Seton Hall University- College Panhellenic Council

The National Panhellenic Conference evolved gradually through a cooperative spirit among women’s fraternities (sororities). As early as 1891, Kappa Kappa Gamma invited all Greek-letter women’s collegiate fraternities (sororities) — there were seven at the time — to a meeting in Boston on April 16 and 17. The groups discussed interfraternity courtesy, fraternity (sorority) jewelry and stationery and fraternity/sorority journalism. A second meeting was planned for 1893 at the Chicago World’s Fair, and although some representatives were there, no records exist of the session. Early histories of women’s fraternities (sororities) contain accounts of “rushing and pledging agreements” or “compacts” among fraternities (sororities) on various campuses and many stories of cooperation and mutual assistance. However, no actual Panhellenic organization existed and no uniform practices were observed. By 1902, it was obvious that some standards were needed; therefore, Alpha Phi invited Pi Beta Phi, Kappa Alpha Theta, Kappa Kappa Gamma, Delta Gamma, Gamma Phi Beta, Delta Delta Delta, Alpha Chi Omega and Chi Omega to a conference in Chicago on May 24. Although Alpha Chi Omega and Chi Omega were not able to send delegates to this meeting, the session resulted in the organization of the first interfraternity association and the first intergroup organization on college campuses. (The North-American Interfraternity Conference for men’s fraternities was organized in 1909.) This meeting and the next few resulted in several mutual agreements, especially regarding pledging. Up to this time no guidelines had been set. Women could be pledged to organizations before enrolling in college and even belong to more than one organization. First called the Interfraternity Conference, the organization has been variously named and renamed the Inter-Sorority Conference (until 1908), the National Panhellenic Conference (until 1911), the National Panhellenic Congress (until 1917), the National Panhellenic Conference (until 1921), the National Panhellenic Congress (until 1945) and finally the National Panhellenic Conference. The name change is significant to the NPC philosophy because the organization is a conference, not a congress. Other than the basic Unanimous Agreements that all organizations have voted to observe, NPC confines itself to policies and best practices and acts as a court of final appeal in any College Panhellenic difficulty. One of its greatest services is providing area advisors for College Panhellenics and area coordinators for Alumnae Panhellenics. NPC met annually until 1914, when it voted to hold biennial sessions beginning in 1915. While some interim sessions had been held prior to 1971, provision in the constitution was made at that time for the necessary sessions. NPC voted in 1993 to have an interim session in even-numbered years. In 2008, NPC voted to change the terminology of biennial and interim sessions to annual meetings. The chairmanship is held in rotation according to each member organization’s entrance into NPC.

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