What a shame. SWTXBelle..

SWTXBelle—I, too, am sorry! Both times I’ve visited Fiji Hdqtrs. I’ve been fascinated with the amazing collection of vintages badges, photographs, portraits, letters and other memorabilia.
For awhile I’ve felt something is “in the air” regarding our entire Greek system, both male and female.

It’s sort of like how I HATED it when the wonderful downtown shops disappeared only to end up in malls—lacking any charm and individuality.
NOW the malls are closing and those stores are mostly online—photos and descriptions are replacing the joy of in-person shopping, perhaps the same way “online headquarters” are replacing the wonder and emotions of experiencing our Greek organizations’ journeys throughout history.

We’ve survived wars and depressions, demonstrations and social and political upheavals. But can we survive this? Only time will tell…

I feel that we are headed in the direction of corporatization. I mean this in the sense that our GLOs are becoming a "product" to sell to the member "consumers" in order to ensure the "bottom line". For example, I see this in the way my sorority refers to our volunteers as a "workforce". Our sisterhood gives way to corporate-style programming complete with personality tests, "elevator pitches", and a lot of "word salad" statements.

Our organizations may continue, but the heart will be gone.....

Oh lord navane, that is horrible. I can't imagine referring to sister and brotherhoods in a business sense with all our organizations have done.

This is what I said back when we started having “mission statements” and talking about “branding.” I was going to do a post where you had to match each NPC with its mission statement just to show how homogeneous they all were, but I’m pretty sure I would have thrown up while I was typing it.

NPC has gone so "woke" and political, it is truly ruining the system. The idea that we would let "trans" join our sisterhoods is repugnant. I believe I read that ZTA is the only NPC who is holding strong on being a biological woman in order to join.

It recently bothered me alot to read some of the changes to my group's practices. The powers that be seem delighted with the changes, and presented them as though we ought to be very happy and grateful to be so trendy and with-it. Navane is right, the heart is gone and buzzwords/corporatization are way-in.

Not that I'm looking to torture you, but here are just a handful of mission statements I found. And yes, I included my own org's in the mix for good measure. It admittedly does kind of make me cringe when I read it and hear it.

Honestly, though, making this a guessing/matching game would basically be impossible.

- Committed to providing opportunities for personal development, service to others and a space for members to forge their own paths-all through a lifelong spirit of sisterhood.

- To promote lifelong friendship, inspire academic excellence, to lead by example, and to serve our campus and surrounding communities.

- Invest in women by instilling the skills necessary to navigate life, and inspire members to enrich their own lives and the lives of others.

- To offer women lifelong opportunities for intellectual, and personal growth.

- To inspire the personal development of each sister and perpetuate the advancement of womanhood.

- Empowers each member to reach her fullest potential by enriching the experience of women with similar ideals, building lasting relationships, promoting civic responsibility and fostering personal growth.

Ignoring the second part of your statement: Why do you think our orgs are going political and "woke"? (another word that makes me cringe now)

I'd argue it's because the whole country has done the same. I don't know why we would expect our orgs to be immune from it. Heck, our own members are demanding it.

When the Supreme Court decision on overturning Roe v. Wade was handed down, I was in the middle of our alumnae reception at Convention. Someone looked at their phone and told me what had happened. Before the reception was even over, there were members blowing up the comments on unrelated posts on AST's social media pages, demanding that the org make a statement.

And look at Kappa Delta and Amy Coney Barrett. I meeeeeaaan... yikes. KD couldn't win on that one! There's a flippin' change.org petition (Kappa Deltas Against Judge Amy Coney Barrett) about it with 15,000+ signatures.

All of our orgs are different and they're handling this all differently. It's hard to address any one issue collectively and with blanket statements without being privy to the inside workings of every org. Even here on Greekchat, people are purposely vague at times. I can't say that I blame them, though, and I assume it's to avoid airing dirty laundry.

But ultimately, our country is politically divided, and members now expect that our organizations take a side.

Why do social organizations feel the need to politicize? There are many people on both sides of so many issues who can see that taking sides will only lead to pain and loss.

Sometimes the leadership in certain organizations just happens to lean one way at the time and they decide to hammer their views into the membership, no matter what it takes. No matter how many millions of dollars they lose, no matter how many hardworking alums refuse to help any more or even resign, these people are going to try to smash their views onto others. And then they have to close chapters or leave off house repairs or sell their HQs.

Who wins here?

That's a very simplistic read of the situation. I know fraternities are going through a very similar issue and at least in our organization thus far, we are permitted to initiate anyone who identifies as a man. If your chapters aren't given the latitude to be who they need to be on a given campus, they may find themselves disassociated and cancelled. Mass disaffiliation may occur.

It is a lose/lose situation. Take a stand supporting one side of a hot bed issue and alienate differently minded members. Instead of national officers taking it upon themselves to determine which way the sorority leans, put it up for a vote-not a national council vote, but a complete membership vote. Or better yet, make a statement to the effect that “ Alpha Beta Chi recognizes that our members are independent thinkers who have different ideals which are all valued, therefore, ABC will take a politically neutral stance/stay out of the political arena/ whatever/, at the same time encouraging our members to independently support and work for causes they are passionate about”

Hear hear!

I think that is basically what AOII said when the Roe v Wade overturn happened.

ETA: it is.

https://www.alphaomicronpi.org/news/...ha-omicron-pi/

That's basically what my org said too. At the same time, a large group of the membership are unhappy with some very public members (elected politicians) of our org saying extremely racist things. It really is a lose-lose. You cannot make everybody happy.

Yep. Sigh.