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Frequently Asked Questions
1. When was your sorority founded and what do you stand for?
Theta Nu Xi Multicultural Sorority, Inc.was founded in 1997on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill by seven undergraduate women. Its mission is to promote leadership, multiculturalism, and self-improvement through academic excellence, involvement in and service to the campus and community, as well as being living examples of sisterhood across different races, cultures, religions, backgrounds, and lifestyles. Our five tenets are Scholarship, Leadership, Service, Multiculturalism, and Sisterhood. Every member pledges to uphold these tenets and all our activities revolve around these ideals. Since being founded in 1997, our phenomenal growth rate has been doubling our membership every year. In August of 1999, we founded our National Organization, ratified our National Constitution, and elected our first National Officers.
2. Why do you call yourselves Multicultural?
The seven original founders saw a need for a sorority that crossed the societal boundaries of race, religion, culture, and class. Although part of their vision included creating a sisterhood that physically exemplified the transcendence of those boundaries, their primary goal was to bring women together who believe in the ideal of multiculturalism and want to promote multiculturalism in their everyday lives. While other Greek organizations are and continue to grow more diverse, our organization explicitly seeks members with multicultural ideals and interests; we seek to use our sorority as a vehicle to educate the surrounding campus and community on issues of diversity. We recognize that diversity is not limited to race, and we are proud to say we have achieved a sisterhood which is quite diverse with respect to not only race, but religious heritage, geographic origin, sexual orientation, socio-economic class, nationality, political ideology, and even choice of major and career. Ultimately, however, we call ourselves multicultural because the one belief we share is that there is inherent value in discovering, understanding, and appreciating all the ways in which people are different from each other. It is for this reason that we differentiate ourselves, in name and in purpose, from other Greek organizations with the word "Multicultural."
3. What is your Intake process like?
Similar to other Greek organizations, we keep our intake and initiation rituals private. However, the Sorority has a standard intake procedure which includes informal intake events, general interest meetings, formal interest meetings, a rigorous application, an in-depth personal interview, and a period of intake during which the aspirants learn the key information about the organization and participate in activities designed to cultivate the lasting bonds of sisterhood. The process is designed to be flexible yet provide the women with the knowledge, skills, and support they will need to both contribute to the Sorority and cultivate themselves as leaders.
4. How diverse is your membership?
At its inception, Theta Nu Xi did not specifically strive to bring together a multicultural group of women - our goal was to bring together women who were "multiculturally-minded" - who shared the common goal of appreciating and learning from each others' differences. Our founders were united in 1997 not by their obvious racial differences, but by their internal desire to bring about a greater appreciation of diversity in their campus and community. Our sisters are diverse with respect to race, culture, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socio-economic background, nationality/language-spoken, political views, geographic origin (both domestic and international), and even in the category of our academic majors. We found that while we still have a ways to go, we are significantly more diverse than the overall American population, and especially the American college population.
5. What are your standards?
Our National Organization requirements include, but are not limited to: (a) maintain a semesterly and cumulative GPA of at least 2.5; (b) perform at least 24 hours of voluntary service per semester; (c) adhere to the Sorority's and host university's policies on hazing and the use of controlled substances; (d) pay semesterly dues; and (e) have a faculty or staff advisor. Standards are described in more detail in our National Constitution.
6.Why is your chapter size so small?
Although our membership is growing steadily, we do not expect any college chapter to ever have more than 30 active members at a time, with the approximate average size currently being 10 members. Our reason for maintaining a small membership is to preserve and enhance the experience of sisterhood we offer to each of our members. It is our belief that if the chapter grows too large, we will lose the overall closeness that each sister feels with every other sister, and the close personal friendships we currently have are integral to maintaining the quality and success of a diverse sisterhood.
7. If Multiculturalism is your goal, why have you chosen to be a Greek organization?
There are two reasons we have chosen to be a multicultural sorority instead of a multicultural student organization. The first is that we have a yearning to be in a sisterly relationship with people who significantly differ from us. The reason Greek organizations have selective membership is because through their rituals and values they share something special with their brothers and sisters. We desire not only to experience this special relationship first-hand through sharing a sisterhood with diverse women, but also to show others that the ideal of sisterhood is truly ideal in this sense - that it can transcend the barriers that have historically kept women (and men) apart. The second reason is more practical and relates to the impact we desire to have on college campuses. Although much progress towards racial integration and cross-cultural interaction has been made on college campuses, for the most part the social aspect of college life has remain segregated, largely by choice. We believe that Greeks play a central role in collegiate social life, and we think that one antidote to voluntary segregation is voluntary integration. We do not want to be misinterpreted as passing judgment on other groups, for we recognize that the natural gravitation towards those of one's kind has a value for some people. However, we would like to use our Greek organization as a vehicle to encourage cross-cultural interaction on a social and voluntary level, and we believe that by doing so we will be contributing to the overall quality of campus life. We are very proud of the difference we have made so far on college campuses regarding cross-cultural social and educational interaction, and being a Greek organization has been crucial to our success.
8. How does your National Organization operate?
Every chapter and colony on the undergraduate level reports to the National Organization twice a year, with Graduate, Alumnae & Professional (GAP) Chapters reporting annually. The National Organization has an annual convention, to which each chapter sends two delegates and at which the National Board of Officers is elected. Click Here for the members of our National Executive Board and National Board of Directors, which together comprise our National Board of Officers.
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