Good evening beautiful people my name is darian davenport dr d to a lot of folks i am the assistant vice president for college life as well as the assistant secretary to the board of trustees at gettysburg college of pennsylvania and i’m a co-facilitator for this evening’s program
Uh first and finance the history of black greek letter organizations uh before we jump into everything i’m going to go ahead and allow my co-facilitator to introduce herself uh just a couple of housekeeping items uh if you have questions um we this is really gonna be a pretty
Uh pretty open exchange so if you have questions please feel free to mute yourself and ask them if you’re not comfortable asking questions in that way please use the chat feature and we’ll try to get to as many questions as possible so with that i’d like to welcome in uh
My colleague my friend and colleague gene arnold good evening everyone my name is jean arnold i’m the chief diversity officer at gettysburg college since 2014 and i’m just happy to be with everyone tonight to talk about the divine nine great uh so jeanne mentioned the divine nine
Um she and i are both members of uh divine nine organizations and when we talk about divine nine those are the nine historically black greek letter organizations um that that were founded um in the night early uh 20th century those organizations are alpha phi alpha fraternity incorporated which was founded in 1906
At cornell university um that is the organization i’m a member of then we have alpha kappa alpha sorority incorporated which was founded in 1908 at howard university which is um the organization that good dr gene arnold is a member of you have kappa alpha psi fraternity incorporated which was founded in 1911
At indiana university you have omega sci-fi fraternity incorporated which was founded in uh also in 1911 at howard university you have dealt the sigmund theta sorority incorporated which was founded in 1913 at howard university you have five beta sigma fraternity incorporated which was founded in 1914 in howard university you have zeta five
Beta sorority incorporated which was founded in 1920 on the campus of howard university you have sigma gamma rho sorority incorporated which was founded in 1922 in butler university and then you also have iota phi theta fraternity incorporated which was founded in 1963 at morgan state university and if you notice um
Six of the nine organizations were founded at an hbcu so i want to talk a little bit about just how things began and as a member of alpha phi alpha fraternity incorporated i’ll start i’m not going to get into you know leagues and leagues of history of
85a i’d be talking to y’all all day um but i really just want to talk about the necessity for developing a greek letter organization um so when you talk about cornell university cornell being a historically white institution you have black students who were looking to find their place on campus they were looking
In a lot of ways that some students still do looking for their people so in um early 1900s a study group formed on the campus of ithaca new york which was actually started in in double-digit numbers um with the precursor cc point dexter who was looking to pull students together just as a
Study group now you have to keep in mind when you think about 1905 1906 and around that time that was 10 years after plessy versus ferguson and for those folks who are not plessy who don’t understand or don’t remember or recall or know what the case of plessy versus ferguson was
That was the catalyst for segregation so you think about separate but equal which was really separate but unequal especially in the south a lot of black people really didn’t find their way or find places um for them on these camp on these campuses where they were very much the racial minority so
Um here comes you know alpha phi alpha and you have the founders which we call jules um that came together because they wanted to provide a space and an opportunity for students to engage um this went from a study group and actually later involved to a fraternity
And that evolved because the the members of our founders members that worked for the white fraternities they saw the structure they saw the operation and they wanted to structure something similar to provide a foundation for these black students on this campus um we have seven founders uh we affectionately call
Them jewels um they are henry arthur callus charles henry chapman eugene kinkel jones george bill o’kelly nathaniel allison murray robert harold ogle and burton woodson tandy and those seven men came together to form alpha phi alpha on as we say an ice cold tuesday uh december 4th 1906 on the campus of
Cornell university in ithaca new york but that founding really was the catalyst for the other members of the divine nine understanding that you know specifically african american students wanted opportunities to be able to come together in this sense to build a bond and through the lens of alpha phi alpha
A lot of our focus is on scholarship it’s on service and being able to to do that so for us our aims are mainly the scholarship and love for all mankind and our motto is first of all servants of all we shall transcend all
So a lot of what we were trying to do when we started alpha phi alpha was really to try to build this sense of community for black people who found themselves at historically white institutions but were not able to connect and because of severe segregation so even though segregation
Was a law of the south it very much manifested in the north where we were shut out of these types of opportunities instead of being shut out we decided to create our own space and that is really how alpha phi alpha began and and spurred the movement for what became
Black greek life not only in america but internationally um so with that i will turn to to my colleague and friend gene arnold to talk about alpha kappa alpha sorority incorporated thanks darian so similar similarly to what darien stated we uh we came next alpha kappa alpha sorority incorporated
Founded on january 15 1908 and then we were not incorporated until a few years later in 1913. but again on howard’s campus uh the main founder the person who really had the idea ethel hedgeman at the time then ethel hagerman lyle later on with eight of her colleagues at howard decided they wanted
To pull a group together that could really focus on um the issues of women and girls um and to promote you know the status of particularly black women and girls in the society uh and so uh they after the incorporation of several things came into play as justin darian said
Um we have a motto by merit and culture the mission is really focused on focused on cultivating and encouraging high scholastic and ethical standards um but really the main line that you hear from that the tagline over the years into the present day is service to all mankind so we consider
