
I mean segregated in that you know certainly we lived in the same dorms as everybody else but our social life was totally segregated and um so you know we we partied we had dances on the weekend and they were our dances and so when we um you know started the the sorority
You know people thought we were just kind of crazy like you should be happy with what you have and so just that kind of helped us build character and determination and um you know just sisterhood a sister i mean we really did form a strong strong bond of sisterhood
I mean like for example and i’ll make this really fast but i was the only black um resident of of um mcbride and and pam and all the rest of linda simpson and and joe brown they were all in um they were all in south quad so
Except for caldwell who was over and i forget the name of our hall but that was an east quad also if if we hadn’t gotten together or saw each other on the weekends i would have never even known that they existed and they definitely wouldn’t have known i existed
So i think we really formed a strong sisterhood just with that you know with fighting together is what i’m trying to say pam you have anything to add to that technical difficulties she’s just she’s being pretty on the camera sorry people ahead this was the time um when roots first came out
And so i think that the university was afraid of unrest or afraid of what might happen and so because all of this was going on at the same time i think there was a lot of fear on the part of the administration um but it was also a way to
To pull us together and that’s what the um eop office did and so um having that that bond and that that sisterhood are actually all all greeks together and you can of course see it now with all of the panhellenic getting together to put uh sora kamala harris in office
But it really was as carol said a very very difficult and very segregated time and a segregated mindset from the administration i do want to say one more quick thing we were all we all kind of met each other by being alpha angels and so i don’t
Even know if you all have alpha angels anymore it’s probably totally a an illegal uh organization but that’s kind of how we all met and that was a subservient group it was social but it was a little subservient so but uh you know that’s how we got to know our alpha brothers
And brother banks all right thank you and let me build on some points that the thor roars of aka and they were just ahead of me so i i looked up to carol perry and and and pam carter um they were big sisters to me uh they they guided me through
And i certainly appreciated all the help that they extended out to us as as just as students as uh black students but also as young aspiring a greek organization i was on the second line i’ve been a life member of kappa alpha since the day i crossed
I’ve been financial ever since and been very engaged uh i think in terms of of working with uh the greeks and and our advisor was an alpha man so uh so you know while there was a couple of kappas uh that were uh on the administration uh they
They weren’t uh really involved with us at that point in time so we we certainly appreciate uh larry young in terms of what he did um to help and guide us uh through these turbulent times but because of that segregation um i know there was a question that was
Asked about is there anything special to us well we had all our parties in the basement of dormitories so we that’s that’s where we were basements of minute hall and hamilton hall and and that’s all we were relegated to we didn’t have places that uh we we could go to so we
Make due to whatever was available to us and we maximized that opportunity and we we had a great time and i can tell you that from my experience uh going back to the previous question i crossed in march miami got out the first week of may so we didn’t have a
Lot of time before school let out but i was ushered to our original conference for cap alpha psi in dayton ohio a couple weeks after i crossed in my first meeting was with the national president kappa alpha psi who was a chief legal counsel and attorney for the federal reserve bank
And you think of the shadow of the future i’ve been working at the federal reserve for 35 years to be able to meet him um as a young man and then find that we we are contemporaries at the federal reserve and meet him once again in the federal reserve setting was
Was awesome in awestruck and that was facilitated by uh the alumni members in in dayton ohio who made it a point to ensure that i got off on the right foot that i met the professional men that could help me in my career that really provided a true example because at that time
We didn’t really have a lot of that i mean joe cox certainly was was there and and he he was a good example for all of us as i mentioned larry young and there was a very very select few but it it became the underpinnings of how we
Were able to coexist to be successful in the words of kappa to achieve and and persevere to graduate so we were all there for a purpose it has helped each other to graduate and and and stayed of course thank you thank you um and so a common i guess quote or phrase is
Especially when looking at our black organizations as you get in you get out what you put in right as far as the work the effort um that goes into not only first being initiated and crossing but up keeping the legacy and moving that forward uh and so for dialysis and dr
