For my research project I plan to do a comprehensive history of Colby Fraternities describing each Fraternity and what activities these Colby students used to perform as members of Greek Life. The significance of this project is dual in nature because it is extremely relevant to us as Colby Students in our contemporary age but it is also a relevant topic for millions nationwide. Over nine million people nationally are a part of Greek fraternities and 85% of executives for fortune 500 companies are fraternity men.

For historical sources I will be using the Colby Archives and Special Collections to search for records on activities and events the Fraternities used to partake in at Colby. I will also use these resources to get more personal sides to these fraternities and hopefully be able to hear some reflections from prior fraternity members on what their experience was like and whether or not they think it has helped them on their career paths.

In terms of technical requirements I would like to make a map of Colby’s campus with the fraternities labeled based on where they were located on the campus before they were abolished in 1984. I need help creating this map as I have never done this before but I think this would be a really cool way to show how the campus used to look in comparison to how it looks now without fraternities. I also want to pair descriptions of each individual fraternity with a picture of the members of that fraternity on the website to make it a more personal account for Colby. If there was archival footage of Greek life members available that would be super interesting and useful to look at and include in the website as well. It might also be interesting to compare what Greek life was like at Colby with another school but this will be time dependent.

So far I have found a list of all Colby fraternities and sororities and when they were established and abolished. This includes a list of Academic Fraternal Societies, which I found particularly interesting, as I hadn’t heard of these societies before. An example of these academic societies was Sigma Pi Sigma, which is an academic recognition society that was focused on acknowledging academic excellence in Physics. There is also the Beta of Phi Beta Kappa which recognizes students in the top 20% of their class. These academic societies are the only remnants of Greek life at Colby and I found it particularly interesting I had never heard of these until I began researching this topic.

Challenges remaining include collecting a lot more research and hopefully getting some more personal accounts of fraternity experiences at Colby. Also the challenges of creating an appealing and informative webpage with all of the moving pieces I want such as an interactive map, archival photography and video.