Diversity

[Quala67]

Some of you may have seen this post in other e-boards you visit, but I am trying to hear the voices of as many different Brothers from different parts of the country with different experiences as possible...

The questions I would like to pose to you all - feel free to discuss publicly or PM me - is what does diversity mean to you? To your chapter? What do we do well on this topic? What would you offer up to change what we do/provide to chapters? What kind of resources are lacking for you as a Brother and for your chapter in general?

No comment is too touchy, no comment is unwelcome. I'd love to hear honest and frank discussion amongst Brothers. Just keep the discussion and responses to one another Brotherly and respectful.

Thank you!

[Senusret I]

I believe that my chapter, Mu Alpha, is a very diverse chapter. For whatever reason, my chapter attracts people of all types of backgrounds. And because prospectives see people who look like themselves, they feel more welcome during the rush period. I don't know how we do it, I don't know how we maintain it -- but somehow it works.

I think APO on the national level is doing pretty well -- or at least they were when I was at the height of my undergrad activity. At the Philly 2000 convention there were brothers from EVERYWHERE!!!! And the strange thing was that even though we looked different, we had many similar chapter traditions.

I think that in essence, our principles are for everyone, so we naturally attract a wide variety of people. If a chapter attracts only one type of person, it will be hard to atract different types of people. Every once in a while, you might have that one random person who stumbles upon APO and loves it, but is different from the rest of the members. That brother should be encouraged, his leadership abilities fostered, and helped in any way possible when it comes to recruitment.

Sorry I couldn't find anything to really be critical about when it comes to diversity.

[CasanovaAPQ]

I think APO is not doing well on the diversity level. There are to problems i think are facing APO today, Diversity at indivdual chapters and the lack of male interest in the faternity as a whole.

Diversity:
Chapters are suppose to reflect the school as far as divesity and im many cases it doesnt. On campuses where there is a good minority population, the chapters are either mostly white or all white. Chapters are not reflecting the demographics on there campus. And im noticing that aot of chapter are having major diversity issues.

Male issue:
Most of the chapters in the US are mostly females now. The undergrad membership is about 71% female. Men are not interested in pledging APO because all they see is women and if they do pledge its to get a girl. This is not in every case but in most. The real fraternity feel has left alot of chapter to the point where some chapter just give away memebership, you will never retain membership espeically men with that non-fraternal attitude.

In both issues, there are chapters crying for help and there is not formular to help this. Minorities (especially blacks) are not attracted to an org that they either dont know about or either have an ideal that its all white. We need to promote APO as a multicultural org which we dont. We emphasis CO-ED so much that people only take our org for that. When you look on the national website you dont see one minority on there. Why is that? The black or asian chapter are never advertise on any of our national publications. why is that? People have suggested that the women get more men by flirting with them or intising them with ideal that if they become APO they will get a girl which sickens me, The APO women are not whores or cattle to be branded for the purpose of recruitment. We need to sit down and find a better way of recruitment and bring that more fraternal feel back to the fraternity, that will be the only way we will become more diversity and get more male interest in my opinion.

[Quala67]

Casanova -

You bring up a lot of valid points and shortcomings of the fraternity. What would you suggest to do to change things?

[33girl]

Originally posted by CasanovaAPQ
We need to promote APO as a multicultural org which we dont.

But it's not a multicultural organization.

To me, and to most members of groups who explicitly refer to themselves as "multicultural" it implies that one of the goals of the group is to explain, appreciate and promote the different cultures or backgrounds within the group. APO is about SERVICE.

There's a big difference between having a diverse membership due to people of all backgrounds coming together to do service, and making it one of your goals.

[Senusret I]

Knowing Casanova personally, I know he doesn't mean "multicultural" as in embracing the tenets of "multiculturalism" as so-called Multicultural GLOs do.

I think he means that we shouldn't be afraid to market ourselves as an organization that happens to be multicultural/diverse in its membership.

After glancing at the website, he's right...I didn't see any representations of our mostly black or Asian chapters.

To answer Quala's question....we can take a different approach to marketing ourselves. Different as in BETTER, lol. We don't have the benefit of letting rushees come to us -- we have to go out and find them.

For example....say your chapter is 99 percent white and you really WANT to see your chapter more accurately reflect the campus population. Half of the diversity battle is solved if your chapter is already diverse. But when it's not, your higher levels of resources need to BE the change that you want to see.

That said, the national website should be a wee bit more diverse in what it shows.

[Quala67]

Website suggestion duly noted, and will be discussed at my meeting in April.

Please keep the feedback coming! In another e-format, some folks said that we do a great job with diversity. I'm not so sure about that - and this discussion will be very important to the membership committee and the direction it goes in regards to diversity.

But back to one of my original questions - what kind of resources do you think we need in regards to diversity?