Ourselves a service organization uh and we are you know primarily black but not exclusively uh black so there are other members in their members of the sorority who are not african-american uh and uh as many of you probably know our most famous member at this point
Is um vice president kamala harris so i think for those who didn’t know about alpha kappa alpha before the election they they’ve heard of about the sorority incorporated at this point so we’ve always been focused on service the black family health those kinds of things under our current international president
Um dr glenda glover who is the president of tennessee state um she has her own targets every time a new international president comes in they make you know four or five different focus areas but always you’ll hear it going back to uh scholarship to education to health
So currently uh her targets are hbcu for life meaning we should support hbcus for life and we’ve raised a million dollars of several different days we just take a day and we decide to raise a million dollars for hbcus when all the aks you know call in and pledge um she’s
Also focused on women’s healthcare and wellness on building our economic legacy that’s another one of hers as well as the arts and i’m having a global impact so all of the all of the targets no matter the international president over these 110 years have something to do with those kinds of
Things so at this point in time we are uh about 300 000 members about 75 000 of those are active and we are you know across the united states and in nine different countries uh we break ourselves up into regions uh and uh we’ve expanded to africa south africa
Bahamas uh liberia and a variety of other places uh but again the reason was that we came together was to um uplift ourselves uplift the community and um commit ourselves to service and it is a lifelong commitment i should mention so unlike um uh majority fraternities and sororities uh in some cases
We when we join the organization it is a lifetime commitment so not just on the undergraduate level but on the graduate level as well um and i’ll just last thing i’ll say we can just open up have conversation talk about our own experiences so the reason i have pearls on tonight
Which i don’t usually wear uh for work uh is that that is one of our symbols pearls 20 pearls you’ll hear that phrase and that’s to represent um the combination of our founders and our incorporators so i’ll stop there we can have a conversation
I think one of the things too i want to um really um accent that gene spoke about was just the leadership um you know we talk about people who are high profile or or famous folks you know i know for for alpha but not just for alpha and aka but just
Throughout the divine nine when you talk about um black leadership a lot of black leadership was funneled through black greek letter organization so you know the reverend dr martin luther king who’s an alpha um you know currently we talk about you know we talked about um sister harris uh sister vice president
Harris um you know dr reverend joseph ward dr reverend warnock um is an alpha um the first black senator in georgia so you know when you think about the theme of the program and first and finals you know you’ll often find that you know we find ourselves as black greeks um
You know really trailblazing in a way and a lot of that has to do with the fundamentals of the organizations that we’ve joined and how they’ve shaped and developed us um and and grown us uh in a way to get us to a point of being able to lead
Um in a trailblazing way um just to give you a little bit of of gettysburg black history because it we got to do it um but you know um dr dr jean arnold and myself are the the first two black people to ever serve on president’s council in the history of
The college so the college getting close to 200 years old um you know so it’s an honor to be able to serve with her um as two of the first and the interesting thing about history is that you don’t really think about it while you’re in it you just do it
Right um you just do it you do the work um so when we think about the brothers and sisters that have you know come up through or going on a pass or currently lead um they don’t really leave fixated on the fact that they’ll be the first
X or y they’ve been shaped and conditioned to just trail blaze through what they’ve done um through black black green letter organization so um i’ll stop there unless gene we want to talk about what attracted us yeah i’ll talk a little bit about our own undergraduate experience go ahead
So i’ll i’ll start mines was uh it was interesting you know i’m a first-gen kid philadelphia i didn’t really know a ton about black greek letter organizations growing up um in philly so when i got to college it was an eye-opening experience and i went to west chester university
Which is a in hwi and we had all but one of the black green leather organizations on campus so everybody on our campus was active um and not including omega sci-fi everybody else was active um and at that point it was really just eight because iota fight iodified theta wasn’t really recognized
At that point as part of the the group of black letter organizations so that i’m probably dating myself but that’s how long ago it was and as a as a young person who you know was first gen i i really struggled in college i was seeking mentorship i was seeking people
To to connect with and during that time there was a brother who i’m still close to um named kevin jackson he was literally the last alpha um on westchester’s campus and he was graduating my first year but i really connected with him for a few reasons and and the first reason was
Dude was like stellar academically like he had like a 3-8 and was working and doing all these things and he was also an economics and finance major so we connected in that way and i just always looked up to how tenacious he was and and how um academically sound he was
Like he was just a really solid brother he was an upstanding brother and i remember asking him about how he found alpha phi alpha and a lot of it was the same way so when we talk about scholarship that’s just not a motto or not something that we just say
Because it sounds great or it has a ring to it he actually was living those words he was living the mission of alpha phi alpha and i really endeared myself to him in that way i still look up to him uh and i’ve been in a fraternity now i’m
Coming up on my 25th anniversary no jokes monique um i’m coming up on my 25th anniversary and i still look up to him because he’s just such a phenomenal person and such a phenomenal leader and then i started learning more about the organization you know you learn about the