Holmes wanted to get your take on uh what are some examples of the work you put in and how that impacted you know you or those around you later on in life uh yeah thank you um that’s i mean that’s true like that’s not even like a myth at this
Point you know what what you do definitely defines how far you go right there is no easy path ahead and so for me um that quote embodies you know how i learned how to become a professional as i mentioned during my speech i was a
You know i still am but i i was a knucklehead kind of student you know i was just kind of running around the yard having fun you know all i cared about was fun um i didn’t care about infrastructure i didn’t care about you know setting myself up for success i didn’t care
About you know what i was going to do after college until i became eureka those things became very apparent that that’s what i needed to be focusing on and so because i had a necessity i you know i was you know kind of thrust into leadership i had to
Be the president i had to you know serve on the nphc council i had to you know be an ambassador for for the you know the panhell you know interest counsel that we had and all these things because of that um i kind of had to learn to
You know how to conduct myself how to you know i had to learn robert’s rules of order i had to learn how to balance a budget i had to learn how to you know book a room and all of these things that i didn’t have to know before and because i had to
Develop these skills very rapidly and put in that hard work to kind of figure out how to do this thing it was easier for me to impart that knowledge and that wisdom onto those that came after me it was something that i was able to be a
Resource for for students who you know weren’t in greek organizations or you know we’re just in clubs and different groups on campus i was able to be someone that they could go to and that’s kind of what i wanted to do from the beginning is i wanted to
Be a resource i wanted to be someone that people could rely on but i wasn’t able to do that from the beginning i had to go through um you know the trials and tribulations of learning the ropes before i could you know teach them to somebody else and so by putting in that
Hard work i was able to then become what i actually wanted to be which was you know a resource for others and i know we’re running out of time but just really quickly when it comes to uh putting in what you want to get out um it it really rings true in everything
We i was on miami’s campus when we had a lot of issues going on a lot of issues and we had to do sit-ins we had to do a lot of organization uh to get our voices heard on campus and what we put into the sorority what i
Put into in order to learn things like what dialys pointed out robert’s rules order understanding how administration actually works what’s the chain of command understanding some of the politics behind it actually set us up for more success than we even thought we could ever have
And in all honesty it has helped put me in a trajectory and a path for my career that um has allowed me to help organizations it has allowed me to help myself in um becoming a building some expertise in these areas of conflict management understanding organizational politics as well as
Mentoring and helping others so anytime you go into an organization and you’re just looking for what can it do for me you’ve already lost what the beautiful thing is about our organizations is the more that you give the more that you get so thanks for that question
Excellent and i i’m mad i even got to follow that up uh but i just want to thank all of you for sharing your insights to such a wealth of knowledge um just amongst a few of us uh on this panel here and i think it just goes to show what what can
Happen when when folks who have walked this path reach back and share that knowledge so thank you to all of you we stand on the shoulders of giants so um i hope you don’t take that lightly and so want to close out the program uh with just three words or less
Okay everybody three would match up y’all hear me because i know some of y’all storytellers all right three words or less your favorite undergrad greek moment at miami this is how we gonna close it out okay three words or less i’m coming to brother banks first
Oh definitely the step shows we we use twirling canes brother perfect perfect uh let’s go with sister pam um i would say um um being chartered uh probably something less formal the blackberry cookouts got a picture of kamikia and everybody in there so you’re not giving me ideas um let’s go dr holmes
Western lodge parties dialysis oh man this is so difficult um i have to say uh the 2014 yard show it’s on youtube look it up there you go and then you’re gonna bring us home can make you i am gonna say with report parties because that’s where the a lot
Of the parties used to take place back in that time i said i see i was kicking him we didn’t do that at uc we were studying um and then to close us out uh sister perry okay um singing chapter song perfect thank you all for for joining us today
I hope you learned something uh and until next time y’all have a great evening
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