Alabama recruitment fall-out

[AOII Angel]

Originally Posted by Cheerio

One Christian University I can think of, St Leo's in Florida, has always had the pleasure of diversity within its NPC groups since NPC's began colonizing there thirty years ago.

I'll have to look. Also, the newest chapters being colonized are all diverse. Our colonizing teams are taking the time to recruit women from all ethnic groups that they can. It makes me very proud. I just hope those chapters can keep the promise of their colonizing classes.

[Hartofsec]

Originally Posted by AOII Angel

In other parts of the country, my experience from advising in Maryland, AZ and CA is that chapters are NOT excluding women based on race.

One point I have seen raised in this thread is that removing the possibility of exclusion based on race is not enough to integrate chapters (such as Alabama, for instance) - that more needs to be done to recruit AA members. This is a valid point considering the preparation necessary to participate in a recruitment of this nature.

I looked at the University of Maryland AOII facebook, and did not see AA members (and none among those in white dresses - are these new initiates?).

The Arizona State University Panhellenic Recruitment Guide doesn't reflect NPC chapter membership of AA women either:

http://asupan.com/wp-content/uploads...oklet20121.pdf

Just using those examples as you mentioned these states.

So I guess my question is -- what threshold of AA membership is considered "fully integrated" and sufficient to claim that a chapter is racially diverse?

Do these chapters actively recruit AA women? What have the chapters you advised done to address recruitment of potential members from diverse racial and socio-economic backgrounds?

[AOIILisa]

I looked at AOII Maryland's tumblir, and I thought I did see an AA member?



AAs are 12% of the Maryland student population, and Greeks are 15% of the student population. The whole chapter is pretty white, but I did see Asian and Latina members. The one chapter I advise has AA members (St. Joseph's U) but the other does not (U Maine) - but there just aren't that many AA students at Maine. When I read our national magazine, AOII seems like it is very diverse, but I guess it depends on the school.

[DubaiSis]

It's a lot easier to START with diversity than to try to introduce it to a strong, stable 100 year old chapter. But that doesn't mean you don't try.

[AZTheta]

Originally Posted by Hartofsec

One point I have seen raised in this thread is that removing the possibility of exclusion based on race is not enough to integrate chapters (such as Alabama, for instance) - that more needs to be done to recruit AA members. This is a valid point considering the preparation necessary to participate in a recruitment of this nature.

I looked at the University of Maryland AOII facebook, and did not see AA members (and none among those in white dresses - are these new initiates?).

The Arizona State University Panhellenic Recruitment Guide doesn't reflect NPC chapter membership of AA women either:

http://asupan.com/wp-content/uploads...oklet20121.pdf

Just using those examples as you mentioned these states.

So I guess my question is -- what threshold of AA membership is considered "fully integrated" and sufficient to claim that a chapter is racially diverse?

Do these chapters actively recruit AA women? What have the chapters you advised done to address recruitment of potential members from diverse racial and socio-economic backgrounds?

Re - the bolded. Are. You. Serious? SMH. You are missing the point entirely. If you go to the Arizona websites on various sororities, you may or may not see the diversity of membership (and I'm not talking solely about race) - it all depends on who is selecting the photos and who happened to be in the photos that were selected. Sheesh.

Surely you know that you can't judge ethnicity based on a photograph. Right?

As for your "what threshold" question, perhaps you'd like to formulate a research question, based on scientific principles and do the investigation? That would be a good use of time and energy.

[KDCat]

Originally Posted by Hartofsec

One point I have seen raised in this thread is that removing the possibility of exclusion based on race is not enough to integrate chapters (such as Alabama, for instance) - that more needs to be done to recruit AA members. This is a valid point considering the preparation necessary to participate in a recruitment of this nature.

I looked at the University of Maryland AOII facebook, and did not see AA members (and none among those in white dresses - are these new initiates?).

The Arizona State University Panhellenic Recruitment Guide doesn't reflect NPC chapter membership of AA women either:

http://asupan.com/wp-content/uploads...oklet20121.pdf

Just using those examples as you mentioned these states.

So I guess my question is -- what threshold of AA membership is considered "fully integrated" and sufficient to claim that a chapter is racially diverse?

Do these chapters actively recruit AA women? What have the chapters you advised done to address recruitment of potential members from diverse racial and socio-economic backgrounds?

I dunno. I just worked with the KD chapter at WUSTL for two years, though, and the WUSTL greek system is more integrated than I dreamed possible.

One clue is when someone from one sorority looked at someone from another chapter at WUSTL and said with a little bit of a whine and a little bit of envy: "Why do YOU get all the good black women?"

It was that way when when KD got there, though. WUSTL is a crazily diverse school.

[AOII Angel]

I also never said I advised at the University of Maryland or the University of AZ. I might also add that AZ is the whitest state that I have ever lived in, but the chapter that I advised at NAU had several African American members while I was there.