The jesse owens of the world and you learn about the third good marshalls of the world and how all of them like i discussed before trailblazed in that way uh and and i just for me and it’s no slight on any other organization but for me that’s what fit me um as an
Individual and there was also so one of the the the major um programs that we had especially during the 20th century was go to high school go to college so there was this focus on education and unbeknownst to me who was a economics major back then i really had
This love for education i had this zeal for education here i am years later working in higher education so it was really the connection to who kevin was as a person and how he represented alpha and how he really brought forward the mission of the organization and really lived the values of the
Organization and it was also the organization itself and what they stood for and and who came through and and the expectations you know um dr arnold talked earlier about this being a lifelong commitment it’s not just you know you go through four years and after that it’s that it’s over there’s
There’s not only a commitment but usually an expectation that you stay connected um and you do service for your community and you do support and create pipelines and create opportunities for people that come behind you um one of the things about black greek letter organizations they have graduate chapters so if you
Find yourself in a situation where you attend a school that doesn’t have an organization that you’re looking for you can pursue a graduate chapter um and still become a member so not everybody goes through the undergraduate vessel um but but i did and uh which gosh 25 years that’s starting to hit different
Now um but you know i did and it i’ll be honest with you it helped to shape me and it helped to keep me focused and i remember specifically going through the process of my dissertation and wanting to quit mad times uh and having my alpha brothers
My one um my one uh brother mark barnes who is um he is the geographer and he works at morgan state university after he got his doctorate he turned around and he was on my back he was on my back because he’s like this
Is what we do dee like this is what like we transcend like this is what we do and he pushed me to the end so um that’s a little bit about why i got involved and part of it is which you know looking at the work that we do in higher ed
Is to create opportunities create more access for folks that are coming behind me and that that’s part of what alpha taught me so for me at uh penn state um main campus uh there weren’t a lot of people of color there in the 70s in the 1970s when i was there
And so for me it was a combination of recognizing the women who were involved in service who were giving back to the local community and also it was the sisterhood part of it so we’re you know we are a service organization but we are also a sisterhood it’s not just a club we
Connect with one another we commit to each other to uplift each other uh and to you know be a network provide a network for each other no matter where we are in the country or in in this country or in the world so i have had the occasion
Over what 45 years of consistent uh membership uh since i came into the organization at penn state um to live in different parts of the country so in four different regions remember i mentioned we broke we break ourselves into regions and each time i have moved whether that was to florida
Or michigan or virginia beach all i had to do was back then pick up the phone because we didn’t even have email if anybody pick up the phone or write a letter you know to the head of the president of that chapter in that particular location
And they welcomed me in like they had known me my entire life you know and i didn’t know those women from anywhere but it was the sisterhood the national network so you know i found you know what dennis should i go to what pediatrician for my kids
How do i find a job all of those things people just wrap their arms around you and help you even though you know they have never met you before because you’re a part of the sisterhood um when i was living in michigan before i came to grand valley
Uh i mean after i left grand valley and came to gettysburg i um had had an experience or my daughter had you know she wanted to join the sorority and when you and you have a parent or another relative in the sorority you consider what they call legacy
And you know you’re supposed to be admitted you know provided you meet the other qualifications you know scholastically and all that but you know so i’ll tell a little bit of the negative part of our history so sometimes um at our hbcus um when uh students learn that someone has
Someone is a legacy they you know um they just don’t see that as a positive they think the person is trying to get into the organization without meeting the qualifications which is not permitted so anyway long story short my daughter at clark atlanta some years ago was you know i can’t think of
Another word for it so i’ll say black bald so she was you know as soon as they knew she was uh the daughter of someone in sorority they did not allow her to get online and so anyway when i was in michigan some years later and um you know they
Took me in like that you know women always do and i happened to mention to um them that my daughter had had this negative experience i was very upset about it i had talked to the leadership and the international president at the time i really was upset about it
And anyway they said well um that’s not a problem because the next initiation that we have you bring her here and at that time my daughter was a graduate student in california and uh they said no it’s not a problem bring her here and i brought her there for the process
And she is a member of the sorority has been since 1908 so um it’s a real sisterhood and um you know i have just valued it i think i got into it because like i said i met the women who were active on the campus but i didn’t go to
College with the intention of joining a sorority um i it was in fact it was towards the end of my junior year when i actually did it um and that’s because i had had this circle of friends and was working with them and doing things with them and they were the
Akas at penn state at that time so it was like the natural thing i guess then to do but it wasn’t a plan and in fact um my godmother who’s also my an aunt and you know my aunt and my godmother who is a delta
Um loves to tell the story about how she dressed me in red and white since you know from the time i was an infant and um so she was not that happy when i got to penn state and decided that i was going to join alton have alpha but
