When guys start asking about fraternities, the conversation almost always goes straight to the IFC chapters - the ones on Fraternity Row, the ones with the houses, the ones everyone recognizes by reputation. But there's a whole other category of fraternities that exists on most campuses, and the fact that nobody explains the actual difference before you rush is a real problem. Not a brochure problem. A "you might join the wrong thing entirely" problem. ... Read more

When guys start looking into Greek life, they usually stumble into the same confusion. There's the fraternities on the main row, the ones with the big houses and the formal recruitment, and then there's everything else. The "everything else" is where it gets interesting - and where most people have no idea what they're actually looking at. ... Read more

Spring philanthropic events are starting to kick off this month with the weather finally breaking (or not, if you’re at Minnesota State or the University of Wisconsin and your winters never end). And now that Dance Marathon is over -- and the weeks of planning that lead up to it -- Greeks are starting to host their own fundraisers. Here are the Greek philanthropic events making news this month. ... Read more

Hundreds of men have moved on from collegiate Greek life into the glitzy and powerful ranks of society. It’s no surprise that many of the actors, billionaire CEOs, politicians and Grammy-winning musicians you know as famed celebrities are also Greek alumni. ... Read more

You have made one of the biggest decisions of your life to go to college. Congratulations! However, that’s not the only decision that you’ll have to make when it comes to college life. Another important decision that you’ll probably make is the decision to go Greek in college. Greek life has lots of benefits to offer to its members – opportunities to build a network, social/community activities to participate in, a strong brotherhood bond to maintain, and many more!  However, one of the biggest challenges college guys face at the beginning of their Greek life is choosing the right fraternity for themselves.... Read more

Most chapter events don't fall apart because of bad ideas. They fall apart because nobody figured out who was actually in charge. I learned this the hard way during my first semester as an active, when what should have been a straightforward mixer with a sorority turned into two weeks of group chat chaos, three people who thought they were in charge, and a venue that got double-booked. The event still happened. It was fine. But fine isn't what anyone was going for. ... Read more

Every few years, a wave of high-profile assault cases hits the news cycle and suddenly everyone's got an opinion about whether fraternities should exist at all. The ABC News story making rounds right now is the latest version of that conversation - calls to shut down frat houses entirely as public anger over rape cases grows louder. I've heard this argument before. I've sat in Panhellenic council meetings where the exact same pressure was bleeding over into how we handled our own policies, our own relationships with IFC chapters, our own event approval processes. And I'll say what I said then: closing houses doesn't close the problem. ... Read more

There's a specific kind of chaos that hits Greek row the week before homecoming. Float builds happening at midnight. Someone's little sister from three towns over showing up unannounced. A chapter president stress-eating dining hall waffles at 2am because the banner isn't drying fast enough. I lived that chaos for four years, and I'm not even a little bit sorry about it. Homecoming week is the thing I describe to people who ask me if Greek life was worth it - and it shuts them up every time. ... Read more

Every few years, something happens at Cornell and the whole country acts like Greek life just invented itself. The New York Times is back on the beat, the op-eds are flying, and university administrators everywhere are dusting off their "embrace or ban" talking points like it's a policy debate and not a conversation about actual students. I've seen this cycle. I lived through a version of it. And honestly, the framing is what frustrates me most. ... Read more

Every Panhellenic president I've ever met has had the same reaction to Greek rank sites: eye roll, dismissal, maybe a comment about how "those sites don't reflect our values." I used to say the same thing. Then I spent two years on council watching chapters with glowing reputations internally get absolutely torched in public forums - and I started paying closer attention to what was actually being said. ... Read more

The Inter-Sorority Council at the University of Virginia just proposed adding a new sorority to its membership, with the expansion targeting the 2027-28 recruitment cycle. That's two years out, which means this is serious planning - not a casual conversation. And if you follow Panhellenic dynamics at all, you know that adding a chapter to an established council is one of the most consequential things a Greek community can do. ... Read more

Indiana University is now investigating three more fraternities for hazing. Three more. That's not a blip - that's a pattern, and the school is gonna have a hard time framing this as isolated incidents when they keep stacking up like this. ... Read more

Cornell University says it's going to take a "serious look" at its fraternities following rape allegations that have put the school under a national microscope. And look, I've heard that phrase from university administrators more times than I can count. "Serious look." It's the institutional version of "we'll talk about this later" - which, as anyone who grew up in a household with parents who said that knows, usually means nothing happens until something way worse occurs. ... Read more

The Wall Street Journal ran a piece this week that a lot of people in Greek life governance have been quietly dreading. A rape case at Cornell. A university that had recently softened its stance toward fraternities. And a story that asks, out loud, whether colleges made a mistake by pulling back from the harder line on Greek organizations. If you've sat on a Panhellenic council or watched an IFC try to self-govern, you already know where this is headed. ... Read more

Nobody told me that the GPA you earn in your first semester follows you around like a shadow for the next four years. I mean, people say stuff like "work hard" and "don't fall behind" during orientation week, but that's not the same thing as actually understanding what a 2.6 in your first semester costs you two years later. I found out the hard way, and then I found out again when I joined a chapter as a sophomore and watched the same thing play out for a bunch of new members who had no idea what they were walking into. ... Read more