Alpha Sigma Alpha (ΑΣΑ) is a US national sorority founded on November 15, 1901 at the Virginia State Female Normal School (later known as Longwood College and now known as Longwood University) in Farmville, Virginia. The Virginia State Female Normal School was the state’s first institution to open its doors to teacher education, at a time when higher education for women was a highly debated topic. There are currently over 145 chapters of Alpha Sigma Alpha nationwide with more than 100,000 members.

In the fall of 1901, at Longwood University five friends, Virginia Lee Boyd-Noell (Virginia Boyd), Juliette Jefferson Hundley-Gilliam (Juliette Hundley), Calva Hamlet Watson-Wootton (Calva Watson), Louise Burks Cox-Carper (Louise Cox), and Mary Williamson-Hundley (Mary Williamson) decided to rush the local women's fraternities on campus. However, rather than accepting bids that would separate the group, they decided to form their own sorority. On November 15, 1901 Alpha Sigma Alpha was named and chartered. The open motto of the sorority is "Aspire, Seek, Attain."

Sigma Alpha Epsilon (ΣΑΕ, also SAE) is largest North American Greek-letter social college fraternity founded at the University of Alabama on March 9, 1856. Of all existing national social fraternities today, Sigma Alpha Epsilon is the only one founded in the Antebellum South. Its national headquarters, the Levere Memorial Temple, were established on the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois in 1929. At the time the Levere Memorial Temple was built, the building cost $400,000, it is now said that the building is priceless due to its extensive collections of Tiffany Stained-glass windows.

Sigma Alpha Epsilon is the largest college fraternity by total initiates, with more than 304,000 initiated members and more than 11,900 undergraduates at 246 chapters and 19 colonies in 49 states and provinces at present. The creed of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, The True Gentleman, must be memorized and recited by all prospective members. New members receive a copy of The Phoenix, the manual of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, for educational development.