We are all sisters it is it is we are all sisters and at penn state particularly there was no negative rivalry i mean we supported each other’s events we supported each other’s projects and it just made the family larger to have all of these different parts of the group come together uh and
So uh it’s really been a blessing to me i think in my life and i i’ve prided myself on always being financial always being a member of a chapter now there were times when i was less active because i had cute little kids or whatever and i couldn’t didn’t have the
Time but i was always financial i didn’t want any break in service so to speak uh and so also when i was in michigan before coming to gettysburg um nobody wanted to step up and be the president of the chapter you know it’s a major job
Even if you have a small chapter you know it’s a lot of work in addition to your full-time job but after they had been so kind to me as to bring my daughter into the sorority through there i really couldn’t say no so then i ended up serving as the
President for four years um while i was in uh michigan but i was you know when it’s your time to step up you have to step up other women at the time had little children and couldn’t do it or what have you but when it’s your time if you can
Do it you have to do it um and so that’s how we all you know kind of take on our responsibilities so again it’s been a blessing and i am at the 45-year mark and when you get to the 50-year mark it’s called golden you know so i’m looking forward to five
More years i can uh deck myself out and all gold apparel and travel to my national conference um for my 50th anniversary so five more years to go so with that i know you know uh dr arnold and i we’ve we’ve uh given history and then our histories
Uh but we would definitely um open it up to the um to all of you um if you have questions of us uh just about you know our organizations again how we you know um connected or how we grew up in them or what it means to be first uh you know
I think that that piece can’t really be um you can’t really um undervalue that and you know you think about vice president harris uh and being being an aka but also being the first you know um you know black woman vice president right um you know you think about like
We see it and it’s like man that’s progress like this is great but then you also think of like wait we had senators and governors and you know house reps that were black right after slavery right so it’s like we’ve come far have we come far enough and you know
What does it mean to be first and what pressure comes with that right because you know i think so i don’t i don’t want to speak for gene i’m you know speak for myself i think when you find yourself in a situation where you’re the first there’s a little bit of pressure because
You want to make sure that you’re not the last um and that and that part is really important so um but again this is you know we definitely want to open it up to to open the floor up to you folks uh to ask us questions that you might have
Don’t be shy i know some folks on here about to start calling name yeah let’s not be nice to something nice to see some faces too if you don’t mind turning your cameras on it’d be nice to see some faces oh here’s one up here in the corner
There we go we got some folks turning some cameras some brave brave people turning their cameras on thank you love it love it love it that’s great oh look at that look at all the smiles see we would be missing all these smiles y’all all we had to do was ask
Okay that’s great hey fear is that to my i see wait look at you yeah don’t try to hide i see you too anybody curious about anything we didn’t mention any anything about being a member of the great letter organization or want to talk more about the the history of all of this
Or i have a question um do you mind talking a little bit about the active organizations here at gettysburg well already greek greek letter organizations um the nphc ones specifically okay well i don’t know if i’m the best one to recite it but um i can take it i can
Start unless you want to do it bearing yeah we i mean we we uh now so currently currently active we have zeta phi beta sorority incorporated on campus as far as npac organizations um there have been others that have been members here i know um there’s been a
Chapter of alpha phi alpha fraternity incorporated that’s been here um phi beta sigma um has been here i believe uh sg row sigma gamma rho has also been here before but as far as um chapters that are currently active with members on campus um it would be a zeta phi beta uh the
Good news is though that we have over the last few years talked to the corporate offices of delta sigma theta and alpha phi alpha and we are authorized to be a chapter we are a chapter if we can uh get some members in now we have jo and these are joint chapters
Which is oftentimes what small schools have to do to maintain a certain level of membership so if i’m not mistaken our delta sigma theta chapter is in partnership with dickinson and so we’ll be looking you know when we can all get back in person and these these processes are then
Authorized again we want we want to get some members into that group now by alpha i think there’s three different colleges are connected if i’m not mistaken yeah it’s mainly out of millersville it’s illegal okay so we really want to get these things going to me
Going to penn state which was you know traditionally white institution it really made the difference it really was a way for me to feel in community uh with other women there on the campus so it was it was part of my retention strategy i mean it was really what kept me
There and and kept me feeling like i had a family at back then we had a kind of a suite we had a suite at the end of a hallway we all had our rooms on the same hallway of that particular residence hall and then we would gather in the
Suite at the end of the hall which was a big meeting room with the kitchen i mean so there was a real community there and each of the groups had their own suite and hallway the guys they sometimes had houses um but most you know the women we stayed stayed on
Campus so it was it was really creating that sense of community and that’s what those nine women originally at howard were really talking about we want to raise the issues of women and girls we want to support each other and we want to cultivate friendship they actually had that written into their
Um their mission it was all about friendship and that persists today in addition to the service aspect yeah and i know for me we’re charged with oh go ahead go ahead i was gonna say thank you and thank you for sharing your experiences oh you’re welcome
Thanks for the question yeah no my my my experience was different from jeans we had to reactivate our chapter um after kevin um graduated it was dormant for like a year and a half and we started out with about 13 people who were interested and only four of us actually um pursued it
