Multicultural Greek Council boasts citywide membership

Some students join Greek organizations to meet more people on campus. Others, in the Multicultural Greek Council, join to meet students from other universities.

Six of twelve organizations in the MGC have members from schools in the surrounding area, as well as Penn.

Chapters opened to citywide involvement to increase membership “a number of years” ago, Larry Moses, Office of Student Affairs/Fraternity Sorority Life program coordinator and faculty advisor to the MGC, said.

“It’s a way of sustaining the chapter­ — at times it’s difficult to maintain good numbers for a chapter on one campus,” he said.

Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., Gamma Epsilon Philadelphia City Charter — an African-American interest sorority — encompasses five different schools including Drexel, Lasalle and St. Joseph’s.

“Being a citywide chapter is very different because you have to cater to all of the campuses in your charter,” College senior and AKA president Brittney Pressley said.

She explained that one of the goals her sorority achieved this year was to have events at each campus.

With multiple institutions, “you can effectively utilize all of their resources and have a greater impact in Philadelphia as a whole rather than staying within your own community,” said Malcolm Evans, Wharton senior and President of the Psi chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Inc. — an African-American interest fraternity.

“When you add in different schools you add in people with different backgrounds,” Pressley said. “When you have a diverse group of people we have diverse ideas.”

The ability to access resources at different campuses allows Alpha Phi Alpha to have “a wider reach and effectively impact more people than we would be if we were just centralized at Penn or another school,” Evans said.

Wharton junior and MGC president Valentino Kim even compares a successful city-wide chapter to the workings of a successful long-distance relationship.

“Sometimes you feel like you’re neglecting” some campuses in the charter, Pressley said, adding that the organization does its best to prevent this.

Unlike chapters in the Interfraternity and Panhellenic Councils, there is no formal recruitment period for Alpha Phi Alpha.

Instead, Alpha Phi Alpha hosts events throughout the year to spread information about the organization on different campuses. The fraternity takes new members at the end of the academic semesters, Evans said.

Alpha Phi Alpha currently has nine members — three at Villanova University and six at Penn. Evans said one of the benefits of a small organization is that members are “very, very close and communication is very easy.”

AKA currently boasts 21 members, which is a “really great number,” Pressley said.

The fraternity stays true to its African-American roots and wants to use this as a platform to “impact change cross-culturally across campus,” Evans said.

To reach this goal, Alpha Phi Alpha is looking to collaborate with different organizations on Penn’s campus. They recently co-hosted a barbecue with St. Anthony Hall.

“We preach diversity and we expect our members to expose themselves to the entire university,” Moses said.

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