Texas Tech is home to many chapters of the nation’s different fraternities and sororities that spread across the nation.
Tech offers different Greek life organizations for students to join, some of those are primarily made for the Black student community to educate the community around them.
“I am the president of the National Panhellenic Council, which is NPHC,” Peyton Chapital, a fourth-year animal science student, said. “Basically, I guide everybody to make sure that everyone is completing their role correctly and being a leader for the council to make sure that we’re following the rules and branching out with new ideas to help improve the Black community as a whole.”
Chapital is a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority and she said her sorority was one of the first primarily African American sororities to be created locally in the 1970s.
The main goal of Alpha Kappa Alpha when it originated, the Garland native said, was to give Black students across the country an opportunity to contribute to society and bring service to the community.
“So recently, we had a fundraiser for our boards on the first, it was to kick off Black History Month,” Chapital said. “We just had a karaoke night yesterday, which was basically a safe space for Black people to come and kind of have a good time during Black History Month. On Saturday, the 19th, we are volunteering at the pancake festival. So, I’m really excited for that. And we’re really kind of hoping and waiting for the Black Culture Center to open.”
Alpha Kappa Alpha, Chapital said there are 22 total sorority and fraternity chapters at Tech.
Chima Eze, a third-year business management student and vice president of Kappa Alpha Psi chapter at Tech, said some of his goals through the fraternity are to inform and teach others about Black culture.
“I want to teach people about some of our culture, the strength of our community and share some of the accomplishments that their peers in the Black community have made,” the Houston native, said. “And share the wealth in the Black community, to understand that, you know, we can all unite as one and to grow as a close-knit community.”
Eze said he feels Tech has accommodated the Black student community well and given them the opportunity to thrive both on and on campus and provide a welcoming place for all students.
In addition, Eze said he would like for their chapters to be equally as honored and appreciated as some of the other Greek fraternities and sororities both at Tech and throughout the nation.
“The goals of our chapter are outreach.” Robert Teer, a fourth-year psychology student from Arlington, and a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, said. “You’re the outreach, reach out to communities and being able to reach out to kind of the different parts of Texas Tech that we haven’t been able to reach out to and really being able to make a presence, keep a presence and help out wherever needed.”