And and became members of the organization so you know it can get it can get tough because there are financial considerations that come into it their grades their service a lot of organizations you know to dr um arnold’s point earlier um especially with with npac organizations there’s an
Expectation that you do some service before you become a member uh so it’s not just like hey step up on the scene and you know i brought one can to an event and that service they actually want to see that you really want to do this
For the reason and the mission right you know you want to connect in that way um and it’s really the purpose of of building membership for people that are going to connect and you know have an impact on their community so um that that point we just you know we
Don’t want to miss that point either all these bright minds no questions i heard something like john i see a sean somebody named sean wesley hi how are you doing good how are you good um i actually want to ask is gettysburg in the process of adding more chapters
Or no um right now you would not believe or you might believe how how difficult how long has taken for us to get these two chapters authorized the ones that are authorized now and just don’t have any members these corporate entities are like big business and they have so many rules
That have to be followed um and part of the issue is for every chapter undergraduate chapter that gets established there has to be a graduate chapter that takes responsibility for them and when we when i say take responsibility it wasn’t this way back in the 70s when i you know was coming
Into it you had the the grad advisors had to come up periodically to penn state from harrisburg and see what we were up to today with alphacap alpha there must be an actual graduate member present at every activity every single activity and the and the chapter for alpha kappa
Alpha the closest chapters harrisburg well you know these are women who have lives and families and you know all of that and it’s hard to get them to commit so we we ended up with um delta sigma theta and alpha alpha because they had graduate chapters that would commit to doing it so
You know without that we can’t exist because that’s how our structures are so if we could find more who were willing to send their graduate members up to what you know to oversee things we would have more and and today oh sorry darien of gettysburg history um phi beta sigma
Um zeta 5 data and sigma gamma rho have active charters to be on campus is just a matter of getting interest in membership and starting the process all over again sigma gamma rho was the very first organization on campus in 2007 um to charter a line and have members here
And next week on the 18th we’re going to have a panel of black greek letter alumni talking about their experience pledging here at gettysburg in starting chapters and there are some that also participated and started their process and journey into greek life in the graduate chapter so um
As a follow-up to this event this is recorded and we’ll share it with everyone but then i’ll also be able to send you all the invites to that event so that you can all can meet some of the living black history like the founding chapter members of those organizations um here at gettysburg
Chartering thanks monique and that’s a good plug i would i would hopefully all y’all will attend that um chartering a chapter on a campus especially at hwi is not always easy um you know and so so doing that work not only getting the people but connecting with the school connecting the organization
It takes time and before my time here i worked at york college of pennsylvania and we actually chartered the first and only npac organization there uh sigma gamma rho sorority incorporated but it took us two years to do it um so it i mean it’s it’s not it’s not easy work
It also helps to have members of mphc organizations on campus so you know you have myself um you have dr arnold you have a dr ty revin who’s in faculty you have um tyra crosby who’s in admissions you have dr mckinley melton uh who’s also faculty so you know we we
We have members of mphc organizations and dr um you know so we have members of greek letter organizations on campus it helps not only the campus but also helps the organizations you know that gene’s talking about to feel like the efforts will be sustainable because one of the things they don’t
Want to do is to put their time and energy into chartering a chapter for it to not keep going four or five years later to have people graduated and now you have a chapter that’s inactive so that is a really important point is really the sustainability um of it right
Good question though really good question who else what else can we tell you well here’s someone yeah um you mentioned that part of the chapters um um creed and everything was um service um service so i was just wondering what forms of service did you guys do while
You were in part of the organizations in school wow i’ll really have to think back now i told you it was 45 years i’m not i’d have to really push myself to remember those specific projects but you know we certainly had fundraisers for different things um
You know for oh i know one thing we did do all the time was going all the different walks that they have for you know the different um health conditions you know whether it’s heart health or breast cancer or that kind of thing that was something that college students we
Could really do without too much you know difficult to be organized that we could collect you know collect the money so we did a lot of fundraising in that way um some of the things i’ve done and i think this was more in a graduate level but it could be done undergraduate we
Connected with the local nursing home in the area and we like developed a buddy system so that we could go and visit you know we got assigned to someone and i had the same person for like eight or nine years you know that you would really build a relationship with the person
And a lot of you know folks um in that situation don’t have any family anymore and so you really become their connection to the outside world so we try to balance what we do between the fundraising things and then the hands-on impacting um students you know uh
Students or our elders live so we tutored in schools you know we would um be big brothers big sisters you know make a version of that um and later because i had done that an undergrad as an adult i’ve done that as well been a big sister so it kind of
You know stuck with me and i’ve done it a couple different times in my life but those are some of the things i can think of um activities i don’t know about you daring yeah in college um jacob it was american cancer society for sure
