Delta chapter at Auburn
 

According to an email received from Tim King Student Organizations Advisor at Auburn University.

"The campus chapter is currently coed and recruiting both men and women."

My son is sick over it.

Sad day, one of the strongest and best all male chapters sold out on their tradition to bend over to the national office. You asked me this four years ago if this would have happened I would have laughed in your face. It was always delta and pi chi, we are sick over it. Our alumni couldn't believe it.

RIP Delta, you will be missed.

Excellent.

A strong chapter of men can now become a stronger chapter of men and women.

Kudos to them.

I have always admired Delta for their dedication to Alpha Phi Omega and our traditions.

I admire them all the more now that they are recruiting women.

I know I came from a coed chapter but I have grow to know that the Delta chapter has had a rich tradition on the Auburn campus, and it is very sad that they are being forced to go another way just because of a lam ass law. Sorry to say this but the organization is getting weaker and weaker with the subtraction of all-male chapters. That's just my opinion.

You liked the organization enough to join a coed chapter, but now coed chapters like the one you are a brother of is weakening the fraternity.

This is from the students, not the National Office. If they wanted to flaunt the law, they had the ability to not uphold the board's enforcement of our own bylaws and/or they could have codified the so-called gentleman's agreement.

If you think that it is the National Office causing Delta to "bend over", I might have to question your pledge education and understanding of the APO authority structure, since the national office works for the students and it was the National Convention (made up of the students) who made this happen. Perhaps that might explain why you continually don't get it?

First off the gentlemans agreement was codified into the bylaws, it was removed in 2006 when finally we lost by a slim margin. -------(wikipedia) This "gentleman's agreement" was formalized in the by-laws at the 1998 Convention: "The fraternity continues to encourage all Chapters and petitioning groups to open their membership to all students. All Chapters..have the right to choose their own members using …policies that are consistent with the Fraternity’s governing documents, the rules of the host institutions that they serve and the traditions of that Chapter. Single-gender Chapters chartered before the 1976 National Convention may remain single-gender unless they become inactive or coeducational. All Petitioning Groups seeking to charter or re-charter will be and remain co-educational.[9] Allowing women members in 1976 reversed the continuing steep decline in membership of the Fraternity and started a growth cycle in the Fraternity.[

Women should have never been allowed membership into Alpha Phi Omega. If I was around in 1976 I would have rather seen Alpha Phi Omega go to its grave than to live to see it change as significantly as it has. What was once a noble fraternity is nothing more than a club, the few guys that do pledge co-ed Alpha Phi Omega chapters are either trying to meet girls or build their resume. Thats not why this organization was founded for. Every female that joined a chapter feels the ping of absurdity in the back of their head when they sing the toast song, Men of Alpha Phi Omega our Fraternity? By holding before them a standard of manhood that would withstand the test of time? Alpha Phi Omega this summer recently made ties to the Girl Scouts of America? Are you kidding me????

I'm not going to hide or flaunt they way I truly feel about it in my heart by any means and I get tired of dancing around the bush on it. My chapter for a long time tried to be very open and friendly with all chapters of Alpha Phi Omega. It didn't get us anywhere. Trying to get rid of us decade after decade did nothing more than embolden resolve toward what many of us represented and believed in. The situation was made far worse than it had to be. Frankly the only way National co-ed Alpha Phi Omega seemed to properly justify its own existance was to continually demonize all male chapters every chance it could.

Any one here can think whatever they like, think happy happy thoughts live long and prosper your right and I'm wrong. Just remember, when the majority of the 'Brothers' in the room are singing "Men of Alpha Phi Omega, Our Fraternity" are wearing skirts, I'll be wearing my Alpha Delta letters with Pride.

So you are saying just because women are allowed that it is only a club and no longer a fraternity?

Comments
 

Couple of quick comments...

First, the relationship with GSUSA is one that the Fraternity has been trying to do for at least a decade. From what I understand, it has been GSUSA that has been hesitant to have the same sort of working relationship with APO that BSA and Campfire have.

The last time that I checked, both the gender ratios for pledges and initiates were around 50-50.

I'll go back and take a look at Wikipedia. I'm not sure how anything was placed into the bylaws. Resolution yes, but what you've quoted doesn't look like anything that would have been phrased in "bylaw-ish".

And could you please point to what was removed or changed in the bylaws in 2006?

From what I understand, Delta chapter seriously considered breaking away. That's why it took them many months - actually, years - to come to a decision.

It's nice to know that in the end, they took their oath of loyalty seriously.

At the 2006 National Convention, the "gentleman's agreement" was taken out of the bylaws that was written back from the 1998 National Convention basically saying that all-male chapters have the right to stay the way it was. When they took the agreement out, nationals presented a deadline to those chapters that were still single-gendered to be fully coed by the start of the 2008 National Convention.