The National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) at USC has announced there will not be an NPHC stroll-off as part of this year’s Homecoming events and that the nine historically black Greek organizations in the NPHC will not be participating in any homecoming events.
The stroll-off event usually has been in the form of a step show but was changed to a stroll-off because the Homecoming Commission failed to reserve a venue for the event.
Vice President of NPHC to the Sorority Council Karra McCray released a statement to the University of South Carolina Association of Black Journalists late Monday night.
EXCLUSIVE: Full statement from @USC_D9 regarding this year's Homecoming Step Show / Stroll-Off. pic.twitter.com/DEYZ82paHz
— ABJ @ USC (@ABJ_USC) October 13, 2015
“The organizations of which NPHC is comprised were extremely disappointed upon hearing there would be no step show this year, and we are collectively even more frustrated in the cancellation of the stroll-off as well,” McCray said.
The NPHC said they had issues with the Homecoming Commission in planning on where to hold the event, whether the commission would sponsor the stroll-off and that the commission failed to comply with the description of the stroll-off submitted by NPHC for promotion citing evidence that the Homecoming Commission referred to the stroll-off as a “cultural dance competition” on its website. The press release said that description is not accurate of what the event is nor something the council agreed to.
On Friday Oct. 9 the commission informed the NPHC via email that the stroll-off would take place at a different time than scheduled and would be on Greene Street, when both parties had planned to have it on the Blatt Field, and that the DJ for the event would be one different from the performer the NPHC had already booked. All of this came without prior notice.
Because of this, the organizations involved in NPHC have made the decision to withdraw from the line-up of Homecoming activities.
The nine NPHC organizations are: Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc., Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc., Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc. and Iota Phi Theta Fraternity, Inc.