Um also uh we did a lot of work with big brothers big sisters and then westchester university had a community summer center that it wasn’t like in real walking distance um you know i would there’s somebody from west westchester area i would call out but i’m not going to do that but it’s
It’s uh right off the high street it’s within walking distance of the campus and we would do community service at the um community center in westchester that has put for me to be honest jacob it’s grown more um post college than when i was in college so
Now you know like i sit on the board for philadelphia futures which i absolutely love um you know as a volunteer i do a lot of work with the ywca i do a lot of work with the american cancer society um gosh big brothers big sisters
Uh so and there’s actually a few eyes lancaster uh york so it’s it’s it’s one of those things where you know services it um it grew for me um as i got out and part of that really you know it as a as someone who benefited from someone pouring into them
And volunteering their time and helping them grow um it’s my turn to give back right in that way and and beyond just like hey i’mma write a 50 check to help but really you know giving the gift of time and service to people
So yeah and i i i love it you know i uh you know i love raising money for acs we do a um we do a um breast cancer awareness uh program every year and and big brothers big sisters actually of the capital region um alpha phi alpha um the local chapter
That does a lot of uh partnership work with big brothers big sisters of the capital region so you just kind of keep it up and and it it becomes less of like i’m doing this because i’m part of an organization and it really is just part of the part
Of your fabric of your being uh and your ethos as far as who you are yeah i think as undergrads we did as much as we could you know with the resources we had but what got instilled in us was the value of doing it and that as soon as we were able
And had the resources to do more we would do more and so it just kind of planted the seed there and then you know the minute i graduated from penn state which was like i went a couple of summers so i graduated in a november you know in off
Time even though we had trimesters at that time so i was in i graduated in november and in december i was expected to be in a graduate chapter and i was in a graduate chapter in philadelphia i had joined i had you have to fill out your transfer papers and
Go to corporate office i mean they expected me to be there you know and i’ve been in the same chapter in philadelphia most of my 45 years but when i’ve had to move to other areas of course i joined the chapter right away in those areas but the minute i come back to
Philadelphia area they expect to see me there you know somebody knows me still you know and knows that i need to be in there and so that’s how i’ve never had a break in service now since i first joined the philadelphia chapter there’s now two philadelphia chapters and several suburban chapters but the
Expect the unwritten expectation for me is i better come back to that same chapter you know that i came to in 1977 and that’s the one i’ve always come back to yeah i think going along with the service piece too jacob um was really the importance of education
Um they just i mean it gets like you you better learn you better appreciate education uh and part of that has to do with you know especially when you talk about the origins of the organizations uh and segregation you know we our access was limited
So when i talk about the fact that six of the nine organizations um started at hbcus you know that’s because that really was the only place a lot of us could get access to education higher education um i don’t i don’t know if i would have pursued a terminal degree
Um or even thought i’d be doctor anything without that kind of influence and really push and i had my parents were phenomenal i had great parents um you know who pushed that too but but it was the culmination right and it was it’s cool to get
Together you know on on the zoom call and you know this person’s doing this and they’re doing that and you know helping the community or or they pursue just that like i i really appreciate just how folks have grown up through the organization and the service that they do and the education that
They’ve pursued yeah good question thank you thank you anybody else i see these smiles just like him like i’m just here what is one quality that you could say about yourself that these organizations have enhanced like about you a quality that you think that you didn’t have before but you gain after
I for me i think it was really leadership i mean i you know not that i didn’t see myself as a leader but you know at 19 years old or you know 20 years old i wasn’t thinking in those terms am i a leader am i not a leader
Um but because at penn state there was the chapters were small there were you know there wasn’t that big a community of color um so everybody almost had to take a turn at you know holding an office and doing a job and so um just a few months after i
Joined the sorority i was the president of the group you know and i didn’t know anything about being a president of a group and so i was feeling my way and and my you know sisters were helping me um but i learned some real leadership lessons that i i might not have learned
As early and one that i will never forget is that i you know um i’m a first born child so i’m like pretty orderly and i like to be organized and get things done uh anyway so apparently i mean i have this vivid memory uh and early in my office as um president
When some of the sisters were just not stepping up to do their part and i was getting frustrated and i really didn’t know you know what to do about that i didn’t really have the experience of well should i sit down and talk with them or what should i do and so
Kind of out of frustration i something i would just go on sometime and do the job myself you know even though even though it was their job and i didn’t realize that you know that’s not what a leader does you know leader brings people along and builds consensus and
And um gets people to you know surround themselves with good people to do their work but anyway i just kept on with my little pattern of just taking over you know other people’s jobs when they wouldn’t do it and finally the sister got angry with me
And you know brought me into the suite for a talk you know i didn’t know what this was going to be about and they sat me down they said look you know we really appreciate you you know taking on this role but you can’t just do the job when somebody
Won’t do it you really have to um talk to them you have to figure out what it is that’s not motivating them um and get them motivated to do it and it was like a light bulb went off i really i was like apologizing and i’m like i just didn’t even realize