[DrPhil]

Some of you are playing the "sprinkle game".

[AOII Angel]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

Some of you are playing the "sprinkle game".

There are many chapters out there that actually are not. They just recruit women that they like and that includes women of all ethnicities. Trying to look at pictures of chapters and count out the number of dark faces is ridiculous. I can look at the pictures of my chapters in AZ and CA and know that these chapters are diverse and integrated. When they vote on membership, race is never an issue.

[Hartofsec]

Originally Posted by AOIILisa

I looked at AOII Maryland's tumblir, and I thought I did see an AA member?



AAs are 12% of the Maryland student population, and Greeks are 15% of the student population. The whole chapter is pretty white, but I did see Asian and Latina members. The one chapter I advise has AA members (St. Joseph's U) but the other does not (U Maine) - but there just aren't that many AA students at Maine. When I read our national magazine, AOII seems like it is very diverse, but I guess it depends on the school.

You did see one. The only one in 240 pictures of sisters on that Tumblr (I stopped counting after that point). I didn't see any on their facebook page. The national magazine of any GLO at Alabama would seem diverse as well.

Thus my question:

What threshold of AA membership is considered "fully integrated" and sufficient to claim that a chapter is racially diverse?

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by Hartofsec

Do these chapters actively recruit AA women? What have the chapters you advised done to address recruitment of potential members from diverse racial and socio-economic backgrounds?

Very few chapters anywhere actively recruit any specific target group because they are dependent on which women the College Panhellenic in general recruit to participate.

To make this a productive conversation- let's ask - What could College Panhellenics do to get more women of color to go through recruitment? Since most schools promote recruitment through the organization fairs at the beginning of the school year or at freshman orientation, what would help?

I agree that the photos on a group's web site may not be representative of the chapter's actual demographics, that is a place to consider making changes. Photos on websites and in brochures should show women of color (with a variety of physical characteristics, I might add) because someone going to those web sites wants to see that there are members "like them" in some way. If you go to a site and see a bunch of thin women with long blonde hair, blue eyes, all in Lily and you do not fit that mold, you're going to think you wouldn't fit in with them.

Then compare those pics to this one- Hypo's "family" in AXO at Columbia

[AOII Angel]

Originally Posted by Hartofsec

You did see one. The only one in 240 pictures of sisters on that Tumblr (I stopped counting after that point).

Thus my question:

What threshold of AA membership is considered "fully integrated" and sufficient to claim that a chapter is racially diverse?

Note: I never said I have any experience with this chapter. I advised at Towson, four years ago. I don't know the make up of recruitment at UMD, so you can stop trolling the UMD AOII FB page. How about you look at the AOII NAU page?

The difference in how these chapters handle race and how the chapters at Alabama handle race is that when qualified AA PNMs go through recruitment, they ALL get bids. At Alabama, NONE of them get bids. The chapters at UMD and Towson are examples of Strong recruiting chapters which I discussed earlier that are subject to the diversity of the formal recruiting mix. In my experience at Towson, the AA students typically did quite well in recruitment. These chapters could have more diversity, but they are not discriminatory.

The chapters I have worked with in AZ and CA are much more diverse and have a much greater opportunity through COB to approach and recruit women of other ethnicities that may not normally go through formal recruitment.

[Hartofsec]

Originally Posted by AZTheta

Re - the bolded. Are. You. Serious? SMH. You are missing the point entirely. If you go to the Arizona websites on various sororities, you may or may not see the diversity of membership (and I'm not talking solely about race) - it all depends on who is selecting the photos and who happened to be in the photos that were selected. Sheesh.

Surely you know that you can't judge ethnicity based on a photograph. Right?

That appears to be the demographic "data" used by many speculating on chapter/campus diversity -- what data are you working with?

As a Southern alumna, I am embarrassed by the lack of diversity in the Southern chapters, but have been pleasantly surprised many times in the past few years when chapter pictures are displayed on FB from our smaller chapters in the South which show increasingly diverse groups which include African American women.

What threshold of AA membership is considered "fully integrated" and sufficient to claim that a chapter is racially diverse?

One member? A percentage that reflects the enrollment of a particular race?

What do the chapters you advise do to actively recruit potential members of diverse racial and socio-economic backgrounds?

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by Hartofsec

One member? A percentage that reflects the enrollment of a particular race?

What do the chapters you advise do to actively recruit potential members of diverse racial and socio-economic backgrounds?

Very few chapters anywhere actively recruit any specific target group because they are dependent on which women the College Panhellenic in general recruit to participate.

To make this a productive conversation- let's ask - What could College Panhellenics do to get more women of color to go through recruitment? Since most schools promote recruitment through the organization fairs at the beginning of the school year or at freshman orientation, what would help?

[AOII Angel]

We are apparently going to play the obtuse poster who only wants to post the same question over and over again rather than accept the obvious that Alabama and a few other campuses in the South really are less diverse than the rest of the country.