[33girl]

Originally posted by Senusret I
Knowing Casanova personally, I know he doesn't mean "multicultural" as in embracing the tenets of "multiculturalism" as so-called Multicultural GLOs do.

I think he means that we shouldn't be afraid to market ourselves as an organization that happens to be multicultural/diverse in its membership.

After glancing at the website, he's right...I didn't see any representations of our mostly black or Asian chapters.

OK, that makes more sense and I definitely agree with that.

I think every org, not to mention universities themselves, struggles with how to best market themselves online...you want to show you're inclusive, but you don't want to make it seem like you're something you're not either.

[Virtuous Woman]

Men are not interested in pledging APO because all they see is women and if they do pledge its to get a girl.

What about other organizations that are co-ed? What do they do to maintain a more balanced sex ratio? I think chapters that lack male membership should actively recruit male members. The pledge process should be designed to weed out those who aren't truly commited to the fraternity and are just using Alpha Phi Omega as a dating service (although I must say that in my almost 4 years in the fraternity, I've never witnessed this).

I can say in the case of Beta Iota. It is as diverse as NYU is. The school is mostly White and so is the chapter. The other chapters in the section (97) are at schools with much higher percentages of minorities and it is reflected in the chapters. There is even a chapter in the section that is all-Black due to the demographics of the school. I think the diversity issue in APO is a result of the lack of diversity in higher education.

Now all of what I was saying was only referring to racial diversity but there are other types of diversity that I feel are more important. You can have a chapter at an HBCU and have a diverse membership (i.e. different majors, hometowns, religious beliefs, political beliefs, etc.). I think that this diversity was what was envisioned by our Lightbearer when he said

"The summer of my junior year was spent as an Associate Camp Director at the Easton Scout Reservation. Here I was impressed with the religious tolerance in the hearts of the boys. This I have not found so easily among older people. at camp,

Scouts of the Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant faiths worked together in everything... "

When I think of diversity in Alpha Phi Omega, I think of different people with different backgrounds and different outlooks with the same passion for making the world a better place joined together in friendship. That, to me, is Alpha Phi Omega.

[kschamehellan]

I stumbled upon this thread and thought I should weigh in and make a point or maybe to ask for help as well.

In terms of diversity APO is lagging behind the times, especially if we refer to multi-cultural diversity. There are whole chapters who do primarily draw members from under-represented minorities but look around at any convention and you will see that the majority of the brothers are white. The cause is probably not that we don't recruit minorities but that our active chapters are located at predominantly white schools. I think the chapters around my school do a great job in recruitment but when your school only has a 5% minority population and the rest are from NJ the chapter will be likewise. If we want more minority members look to new chapters

As for the issue on women. I'm not quite sure why men are no longer joining APO. I know it's a problem, my home chapter will have one man after I graduate and that's out of a chapter of fifty active brothers. I'm afraid the organization may come to reflect this change and it will further hurt recruitment but I'm at a loss as to how to recruit more men. My one suggestion is that we need to better define ourselves on the campuses where we exist, we need to tell everyone who we are and make that presence known.

On my campus my chapter is fully accepted and respected by the sororities on campus, they see it as a good path for a girl to choose. However, every fraternity in the school questions who we are, what we do and how can we be co-ed. I believe that if we better define ourselves and align our policies with those of predominantly male organizations we may see some turn around in this trend. But it's only an idea so I doubt I'll ever try it out. Any one else has suggestions I'd love to hear them though.

[33girl]

I know this is going to sound like I'm an unenlightened slave to the patriarchy and all that hoo hah.

But I think about something that happened in my chapter.

Two groups of 3 friends joined - 3 males and 3 females. All of them were active and involved and super into it when they first joined - by the time of their graduation only the females were still in. I believe it was because the women basically ran roughshod over the men. They brought their (female) friends to parties and pushed them hard for membership, they organized all the events, you name it. The guys got tired of it and quit. These were not "wussy" guys by any means, they just didn't want to eat sleep and breathe APO 27 hours in a day.

I think as a whole that women are more organized than men and in a group like APO where we really cannot select members based on personality, it sometimes can result in situations like I described.

Maybe this is more a personality thing than a male/female thing - I don't know. One thing I DON'T like to see is women or men using APO as a substitute for a social GLO. It turns into a social hour when what it should be about is doing service. Yes, there is a social component that's very important. It's why we call each other brothers. But when it turns into something that overrides the service component, that's when it needs to stop. I think this is something that probably harms many chapters.

[CasanovaAPQ]

I personally think that men are discuraged by the frat being that there are so many women and they have nothing to identify with. Im going to state something that people may be mad at but if you look at the co-ed chapter compare to the all male chapter, some of our oldest contiunest chapter today are the all male chapter. They have no problems recruiting and keeping guys interested on there campuses. and im not only talking about the all male black chapter, there are all white male chapters to tha have been active for a long time. I think we should model after the other co-ed organizations out there like Kappa Kappa Psi, Tau Beta Sigma, Gamma Sigma Sigma, and thats to let single gender chapters start up. There is not an answer to making chapters more diverse but to get more male interest in the frat we should allwo for all male chapters to reactivate, There have been alot fo efforts turned down because chapters did not have the co-ed "quota". I personally feel if we are about service no one should be turned down from our org male or female, same thing goes for a chapter that wants to reactivate all female, to me thats a form a discrimination our fraternities part.