Because i never led anything before you know that that wasn’t how you did it but that has stuck with me so some of my best lessons um started right there in that in that sorority suite um in the residence hall and i that was the beginning of my you
Know learning how to um be a leader so that that has stuck with me and it’s grown from there yeah um i think for me matthew it’s the importance of giving back uh one of the things i realized was i am the the beneficiary of so many other people’s sacrifices
Um so who am i now to turn around being that recipient and not give anything back not doing anything for anybody else not create inroads for other people like i just you know like you know and it’s it’s for me it was um it was a concept that just it was like
It was like enlightenment right it was a bulb went off and i was like this is purpose like this is what i should be doing and i feel like it took me a longer road to get there like i really feel like personally and professionally i’m living with a greater purpose
But it took a while to get there and the fraternity helped to shape that it helped me to really realize that you know hey you’re you know i became a member in 1996 and it’s like hey you’re a member but you know and you’ll hear this adage
Tons of times you know it’s like who whose shoulders are you standing on so while i had difficulties at westchester university and i had people call me things that were other than my name walking across campus and there were people that like i couldn’t stop giving back i couldn’t stop
Fighting i couldn’t stop creating more opportunities for people because there were people who went through it worse than i did and they still pushed on to create opportunities right so they sacrificed and they hustled and they did all these things to make sure that i had a chance so
I had to turn around now and everything i need to do needs to be focused on giving other people a chance and making sure that they have access and that their futures are bright so that that’s what it was for me it really just it i learned through the organization this
This concept of constantly giving back and and and if i get then i need to give and and that’s how i look it’s not just for me to say all right yo i got mine closing the door behind me good luck everybody else like who does that
Right who and people do that like let’s be realistic like trust me i’m sure we could flip every channel and see people who are who are more takers than givers right but it but it really helped me understand the purpose of being a giver um understand the sacrifices that people
Made to get to this point um and get me to this point you know we talk about it it bugs me out even when we were prepping for this this conversation and to think like our organizations you know my organization gene or gene’s organization they were 10 years removed from plessy
Versus ferguson like segregation was like they that was it and they lived in that environment and they struggled and that they lived it was lynching and there were so many things that they went through and i’m like who am i to not give back who am i to not appreciate the sacrifices so
That’s what what it did for me um the interesting thing about it you know and kudos to to you know monique at all for putting this together when they did was that we’re in it so much we don’t really look at it as black history right it’s like you learn
Your history and you learn the members and you learn the the first meeting place and you learn who the the mother of the fraternity you know you learn all these things but it’s not always done in the context of the day and understanding that during that time they were like they’re
This is black history right it’s black history and you have a chance to live it and be a part of it so that long answer to your short question um but that is very much what i learned good question though all questions have been read they have them so you would also say
That it enhanced your identity as well uh it made you more connected uh to your to your roots per se oh absolutely i mean you know alpha phi alpha when you look at and i i just go really into the weeds but you look at the sphinx then you look at the
The pyramids you look at all the things that are symbolic of of alpha phi alpha they were very much tied to um you know africa and african culture and african heritage so you know again it helped me to to realize that i’m part of that heritage and and also you know
Going down a path that that is a longer path you know sometimes what you’re taught in school isn’t always what you you should get taught uh as far as your your history and as far as um who you are so to see such greatness um you know african-american greatness black greatness through
Alpha alpha fraternity incorporated you you know yeah i heard about dr martin luther king and thurgood marshall and jesse owens but then it stopped there right i didn’t you know learn more about it so when you look at the deep history um very much and it helped to enhance
And inform you know my identity uh and and continues to do so i think i saw another hand i think um so how would you say that your membership in these organizations have kind of shaped your like life goals career goals ambitions well i you know it’s probably hits on a
Little bit of what darien said but it’s you know it’s given me um you know a pride and um a res a sense of responsibility you know that goes beyond myself now of course i got that also from my parents and my family you know as well
But this was an organized form of you know women friends um to join with to do that i don’t have any sisters and so for me this was this you know this giant group of sisters that i have all over the country i just you know
Like i said pick up the phone or send an email or whatever and you’ll have somebody there assisting you but you know it really instilled even more the responsibility as a you know as a woman as a black woman um you know it’s partly to give back it’s partly to be a leader
Um but it’s also this collective which is uh you know uh more of an african you know cultural you know way of thinking of about the collective you know so you’re really we’re not okay unless everybody’s okay kind of thing and we can’t you know we another organization of
Women i’m a part of it said you know we lift as we climb so we are always trying to pull people in pull people up and and i you know it’s really instilled in me an absolute responsibility so how does that play out in my day-to-day now
It doesn’t even have to be a member of my sorority asking me for something but i constantly get emails from graduate students who are doing a dissertation on something to do with diversity and they have to interview someone or they need to talk or they need a
