Rechartering Efforts at Saint Augustine's
 

Hello all,

I have a question/problem that is relatively different from some of the issues that I've seen posted here. My group and I have no problems doing service projects on and off campus discreetly (which helps in terms of "coming out" presentations), and the desire to recharter APO is well known around the yard. The problem, however, is that reactivating chapters have to return as co-ed(and we're trying to), but we have Gamma Sigma Sigma on the yard and many female prospectives tend to gravitate towards them. And I don't mean to sound negative, because I have plenty of 25/52 love, but it's hard for me to recruit females; Especially at a school like Saint Augustine's where Greek Membership in total is low. Last year we crossed 2 ZPB, 5 PBS, 5 KAY, and 9 DST... and that was one of the largest intake seasons for a few semesters. So I'm doing great to have found 11 men who are interested (and are actually working hard!) for Alpha Phi Omega, but the females here have the "I don't want to join a fraternity" mentality... which is funny, because Gamma Sig made me interested in Service Orgs, but I had the "I don't want to join a sorority" mentality.

Does this seem like a big problem? How could it be fixed (because we've advertised as being co-ed, and even approached females about the organization).

Another thing, the guys I have currently have been working EXTREMELY hard for APO. It's good that the people involved want to do more than just have Greek letters and step, it's a SERVICE fraternity. But we will be reaching PG status soon and presenting ourselves to the campus. I wanted to know if there are any special traditions your chapter does during events like this that you'd like to share.


Thanks! and please fill free to chime in with any other remarks and/or suggestions that may help on this long road to rechartering.

Is this the St. Augustine's in Raleigh, NC. If so, I didn't know that GSS was on the yard there.

naraht or Quala67 - do they HAVE to have females in the group? I thought that making a "good faith effort" which they seem to have done (advertising that they're co-ed, asking females to join) was sufficient.

I looked at the "chartering requirements" link on the Virginia State thread and don't think I saw the words male or female anywhere.

Well Gamma Sig @ St. Aug is going through the reactivating process as well, but the difference is that they have active transfer members here on campus who have been making their presence & the presence of Gamma Sig known before I even arrived at the school. It was a GSS that turned me onto the beauty of APO, but... they've kinda had all of the female prospects locked for a while now. and I feel stupid competing, service is service, no matter which organization you're doing it for.

btw, Jamie (Quala) and everyone in Region III have been GREAT, but this area has still been a little grey in all of our meetings/discussions.

They will be in a minute.
GoldnBlue, meet me in PMs if you want details. ;)

I've noticed that particularly at HBCU's. That's just the mentality...if it's a frat then men are in it and not a mix of men or women. Not all HBCU's are like this because there are co-ed chapters of APO on HBCU campuses but I was wondering when this type of scenario would come out.

I'm curious as to what the National Fraternity would do in a case like this (and if I'm out of my lane for asking, sorry). It looks like these guys are well on their way, just with no women right now. Would their request for PG status be turned down?

I can't say what the current M&E Director would do, but I know in the past that there was at least one group that applied to charter, and was told that unless they had representation from the other gender, the application would be put on hold. Now, this group had the opposite problem - they were predominantly female, and hustled to recruit at least 3 guys to charter.

Huh. I don't know if this will affect when you can become a Petitioning Group, but I do know by the time you get to that point, the staff definitely starts looking at whether the group reflects the student body, which you are up front about the fact that your group doesn't. (It does sound like you are definitely working to change that though) The school as best as I can tell online is about 50-50 by gender. From Jamie's comment, that other group was able to get to PG status all female though.

There are people that I know who have been both Alpha Phi Omega brothers and Gamma Sigma Sigma sisters, but it is rare and in the cases I know of, they joined one and then transfered schools and joined the other at the new school.

As for what to do to represent (if that is the word that you want) on campus as part of becoming a Petitioning Group, let me give that some thought. Remember, you are probably going to have more Alpha Phi Omega brothers on campus at St. Augustine for your PG ceremony than you will at any other time prior to chartering...

This is something that Nationals needs to look into. I mean it isn't fair for these guys to suffer all because females are not interested in becoming members of the fraternity and would prefer to join the sorority. We tend to go through this in Delta Phi sometimes, but lately it is the opposite and we are receiving more women than men in the chapter. The last group of pledges were more men though which really surprised me. I say that if these guys are showing effort and have the proof to let nationals know that they are advertising that this fraternity is coed then we need to grant them their charter.

