Status of all-male chapters
 

I thought I would start a thread with information on the choices for the chapters that were all-male as of the 2006 Convention. As I see it there are four possible results as of December 27th, 2008.
A) The chapter has initiated female brothers
B) The chapter has tried to recruit women to pledge and been unsuccessful.
C) The chapter hasn't accepted women and is going to fight on the floor having their charter pulled at the 2008 convention.
D) The chapter has left the National Fraternity.

The information I have (with the level of sureity of my information)

Region I.
Sigma Xi (Maine-Orono) intends to leave the Fraternity. (80%+)

Region IV
Gamma Lambda (Clemson) and Gamma Chi (Samford) have accepted women. (100%)

Region V
Pi Chi (Duqesne) is still in the process of transition, but intends to stay in the Fraternity. (75%) (and there are people on this board who can speak to that in much detail, but from what I understand they amount of help they've gotten from the local staff on this is at the level both staff and chapter
are happy with, if they want/need more help, they've got at least 3 chapters with a significant number of women who could get to campus by city bus)

Region III
Mu Alpha has decided to expel all women and revert back to the good old Schroeder/Clinton days, effectively leaving the fraternity. The expelled women and male sympathizers will transfer to Trinity and petition to have the Mu Alpha charter transferred there.

:)

Oh, please, PLEASE tell me you're joking! It's too early in the morning to tell if posts are serious or not!! :confused:
Of course, at this time of the morning, I'm leagally brain dead, so it's no reflection on anyone but me!

Joking. :)

LMAO!!!

Thanks a bunch....I've got to stop posting at the crack of dawn......or learn to drink coffee.....:o

HAHAHA!
 

LOLOLOLOL

Confirmation on Sigma Xi
 

Sigma Xi chapter at Maine-Orono has decided to leave. While I'm not certain whether the staff will attempt to keep the chapter alive with those who prefer to stay or with others, it appears that the majority of the chapter have decided to go local.
(http://media.www.mainecampus.com/med...-3323749.shtml)
:(

Alpha Delta recently changed its name from Alpha Phi Omega in January, after the national fraternity began making it more adult-based, allowing female members to join and taking away the student-focus. Martin claimed the name change was due to the "ideological split," and Feldpausch defended the decision because of their desire to remain service oriented and student run.

WTF??? That's not a name change, that's the betrayal of an oath.

Interesting.

Forwarded on as well
 

Before I posted it here, I also sent it to what I thought were the appropriate people (S 94 chair, Region I director, PD Membership), not because I thought it was news to them, but that it was published.

The oath I made began "The purpose of this fraternity shall be to assemble college men..."

Just sayin.

No, it didn't.

Well, my oath at least did. Apparently we are looking at two completely different oaths.

Brother, what you have quoted is not an oath.

I would like to wish sigma xi the best, they will be missed

That is the purpose. The Oath is the one that starts "I will do my best to exemplify the principles..." as put on page 5 of the current pledge manual. (whether or not the oath should be in the pledge manual is a different thread)

The purpose has changed from "to assemble college men" to "assemble college students". (and did so many years ago).

Randy

Amen

I understand, maybe I should have been more clear. What I meant to say was I think that the all-male chapters in Alpha Delta believed that the Purpose was not only an oath, but the most important oath in our Pledge Books. For obvious reasons we have not made the changes to the Purpose as indicated by nationals. Furthermore, our chapters (obviously) believe that both (p)Purposes were completely incongruent with each other.

This paragraph is really stupid. It should have said...

"Alpha Delta was formerly a chapter of Alpha Phi Omega National Service Fraternity. They left the national because they did not agree with the decision to compel all-male chapters to initiate female members."

It's not a "name change" - that makes it sound like they are still part of APO, they just don't want to call themselves that.

It has nothing to do with being "adult-based" or adults running it.

I've seen a lot of dumb explanations of chapter breakaways/closings, but this is in the top 5.

I'm going to break down this pretty much line by line since you obviously don't understand what its like to be in an all-male chapter.

"Compel all-male chapters to initiate female members" is nothing more than a nice way of saying "a promise given to all-male chapters 30 years ago was broken and now they have to go co-ed or have their charters revoked."

The paragraph in the article said exactly what it should have, that a chapter left because they didn't agree with the way the Fraternity is heading. If you couldn't tell this goes way past the whole forcing us to go co-ed thing.

