The Effects of Sorority and Fraternity Membership on Class Participation and African American Student Engagement in Predominantly White Classroom Environments.

The relationship between Black Greek-letter organization membership and African American student engagement in almost exclusively White college classrooms was explored in this study. Data were collected through interviews with 131 members from seven undergraduate chapters at a large, predominantly White university in the Midwest. This study resulted in an explanatory model that shows how underrepresentation, voluntary race representation, and collective responsibility positively affect active participation, while Forced Representation has a negative effect. Findings also reveal that faculty teaching styles both positively and negatively affect engagement among African American sorority and fraternity members in their classes. The implications of these findings are discussed at the end of the article. The tide of Kimbrough's (2005) article, "Should Black Fraternities and Sororities Abolish Undergraduate Chapters?" captures the essence of an ongoing debate among students, various stakeholders on college and university campuses across the country, and leaders of the nine national Black Greekletter organizations (BGLOs). Instead of offering a balanced description of risks and educational benefits associated with membership, Kimbrough instead chose to focus almost exclusively on the persistent problem of physical and psychological hazing within undergraduate chapters. Despite being outlawed by the nine national organizations in 1990, hazing continues to occur in BGLOs on many campuses and has resulted in lawsuits, student deaths, and blatant contradictions to espoused purposes and ideals (DeSousa, Gordon, & Kimbrough, 2004; Harper & Harris, 2006; Kimbrough, 1997, 2003). In response to his own question, Kimbrough (2005) suggests that undergraduate BGLO chapters should be eliminated unless the national organizations collectively rethink new member intake processes and initiate bold approaches to hold undergraduates fully accountable for adhering to hazing policies. Despite the known presence of hazing, students on the more than 60 campuses Kimbrough visited offered several justifications for why undergraduate chapters should continue to exist - none of which pertained to the role of BGLOs in advancing the academic missions of the institutions or enhancing academic outcomes among members. Similarly, the academic contributions and limitations accrued through BGLO membership have been understudied and limited academic-related evidence has been furnished in the student affairs literature. Put another way, most explorations of the BGLO experience have focused on matters other than academics. "Although all Black fraternities [and sororities] identify academic excellence as a core value, claims that membership improves academic performance may be overstated" (Harper & Harris, 2006, p. 146). Consequently, those who attempt to justify the continued existence of undergraduate BGLO chapters must rely on anecdotal accounts and literature that focuses primarily on non-academic outcomes and experiences. As an alternative to the popular and defensible focus on hazing in previous literature, a different behavioral manifestation of BGLO membership was explored in the present study. Specifically, while several researchers have examined hazing as a behavioral by-product of membership (e.g., DeSousa et al., 2004; Kimbrough, 1997, 2003, 2005; Jones, 2004; Sutton, Letzring, Terrell, & Poats, 2000; Williams, 1992), emphasis in the present study is placed on exploring classroom behaviors and academic engagement tendencies among undergraduate BGLO members. Although a considerable amount of research has been conducted on the experiences of African American students at predominantly White institutions (PWIs), the outcomes associated with out-ofclass engagement, and hazing within BGLO chapters, published studies regarding the in-class behaviors of African American sorority and fraternity members are non-existent. Likewise, existing literature on BGLOs focuses disproportionately on socially-produced outcomes and the non-academic experiences of members, thus furnishing a one-sided rationale for their continued existence. …