"Founders" vs. "Charter Members"
 

It has always bothered me to see the term "founders" used when a National fraternity/sorority charters a local chapter at a campus. To me, each National organization has only one set of FOUNDERS -- the ones who began the organization -- the ones who wrote the Ritual, chose the colors, selected the name, etc. I feel that term should be reserved for them.

Those who start the organization on the local level, I feel, should certainly be recognized as "charter members." They sign the chapter's roll book first and have the opportunity to begin strong traditions on their individual campuses.

We have our national founders and local founders. The class after the founders is called the charter class.

Different strokes, I guess.

My goodness, to what do we owe this ire? Linkage please?

I'm sure that there are some groups who refer to the people who founded the local GLO that turns into the national GLO as, obviously, founders. Because they are. Not only that, sometimes not all of these people do become charter members. That doesn't mean their contributions should be discounted. Sometimes it ends up that there are very few of the people who actually got the group running, did all the legwork, pushed it thru Panhel/IFC/the school administration with their names on that charter.

So what do we call them? The people who got screwed?

If you need to make that distinction to be able to tell between the two classes of folks, you probably have other issues anyhow.

In my organization "charter members" are all of the members initiated before the colony receives its charter (we initiate colony members). They are the men whose names appear on the Charter. So for my chapter, our "Founding Fathers," Alpha, Beta, and Gamma pledge classes are all charter members. The men organized by our HQ to begin the colony are known as the founding father class. I can see how the distinction is irrelevant for organizations that initiate all of the colony members together when the colony receives its charter, but for us its a useful distinction.

I have never run across any confusion among Brothers or Associate Members when referring to both groups of people as founding fathers.

I hear you. This is true for my org as well. The term "Founders" should be used to refer to the founders of the organization (even though they are also of course charter members) and "charter members" is what we call the first group of a newly chartered chapter; however, it is common to hear members mistakenly refer to them as founders or founding members. Overall, it depends on the organization.

Off the top of my head, I can think of quite a few instances of national GLOs whose founders did not write the ritual now used, did not choose the colors now used, or did not select the name now used.

Seriously, isn't this one of those things where we can just respect the different terms that different groups use, even if it's contrary to what we'd use in our own org?

BTW, in my fraternity, although we may refer generally to our founders (meaning not just the original members but also other influential leaders in our early years), current practice is that only one person is formally referred to as "Founder" (or "Father of Sinfonia"). That's why we observe Founder's Day, not Founders Day or Founders' Day. Those 13 men who were the first members of the club that became the Fraternity are formally referred to as the "Charter Members" (of the Sinfonia Club or of the Fraternity). Those whose names appear on a chapter's charter are the charter members of the chapter.

Yeah I don't see what difference it makes what they are called. in Psi U we actually have three separate groups of founders. We have the 7 Founding Fathers who founded the Society in 1833 (176 days next Tuesday!), the chapter founders who are the people who were initiated before the chapter was chartered and the founding class, which is the first pledge class. In our case we normally just refer to the founder class as the local fraternity we were before Psi U.

Same here.

Welp, it only "bothers me" when Deltas do it; I jokingly correct the Omegas (happy founders day to them, btw); and for every other GLO, I typically silently feel they really only have one set of founders.**

**Because nonDeltas can say and do whatever they want but it doesn't stop me from thinking something.

I will share a funny thing that happened one time... I didn't witness this, but it makes me laugh out loud every time I think of this story:

National Rep. was introducing a chapter's charter members to a National Officer and started to mistakenly refer to them as "founders." She stopped herself just as she had begun to say the word and said, "These are the farters."

I agree.

I almost spit my tea out onto the screen of my laptop reading this, LOL.

In my chapter, the original group of men who started our chapter are referred to as our founders or founding class. That group through our Gamma pledge class, inclusive, constituted our charter members, since they were all initiated simultaneously when our chapter received its charter and ceased to be a colony. I don't believe anyone would confuse our local chapter's founders with the national founders, whether those men from 1856 are referred to as "founders" or "Founders."

Since I am a member of my sorority who chartered a chapter and our founding mothers are still alive... I will put in my thoughts on the subject... chapter chartering sisters are referred to as chapter founders or founding sisters. Our organization founders are referred to as Founders, Founding Mothers or Black Diamonds. I never really paid any attention to what other orgs say but I know that my orgs Black Diamonds refer to us (chapter chartering members) as chapter founders. So I guess, for us, its OOOKAY! I say all that because I think it will definitely be interesting to see, years from now, if sorors have a problem with chapter chartering sisters being called founders....

And I do agree that sometimes those who did much of the leg work toward starting a chapter end of graduating before the chapter is chartered, and likewise newbies come in and do little more than sign their name. So I like the term founders for those who did the real work (or were hanging around while it was being done. ;)

FYI: I do, at times, refer to myself as a charter member when I speak to other greek members who use the term.

I'm a charter member, but we've never called ourselves founders. I can't even think of anyone saying "founding members of the Eta Mu chapter." It's "charter" for us. Technically, Kappa doesn't call NM classes by Greek letters but instead by the year and term (fall 09), but we do it anyway. I'm a charter member and also in Alpha Class. Beta came the fall after we were installed.

You are only a founder if you establish a new chapter of an org on campus and your average is ABOVE the all Greek women's average. If you are establishing a chapter of a new org and your average is BELOW the all Greek women's average, then you are a charter member. If you are trying to establish a colony and your average is BELOW the all women's average for campus, then you are just SOL.

Just wanted to clarify that for everyone.:)