Methods
In order to explore how religion affects social activities at UNC, both
Christian and non-religious affiliated fraternities and sororities were
surveyed. Within the Greek system at UNC, two Christian fraternities
(Groups 3&5) and two
Christian sororities (Groups 1&2), have begun over
the past several years and were selected for the project. Then two
non-religious fraternities (Groups 6&8), and two non-religious sororities
(Groups 4&7) were
chosen based on interview connections, not completely at
random. Although random selection may be preferred, the four groups
chosen should still fairly well represent the Greek population at
UNC. Within each organization, one member was interviewed with a
series of questions on the group as a whole -
its founding, mission
statement,
and religiosity. Then each interviewee was asked to distribute the
questionnaire to fellow members. This was
typically done at chapter
meetings, but some chose to distribute the questionnaire at meals or other
group times. Some questions on the survey concerned church
attendance,
importance of personal religious beliefs in daily life, and reasons for
joining the sorority/fraternity. Prior to research, we believed
members
of the religious Greek groups would more actively practice their religious
faiths. After each interview was completed and questionnaires
returned,
the answers were examined for trends within each group, and differences
between the religious and non-religious Greek societies.
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