Also there should be some pics of minorities chapters on the website, i mean minorites will pledge something they can identify to, APO should have somethign for everyone which it does but as a minority at a mostly white school i would like to be part of an org that i can identify myself with and looking at the website i would thing APO does not identify with any minorities.

[Dionysus]

Interchapter wise I don't have an opinion yet, I'm still learning a lot about different chapters across the country! As for my chapter, I learned that diversity can sometimes have a dark side (no pun intended,lol). When we started as an interest group a few years ago, we stressed diversity almost as much as community service. Our interest group was half black and half white. We had native africans, bosnians, koreans, latinos, gays/lesbians, older students....you name it. Unfortunately, in our interest group and petitioning days we had some drama. We were losing people as fast as we were gaining new people. It was like we were going in so many different directions. Eventually, we stopped focusing so much on diversity and started focusing more on common goals. At the same time, our chapter started blossoming. There was less drama and more retention. Yes, we lost some "diversity" for a while, but I think it was worth it. However, we're now gaining it back.

In other words, intrachapter wise, I think stressing common interests and goals is more important than stressing diversity. Hopefully, diversity will follow.

[CasanovaAPQ]

i can not agree with that comment, to say losing diversity is a good thing is the same mentality that is in APO today, yes people of different backgrounds, color, religion, sexual orenation, etc.. will have difference of opinions but whne you take that oath to the frat, you dont take a oath to be LEADER to you own kind, to be a FRIEND to only people like to, and only do SERVICE for those you feel are in need. With diversity comes conflict but in a good way, if everyone was the same they there wouldnt be any point to this org. People need to realize the our founder wanted us to be BROTHERS who did service, not people who did SERVICE and then became brothers. APO was for all people. To say that diversity sometimes messes up a chapter because everyone does not see things the same is a prime example of how alot of chapter feel today. there are some black chapters that dont do service with white chapter cause they feel they arent repping the frat the right way and there are some white chapter who do the same thing. That comment is one of the comments that should never come out of a APO brothers mouth in my opinion but you do have a right to your won opinion and im not downing you for you opinion.

And as far as the mulicultrual discussion either, we are a multicultrual org, im not saying we should change the name to APO national multicultrual org, but i an say like brother darden stated, we should promote that we are an org about and for everyone. and there is this confusion about APO and being a social org, its like this ALL minority organizations are SERVICE orgs. what makes people see them as sure is there stepping, party walking, calls traditions, we do the same thing, we have a hand sign, national song, secrets of the org and even a secret hand shake and secret words. we are a frat people. People get so caught up with SERVICE that they miss the brotherhood part or think if they get to much into brotherhood then there trying to be a social org. there is no idfferent of apo and a minority greek and trust me in a minority greek, im in the greek who started the whole stepping, calls, etc.. NO minority greek did that stuff before the 60's. there are also alot of APO chapter who do that stuff, so are they trying to be social?

[33girl]

Originally posted by CasanovaAPQ
i can not agree with that comment, to say losing diversity is a good thing is the same mentality that is in APO today, yes people of different backgrounds, color, religion, sexual orenation, etc.. will have difference of opinions but whne you take that oath to the frat, you dont take a oath to be LEADER to you own kind, to be a FRIEND to only people like to, and only do SERVICE for those you feel are in need. With diversity comes conflict but in a good way, if everyone was the same they there wouldnt be any point to this org. People need to realize the our founder wanted us to be BROTHERS who did service, not people who did SERVICE and then became brothers. APO was for all people. To say that diversity sometimes messes up a chapter because everyone does not see things the same is a prime example of how alot of chapter feel today. there are some black chapters that dont do service with white chapter cause they feel they arent repping the frat the right way and there are some white chapter who do the same thing. That comment is one of the comments that should never come out of a APO brothers mouth in my opinion but you do have a right to your won opinion and im not downing you for you opinion.

I don't think she meant that losing diversity was a "good" thing.

I think she meant that they put diversity solely for the sake of diversity over service and commitment to the fraternity, which was a mistake. And yes there are times when conflict is good, but in this case the conflict was so strong it got in the way of the fraternity's mission.

T, am I right?

To wit: there was a returning student (she was probably around 40) in my pledge class. She continually bitched about the service hours required, how the fraternity was being run, etc etc...she finally quit. Yes it would have been cool to have a returning student and show that we were open to that segment...we were...but her BS was not worth it. I'm saying that about her as a PERSON - not as a segment of the population.