Omega Phi Alpha records

Collection

Identifier: MS-0756

Staff Only

Collection Overview

Abstract

The records of Omega Phi Alpha, a national service sorority with 27 active college chapters and more than 3,000 members world-wide, include convention and mid-year minutes, membership records, some financial records, chapter files, subject files, scrapbooks, and photographs.

Dates

Creation: 1959-2006

Extent

17.5 Cubic Feet (15 record cartons, 1 legal size archive box, 1 letter size archive box, oversize items)

Creator

Omega Phi Alpha (Organization)
Omega Phi Alpha. Alpha Chapter (Bowling Green State University) (Organization)

Scope and Contents

The collection of Omega Phi Alpha consists of convention and mid-year minutes and reports, membership records, some financial records, chapter files, subject files, scrapbooks, and photographs.

The most continuous series is for the Convention and Mid-year minutes and files, running with only a few gaps from 1967 through 1994. Newsletters, both the Chevron and earlier Yellow Rose cover from 1967 to 1994.

Although financial records are scattered, the subject and chapter files include a range of material including constitutions, chapter reports and individual chapter files from 1959 through 1994, with additions supplementing the material added in 2006 and 2007.

Scrapbooks created by the Alpha Chapter of Omega Phi Alpha provide a picture of the chapter's operation and activities from 1992-2005.

Due to the ongoing activity in the collection and receipt of new material, reprocessing of the collection is likely in the future to consolidate and weed duplicates in the collection which may be currently scattered in the various additions.

Biographical / Historical

As described in the history on the sorority’s official website, the origins of Omega Phi Alpha came about in 1953 on the campus of Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio when members of a men’s service fraternity, the Zeta Kappa Chapter of Alpha Phi Omega pushed for the establishment of a comparable unit for women on campus to help with projects.

Choosing a similar name, Omega Phi Alpha, the group was initially open to university women who had been member of Girl Scouts or Camp Fire Girls, although that rule was changed in 1958. Around that time in 1958 a chapter was established on the campus of Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti with their first pledge class in the fall of 1959 and in 1962 another group was established in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

In the spring of 1966 a need was recognized for clear reorganization of OPA as efforts were underway to register as a national sorority and there were competing claims as to which chapter would be recognized as Alpha Chapter. A national organizing convention was held in Bowling Green, Ohio the summer of 1967 at which the consolidation of the organization with Bowling Green as Alpha, Bridgeport as Beta, and Ypsilanti as Gamma Chapters was finalized on June 15, 1967.

Conditions Governing Access

No known access restrictions.

Conditions Governing Use

Researchers using this collection assume full responsibility for conforming to the laws of libel, privacy, and copyright, and are responsible for securing permissions necessary for publication or reproduction.

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Arrangement

The collection is arranged into the following series:

1998 donation, 1959-2005

Proceedings, 1968-2003
Financial documents, 1969-1991
Subject files, 1959-1994
Scrapbooks and scrapbook materials, 1968-2005
Printed material, 1967-1994
Photographic material, 1968-1989

2006 addition, 1998-2004

2007 addition, 1972-2005, undated

Immediate Source of Acquisition

The records of Omega Phi Alpha were donated to the Center for Archival Collections starting in 1998 through the cooperation of Marlene Purdy, with continuing periodic additions.