:D

Putting you on the "potential volunteer recruitment list".

Alpha Xi Delta allows non-members and males to be advisors in positions that do not involve ritual and/or membership selection. Non-members are not allowed at initiation. Non-members are also allowed to be members of house corporation boards.

Lol...

I have never heard of non-member advisors in Gamma Phi, so I think you will have to check us off your list of potentials.... :(

Not wise if you want to preserve your single sex status, in my opinion.

What's not wise? Having members of the opposite sex serve as advisors? Or having them initiated/receive honorary membership? Or both?

There was just an article in the most recent Chi Omega magazine (The Eleusis) about a member who is an advisor to Beta Theta Pi at Case Western Reserve University. She works at the school, and wanted to be involved with the Greek community even though Chi O does not have a chapter.

One of our members advises a Beta Theta Pi chapter and received a regional award recently for those efforts. Wish we had a chapter here in town. Would love to do that.

An advising a chapter of the opposite gender would not impact a group's single sex status but being an initiated member would. Both NPC and NIC have agreements that restrict that in order to maintain their status.

Please elaborate, I'm not connecting the dots.

As long as none are initiated and serve in a purely advisory capacity, there's no problem. Sometimes it's great to bring in outsiders so you can get some perspective you otherwise wouldn't have. At one time, I employed a young lady from a sorority at my chapter's school as a receptionist. I was able to use information from her to squelch a number of issues before they became issues.

Having someone in an advisory capacity wouldn't be any different. They are going to be privy to things your insiders are not. If I have my druthers, my house corporation BOD will have at least one NPC member on it because I will be the first to admit that they have Greek housing down to an absolute science compared to us.

As a former International Director of Housing for an NPC group, I have to agree with you here! I've talked with several folks at various NIC groups about how we do housing.

We had a man who served on our house corp board and he was first, like all of our Grandpa, and second the savior of the physical structure. The poor guy was about 400 years old and 4 feet tall (married to the cutest little lady, a sister, who looked about like his twin) and got called over to the house at all hours of the day or night to fix this or that thing that went wrong. If there had been ANY way to AI this man, we would have. He was a true double blue and gold Alpha Xi in all aspects except gender.

In the past few years, I've assembled, elected and written bylaws for a BOD with no house--just waiting and ready to act when things are right. Adding an NPC person with housing experience, probably someone who is also on a local NPC house corp is a priority of mine.

When talking with white hairs from another chapter about how we need to set things up, the advice has been to figure out what the sororities are doing and then copy them.

We have a pretty horrible system which requires each chapter to essentially reinvent the wheel. After having been established for over a decade on our campus, spending days in drafting contracts, organizational documents, bylaws and leases, I just had a sorority outbid us on a house we had overbid on to begin with just betting that they can fill the beds. I have every expectation that they will. They apparently have access to some major outside capital contributions from their HQ. We're on our own.

Organizationally, I think there are going to be fewer and fewer NIC groups in the future. Our NPC counterparts have really shown us how and where we need to evolve.

So back to the OP... you're foolish if you exclude what someone can offer simply because of their gender. We may be single-gender organizations, but that doesn't mean that the best ideas are always going to come from within.

Kevin: You can PM me any time. More than glad to share!

For Phi Mu Alpha, only men can be initiated as honorary members. Only brothers can be advisors. So, as a general rule, honorary initiations and advisor positions are limited to men.

I say "as a general rule" because, as I have mentioned on GC before, there was a period from the mid- to late-70s until the mid-80s when, while our Title XI status was being sorted out, a relatively small number of chapters (22) were given permission to initiate women. That option ended in 1985, but the 236 women validly initiated while the option was in place are considered true Sinfonians. I know of at least one who serves as advisor to a chapter.

I don't think the OP has any intention of doing so...the OP is quite open-minded, he simply wanted some context for things that happened in his (and my) formerly all-male, now coed, fraternity, back in the day. It is other posters in the thread that are being Debbie Downers about the concept.