The Multicultural Greek Council — an umbrella organization for Penn’s 14 traditionally black, Latino and Asian fraternities and sororities — may undergo expansion soon. While decisions have not been made yet, outgoing MGC President and College senior Agnes Nam said interest in the MGC among freshmen is noticeably higher than in previous years.
Last year, there was heightened interest in Greek life “as a whole,” Nam said.
A lot more freshman have been contacting us and coming out to our events,” she added.
Freshmen, Nam continued, are curious about Greek life and how it can serve to build stronger relationships with other students that will last beyond their four-year college experience.
According to Nam, MGC hosted its first New Student Orientation event in September, which attracted nearly 200 freshmen.
In the past, Nam said, the most visible aspect of Greek life for incoming freshmen at the beginning of the year has been parties hosted by Interfraternity Council groups.
The purpose of the NSO event was to make information about the MGC chapters more “accessible” to freshmen and underclassmen “from day one,” Nam said.
She said the decision on whether to expand will be made in either the spring or the fall semester of next year.
If MGC chooses to expand, Nam wrote later in an e-mail, the groups will work with the Office of Student Affairs/Fraternity Sorority Life, “then go through the formal approval process with the MGC Executive Board.”
According to MGC adviser Larry Moses , MGC seeks primarily to add groups that are able to sustain chapters in the long term.
The MGC’s standards for expansion “are very high,” Moses said. “Our chapters are known nationally.”
According to Moses, the MGC has already expanded greatly in recent years. This is mostly due to the incorporation of Asian-interest groups, such as Sigma Beta Rho, a South Asian-interest fraternity currently in the colonization process at Penn.
According to Nam, the inclusion of Asian-interest groups is one of the things that makes MGC unique.
The State University of New York campuses, she wrote, as well as the University of California, will often have separate Asian Greek Councils.
Some schools, she added, such as the University of Florida, have separate National Pan-Hellenic Councils, umbrella organizations for historically black fraternities and sororities.
“It’s been challenging to find a balance between so many different cultures,” Nam said. “Each organization has a different focus and aspires to serve their cultural communities.”
“A group like MGC,” she wrote, which “incorporates African-American, Latino/a and Asian-interest groups, encourages Greeks to learn how to work together to find commonalities between their goals.”
Moses agreed, saying that as an integral part of the Greek community, the MGC, while recognizing the differences of the many groups in its tutelage, works very hard toward “unity.”
