A commitment to advancing civic engagement has been evident throughout the history of the U.S. higher education system. Civic engagement is a part of the mission of fraternity and sorority organizations. Because of this commitment to civic engagement, the purpose of this study is to understand what is happening in the development of civic engagement of fraternity and sorority alumni, specifically the role fraternity and sorority life plays in this development. The research questions that guide this study include: 1) How do fraternity and sorority alumni exercise civic engagement upon graduating from their undergraduate college experiences?; 2) How do fraternity and sorority alumni make meaning of the impact past Greek participation play in their current commitment to civic engagement?; 3) What impact do environments along the academic pathway (e.g., high school, college, postcollege) have on the longitudinal process of meaning making around commitments to civic engagement for fraternity and sorority alumni? Levering key perspectives from Astin’s (1984) Person-Environmental Theory, Baxter Magolda’s Self-Authorship Theory (1999), and Musil’s Spiral Model (2009), the literature review synthesizes research on civic engagement inputs and outcomes into a new conceptual model for understanding the complex process of longitudinal civic engagement commitments via iterative precollege, college, and postcollege experiences. The design of this study comes a from a constructive-development pedagogy lens, that used focus groups to collect data from the narratives of 25 alumni members of fraternity and sorority organizations from a single institution site broken down by Council membership of the National Panhellenic Council, National Pan-Hellenic Council, and the Inter-Fraternity Council. The themes from the results included that most participants took part in a variety of civic engagement experiences prior to college; their commitment to civic engagement grew due to the influence of other chapter members and other student organizations during college; membership commitment due to the foundational leverage of internal commitment to civic engagement; and current environments and previous lived experiences had an impact on participants’ current civic engagement commitment and identity. Additional research should be conducted to determine if this research could be replicated at other higher education institutions and fraternity and sorority communities to better understand the long-term impact of these experiences on alumni’s civic engagement identity.

This quantitative study was used to determine the perceptions that may have caused a decline in membership in fraternities and sororities and to examine active organization involvement between affiliated and unaffiliated students at a single higher education institution in northeast Texas. Eight perceptions were given regarding fraternity and sorority life and why students chose to remain unaffiliated with fraternities or sororities. The instrument used was a modified version of the Extracurricular Involvement Inventory, created by Winston and Massaro (1987) and was administered to participants online via Survey Monkey. There were 206 participants total: 55.3% were female, and 44.7% were male. Regarding ethnicities, 47.0% were African American, 37.5% were Caucasian, and 15.5% were Hispanic/Latino. Out of the participants, 20.9% were in their freshman or sophomore year, 23.8% were juniors, 33.5% were seniors, and 21.8% were graduate students. Participants’ ages ranged from 18 to 32, with a mean of 22.89 (SD = 2.81). The research questions were analyzed using two techniques: logistic regression for the first question and multiple regression for the second question. Findings for the first research question indicated that lack of values, lack of diversity, poor academic attitudes, and a requirement of too much time were primary reasons unaffiliated students chose not to join a fraternity or sorority. Findings for the second question indicated that Greek-affiliated students averaged higher involvement intensity scores when compared to unaffiliated students. Practical implications and future research are discussed.