Loyola Goes Green and Greek

Sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha’s website maintains that for students without an on campus chapter of the sorority hopeful candidates must “Contact the Regional Director for information regarding an Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority chapter on your campus”. For women who attend Loyola and it’s neighboring school Notre Dame of Maryland University, they are included under the umbrella of the Xi-Tau Chapter. This chapter was founded in 1984 by Johns Hopkins University students and it encompasses all three universities. Other local schools like Coppin State University and Morgan State University that have Greek Life organizations are private chapters and only allow students who attend their actual schools to pledge. This means for students at a non Greek school like Loyola, if they want to pledge they must find a city chapter like Xi-Tau to participate in.

As of last Friday, Loyola junior Brittany Owens has been inducted as one of the most recent members of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, made public with a coming out ceremony known as a probate, taking place on Hopkins campus. Owens describes how challenging the process can be due to lack of information available to Loyola students, “It’s a lot of reaching out that needs to be done if you want to be involved but it has to be done in the correct way. Students here can be pretty ignorant to Greek etiquette because it doesn’t have a presence on this campus. And even though it’s not intentional, for organizations that uphold a certain standard of secrecy, this will be held against you as a perspective candidate”.