How is this not a name change and how does it make it sound like they're still a part of A Phi O? They are now Alpha Delta, not Sigma Xi chapter of Alpha Phi Omega which was stated quite clearly in the article. I'm going to assume that they are following a new set of bylaws and rituals.

new bylaws + new rituals + new letters = they are not a part of Alpha Phi Omega

Are you sure? It seems like those are a couple of the reasons they left. Also, you didn't disagree with their statement that Alpha Phi Omega is becoming adult-based, so maybe there is truth to it.

I still don't understand why you feel these explanations are dumb. Also, what are the other 4 reasons on that top 5 list?

What do you think of the original purpose for Alpha Phi Omega?

As of the 1926 Yearbook at Lafayette College

The purpose of the fraternity shall be to assemble those who have had experience and training under the Scout Oath and Laws, to revive the spirit of that Oath and Law, to develop friendship, to encourage encourage service, and to enable its members to become leaders of America's youth, through character-building, citizenship, college spirit and manly strength.

Symbols on a page are only half of a text's potential meaning. With this being said, I obviously feel a more intimate connection with our version of the Purpose than the original penned by Horton simply because of the fact that I, nor many of my own chapter have ever been Boy Scouts, let alone Eagle Scouts.

Furthermore, I feel that the term "manly strength" is offensive in that it, in some ways, supposes (or at least connotes) that there is a "feminine weakness." But that's just (if I can speak for my chapter) our chapter's opinion.

I also feel that "encourage" is too weak of a word, provide is much more suitable.

If you're asking me how do I account for my chapter's position in the context that, at one time, Alpha Phi Omega was a national fraternity exclusively for Eagle Scouts, then Boy Scouts...etc, my argument would be based around the concept of state's rights.

I believe that as long as a chapter maintains a set minimum of requirements, such as hours of community service required, cardinal principles, etc..., that most any delineation from that standard should be acceptable insofar as the said modifications pass by each chapter's respective university. I feel that these changes should be respected, but not enforced nationally. Each chapter was given birth under the organization of a particular set of standards and bylaws which ultimately play a VERY large role in the type of neophytes were inducted: our character is so distinct on campus that when people we don't even know see us on campus they KNOW we are brothers of A-Phi-O. There are many other organizations on campus that have similar experiences to that of Alpha Phi Omega: co-ed organizations with service requirements that offer leadership that do not insist on a very (very) high set of standards for admission. The only difference is no national dues are required and they do not have the privilege of wearing similar shirts.

Without respecting these differences, the national office runs the risk of cheapening the entire experience by using a "service fraternity" as a guise to market an ideology (which is more often than not a bad thing).

I want to address more of your comment, but this sticks out as patently false. We were never founded just for Eagle Scouts; that is a rumor that has been going around for quite some time. Randy/Michael, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Hmmm..... strike two.

Man, this must be my week for pissing off Duq people.

In answer to your last question, the other 4 didn't necessarily have to do w/ APO, so it's irrelevant to the discussion.

In my opinion, a "name change" sounds like something that is cosmetic only, not actually breaking away from the fraternity. It said not a thing about new rituals or new bylaws. As a matter of fact, it said "Alpha Delta has been part of the Bananas tradition since 1965." That's absolutely false. Alpha Delta as an entity didn't EXIST in 1965, so how could they have been part of the tradition?? That's what I'm talking about.

I'm not railing against all male chapters, I'm railing against a poorly written newspaper article that if a nongreek read it, they would get the wrong impression of what happened. Here's another example.

Oh and I don't agree with the "adult based" statement either, if as others have stated, the choice to make the all male chapters go coed or leave was voted on by the collegiate membership.

Huh?

How can you feel a closer connection to your chapter's purpose than that which was written by The Lightbearer himself?

They need to have their own organization if this is the mindset that they have.

well, the current purpose that the chapter uses is what we pledged

The purpose, is very strongly emphasized by Pi Chi during the pledge period, if you do not know the purpose of the fraternity then why are you here?

this comment was stated in response to the purpose???

How dare you make such an remark

I don't think anyone in Pi Chi, or Sigma Xi to the best on my knowledge, would type such a comment and fail another brother out of respect to fellowship regardless of the fact the chapter be All Male, All Female or Coed. We are all brothers, regardless of the chapters current membership policies, mind you these being in transition.

:(

I am a member of Omega Phi Alpha, which I assume you all know is based off of A Phi O. I am curious about this situation because I find it strange that nationals would require all chapters to be co-ed. In OPA we are mostly all female chapters, however we do have chapters with male members. We do not discriminate against anyone who wants to join, and yet we are not forced to be co-ed.