Agreed. The group should make sure that the question never is "Why didn't you tell us about this earlier?".

It should be communicated up the line *now* (Sponsor, SC, Regional extension, RD, etc.) that this is the current situation and two things should be communicated by those staff back to the group: Specific suggestions for recruitment (i.e. should recruitment specifically to women be tried with fliers in women's dorms), if any, and whether the group can recharter with only men on the rechartering application. At minimum, the RD should know about the fact that the group is currenly only men and fact that the recruitment efforts have been clearly aimed at both genders *before* the PG application goes in.

Models...
 

Also, for the group at St. Augustine, I really would recommend Delta Phi at JCSU as a model. Right now, I think that Delta Phi is the only private HBCU to recharter co-ed in the last 5 years. They and NCA&T are the only HBCU's with active chapters in North Carolina. There is another extension effort at an HBCU in Region III at Norfolk State, but I know that that group does have at least one woman (could be all women for all I know). Also, Howard University is active.

I'm not trying to be Separatist by race in terms of suggesting the chapters that would be good models, but the culture of the College/University *does* affect what characteristics make a strong chapter on that campus. I am absolutely convinced that the chapter that I pledged at (Kappa @ Carnegie-Mellon) would be a horrible model in some ways, while still perhaps having ideas that are worthwhile.

Randy

Let's back up for a moment:

I already PMed you my ideas about a coming out and offered to send you lyrics and music to various APO songs I'm familiar with, but I've got to say a few things for you and for the benefit of others in your situation:

Being discreet may very well be your problem.

How were the first 11 recruited? Were you all already friends?
What class years are all of you?
How are you recruiting?
Are any of you already members of NPHC organizations?

The coming out presentation is simply not as important as finding quality members that reflect the demographics of the campus.

When we began the process of rechartering Howard, we spent three weeks in a row standing out on the main quad just passing our fliers about APO and advertising the info session. When we did assemble the first line, we never told them they needed to be discreet -- you can't be discreet when you're rechartering a chapter. People have got to see that you're DOING stuff before they will express interest.

Trust me, I know the culture is different. Been there. But Alpha Phi Omega is different. We can reflect the traditions of the campus, sure -- but some "traditions" are merely habits, and some habits are made to be transcended by Alpha Phi Omega.

How were the first 11 recruited? Were you all already friends? No, they were recruited by flyers (which were in both male & female dorms, as well as the cafe, etc. and said "...National Co-Ed Service...."). I don't know how the sex break-up is at Howard, but there was a female who transferred here who was interested in APO. However, she's not ready to partake in "greek" life. and my friend who is already Gamma Sig said she'd consider joining to help us meet our "quota", but is that really what you want? Because we've already let 2 guys go who hadn't participated in any of our service projects.... they just wanted to step.

What class years are all of you? We have freshmen, sophomores and Seniors, no juniors

How are you recruiting? Flyers, I'm the only one who's not "discreet". We've participated in Trick or treat for community children with other organizations where I've made it known that I was participating on the behalf of the IG of APO. We have organization day on our campus, where my adivsor and I had information packets.

Are any of you already members of NPHC organizations? No, alot of them don't know what APO is, and I had to talk to the NPHC advisor just so they'd know not to attack us in any of their presentations.


Two of the major goals I have for APO at St. Aug are
1) Service, because all of our NPHC claim to do so much, but we never see them doing anything for our campus or community (besides cookouts)
2) Greek Unity, it would be beautiful to see NPHC Greeks going at it one day, then working together the next with their APO shirts on.


As far as being discreet, our Director of Student Activities really wanted us to present ourselves to the campus, especially with the lack of Greek life at St-Aug, I guess he felt this was important?

On a brighter note, I've gotten alot of support from surrounding chapters & alumni, who are very anxious in seeing what we've been doing. And we're developing some nice traditions and a style that's going to be great for our chapter. Hopefully this whole situation will work itself out.

Thank you for answering my questions! I look forward to a response to my PM.

It seems as though you guys are well on your way to forming a PG. From your last response you have taken the steps needed to recruit both male and female membership. Service is also outstanding. I can honestly tell you that when we rechartered our chapter on the campus of Johnson C. Smith University, we had to deal with not only members of the NPHC, but also administration who were members of the NPHC as well.

They gave us lots of grief and it had to take a lot for us to make a name for ourselves on campus. We continued to exemplify leadership, friendship, and service throughout our programming and other activities. I am currently in Charlotte man. If you need any assistance or any additional advice, send me a PM.

Thanks!