Consultation and i you know sometimes i say to myself wow i am just so busy i can’t you know i can hardly fit in what i have to get in but it’s very rare for me to say no to a request like that because you know somebody helped me somebody was there
Helping me that and and so i feel a responsibility particularly if it’s a woman of color doesn’t have to be a black woman and but any student you know who’s working it makes me know i have to stop because somebody stopped to advise me and to help me you know get
On in my career so um that responsibility to make the time you know and decenter myself sometimes even when i’m busy because it could really just make that difference in that particular individual’s process or life or career um and that’s worth stopping for yeah for me it it’s this concept of push pull
And and and you know so it’s a it’s a blessing to be able to work in an environment where we get to work with students um i don’t know how often y’all hear that from us but i i hope you hear it often um it’s a blessing because you have the chance to
Leave an indelible mark on someone’s life and to that end the concept of push pull is making sure that you push the person ahead of you and you pull the person up behind you right so i see my myself professionally and personally um very much in that context if there’s
Someone in front of me that needs me to push them a little bit and some of you already know because i pushed some of you on this call um you know if somebody needs me to push them i’m gonna push them and if somebody needs me to pull them i’m gonna pull them
And that’s how i look at life um and trust me i’m not perfect at it i’m sure there are people out there that are 10 times better than me but when i look at what my purpose is um you know in this world on this blue marble called earth
It’s very much in that context it’s push-pull and and it’s to push the person ahead of me and pull the person up behind me thank you i think we probably have time for one more somebody want to bring it home so i want to be the anchor the anchor question
I’ve never run anchor before in my life for obvious reasons i just don’t run well um go ahead sean i saw your hand up yeah i guess for each of you what was some of your favorite favorite moments and uh for attorney and sorority hmm favorite moment well for me i would
Have to say you know this is older as a graduate member is of course seeing my daughter come into the organization that’s probably a highlight for me so that’s something we can share so in addition to being mother and daughter we’re also sisters you know in the organization um and uh that’s been
That has been a high point but i think um you know some of the other good points have been really i know when i was in the philadelphia chapter the graduate chapter when i first shortly after i first graduated we had a huge scholarship program and um also
A program where we could connect with non-profit organizations in the community and award them funds and this is when i was working at the university of pennsylvania so i lot i knew a lot of non-profits but i was serving on the board of a particular um a small organization that provided respite care
Um for families where aids was an issue so the chil you know they just need a break from their kids or whatever to get treatment that kind of thing i was on the board and because i was on that board and i was also in the sorority
I was able to nominate them you know for funding um that really helped their program along so that was another good feeling you could you know you knew where the needs were you were out in the community um seeing seeing what was going on and serving and i connected my
That was a board i was on because of the university of pennsylvania but because i had a sorority connection i was able to put it together and help that agency out with some funding so that was another high point for me yeah you know i guess mines are probably more more
Alpha connected than alpha specific i guess in the way i mean of course when i when i became a member it was like wait what you know type of thing um but you know one is the the first scholarship fund i ever set up for students
Because i felt like my my alpha learning um really shaped me in a way that to provide that opportunity and it was it was a book scholarship uh for students um that i set up and gosh it was that’s been probably a decade now uh but it was like
This is what i’m supposed to be doing right and then the other part sean was was when i when i got my doctorate and and i got hooded um you know and you you know i thought about just it it’s crazy because it’s in an informal way it wasn’t like
Through alpha but it was through alpha because i had so many of my frat brothers who were who really were pushing me and one of the things that anybody that decides to pursue a terminal degree or or you know folks who have who have their master’s degrees it can get lonely
Um it can get really lonely because you you know when you when you’re studying so much you can’t hang out number one uh and number two not everybody is pursuing the same thing so you know like in my neighborhood in philly they’re it’s not littered with with people who have their doctorates so
It was hard really to communicate what i was going through but for a lot of the brothers that i know that already went through it um they were able to connect with me and they were able to lift me up for me to finish uh i almost quit three
Times yo i’m just going to keep it 100 with you uh you know it was a struggle uh so that those were some of my proudest moments you know through alpha um the last one is i have a very close friend and colleague who um had wanted to be an alpha for years
And i don’t know how many folks um uh knew or um desmond moody he used to work at gettysburg yeah you know that’s mine i just talked to him this week yeah yeah yeah the um desmond was someone who was a student of mines back in 2009 when i was at york college
Of pennsylvania so to see him as a student then to work with him as a colleague when i was at not only york but at gettysburg and then to see him pursue alpha you know through a grad chapter and become an alpha um like to have someone that you’re close to
And walk that walk with them was just it was awesome because i realized it was like that’s like that’s why you do it um that’s what you do and you and you lift folks up so um that was another moment i would say i was i was very proud
Yeah that’s a good question so all right we might be right on time i think we’re right on time yeah monique you have anything that you want to uh push a plug for the group i added the event registration for next week in the chat so you all can check it out
And that’s that’s it for me
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