Our purpose in OPhiA as far as I know, has always been:

The purpose and goals of this sorority shall be to assemble its members in the fellowship of Omega Phi Alpha, to develop friendship, leadership and cooperation by promoting service to the university-community, to the community-at-large, to the members of the sorority and to the nations of the world.

It does not contain any gender biased language, it simply refers to "members".

It would have been interesting to hear the discussion at convention when this action was voted on. It seems like there could have been a better compromise in the national organization rather than to say make these changes or leave.

By the way... does anyone know if there are any APO chapters still around in Arizona? I went to NAU, and there was a small chapter there when I was still in college, but I don't know if they are still around.

Andrew,

I'm getting really confused.

Can you perhaps write out the purpose your chapter uses so we can compare it with the original purpose penned by FRH and the current purpose?

It just sounds like you're saying your chapter took the Purpose and added/subtracted bits to get something you liked. If that's not the case, I'm sorry for thinking so.

APO and OPA have two different "nationals."

I never said they didn't.

ETA: I'm sorry if I wasn't clear before. I just meant that I thought it was strange that APO as a national organization would require all of its chapters to recruit women. I know our two separate organizations (OPA and APO) are similar, so I was just interested in how they, as a group, were handling this situation.

It seemed from the wording of your post that you were saying that. Just my interpretation.

You said that "you do not discriminate against anyone who wants to join." The problem is that some of the all male chapters were doing that (i.e. discriminating against women).

I hope I am not out of order for asking, but are there any documented cases of this happening? That's a pretty strong statement to make.

Also another question. Wouldn't this ruling have an affect on any chapters that are all female, because to my understanding, the fraternity has a few of them as well? So aren't they discriminating towards men if that's the case?

Without quoting lisarpotter's whole post, Gamma Sig is the same way. We are mainly comprised of women, but we do have male members. However I couldn't see our organization making our chapters be co-ed. I also wonder if there were any attempts to compromise before this happened.

Again I hope I am not being out of line...but just wanting to know so I have a clearer picture.

Yes.

All-woman chapters don't de jure discriminate against men, and as far as I know still make a good faith effort to recruit them.


Do GSS chapters have the power to decide whether to allow a man to pledge? I believe this is the issue in our fraternity.

Among other reasons, it is a bad move legally to continue to allow all-male chapters to discriminate against women. It leaves the fraternity and the university open to litigation on the basis of Title IX rules, from which APO is not exempt.

You are not wrong.

In fact, of our Founders, I think only 1 or 2 were Eagle Scouts. Horton was NEVER a scout as a youth, joining as a leader. I've read in early issues of the Lightbearer (our National Magazine) statements made that chapters should NOT restrict their recruitement to just Eagle Scouts.

Oh? And where is the Fraternity heading? We were a co-ed National Service Fraternity with a few all-male chapters (which apparently were caused some problems for us in regards to working with some other national orgs). We are STILL a co-ed National Service Fraternity but with a few all-male chapters moving to being co-ed. We will soon and I hope continue to be a co-ed National Service Fraternity.

I have to agree with the original poster at not liking some of the statements said in this article. Ok, so the chapter didn't like being forced to go co-ed and decided to go local/independent. Sorry that happend. BUT, to claim that somehow APO is being 'adult run' OR that APO has gotten away from service OR they were being threatened by the National President is IMO insulting.

I personally didn't like how the co-ed thing was handled. And I think many felt the same way. I think the way elections turned out in 06 are due in large part to that. HOWEVER, the voting delegates at 06, made up predominately by ACTIVE BROTHERS, not alum, voted to approve the move to go entirely co-ed. So obviously the actives agreed with the goal, even if they didn't like the means. (Keep in mind that if every chapter sends their voting delegates to Nationals, that would give actives 720 or so voting delegates vs about 30-40 or so voting delegates who are alum. Kind of outnumber them, don't you think?)

Furthermore, I happen to know that the alumni volunteers (RD and SC) have been working for some time to HELP those all-male chapters go co-ed, AND I think it safe to say that their fellow co-ed chapters have ALSO stepped forward to help them. They have time to move to going co-ed!

Just for the record:

Sigma Xi chapter was not the first chapter to secede from APO due to being forced to go co-ed.

Theta Xi chapter (Parks College of St. Louis University) was an all male chapter that had to merge with another chapter when Parks College closed down. The chapter they merged with was co-ed and would not allow the all-male group to stay all male, so the all-male group seceded from Alpha Phi Omega and formed a social fraternity which later got picked up as a chapter of Theta Xi Fraternity.

Interesting story.