The Daily Northwestern
Although Greek Scene, National Pan-Hellenic Council’s annual step show, is months away, at least one sorority is practicing to ensure they can step up to the competition.
Meet Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc., a group of five women dedicated to service, scholarship and making their mark on Northwestern just six weeks after they were chartered.
“We have set a standard,” said Sara Sutton, Communication ’05 and one of the founders of the Nu Sigma chapter of the sorority at NU. “What you see from us is what (is) associated with Zeta Phi Beta.”
Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc. is a part of the “Divine Nine,” a group of historically black fraternities and sororities throughout the United States. The sorority is the fourth black sorority to be instituted on NU’s campus. The other sororities are Alpha Kappa Alpha, Delta Sigma Theta and Sigma Gamma Rho.
While at NU, Sutton’s search for a suitable sorority proved fruitless. She had almost abandoned efforts but friends in the Zeta Phi Beta sorority’s brother fraternity, Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Inc., urged her to look into starting a chapter at NU. As a senior in college, Sutton became one of the chapter’s six founding members. The founders joined in May and received their charter in August.
Dedication to service is the sorority’s identifying mark, Sutton said. Members work with Family Focus Our Place Evanston, a local not-for-profit that helps children, teens, parents and families, and four state and national organizations.
The chapter was honored for its service at the Zeta Phi Beta state conference in September. They received one award for raising the most money of any chapter – about $400- for The Stork’s Nest Program, a philanthropy encouraging proper pre-natal care for underprivileged families. The other award was for their $200 pledge to Katrina victims.
“Once you join us, it’s not even about you anymore,” President Keyonda Evans said. “It’s about what you do for other people,”
Developing good relationships with NU’s other Greek groups is an additional goal for the group, said Evans, a SESP junior.
On Oct. 21, the group will host an all-campus party at Tommy Nevin’s Pub and Restaurant, 1450 Sherman Ave., to raise money for March of Dimes. The charity organization promotes proper infant care.
Zeta Phi Beta also hopes to sponsor a party with an Interfraternity Council fraternity, something that rarely happens, Evans said.
Achieving such goals is difficult because the Greek community is fractured, said Treasurer Jessica Carrasquillo, a SESP junior.
“We’re the same Greek system, (but we have) different cultures,” she said.
The group’s lukewarm relationship with the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life also makes impacting NU difficult, Evans said. Evans was given just a one-day notice of the last NPHC meeting. The group is also the only organization without a link on the Fraternity and Sorority Life’s Web site.
“We are still out of the loop,” Evans said. “We are very new and don’t always know what’s going on.”
Kyle Pendleton, director of Fraternity and Sorority Life, could not be reached Friday for comment.
Zeta Phi Beta’s first chapter was founded Jan. 16, 1920, at Howard University in Washington, D.C. The sorority became the first Greek organization to charter a chapter in Africa and to form auxillary groups to support young girls and women who had not yet or never attended college.
Despite the sorority’s history as a black organization, most of the group’s members come from different backgrounds.
“We’re not particularly looking for specific races or anything,” Evans said. “If you have it, you have it.”
The group has not scheduled “membership intake,” a recruitment program. What they do know is that the incoming class of Zetas will be held to the highest possible standards, Carrasquillo said.
“You have to want it, not just wear the letters but know the letters,” she added.
Reach Deepa Seetharaman at
