Toast Song

[arvid1978]

Originally Posted by naraht

I did a Google search on them and one article (http://www.wabash.edu/news/displayst...m?news_ID=3520) said they had been advised for the last 20 years by Terri Fyffe and Larry Frye. I found another article that clearly showed Terri as a woman (http://bachelor.wabash.edu/issues/2003s/issue6.pdf). I've heard a Region VI staff member describe them as a co-ed chapter that just doesn't happen to have any female brothers.

That's a fairly accurate description of them, I think.

Originally Posted by naraht

Of the Regions that currently have no all-male chapters at co-ed schools (AMC@CS) (III,VI,VIII,&X/XI), I know where the last was in two of these, III (Morgan State-Mu Gamma) and VIII (Parks College of SLU-Theta Xi). I have no idea where the last AMC@CS was in either VI or X/XI (XI has never had one, the last AMC@CS in Region X predates the X/XI split by at least a decade). I'm not counting Rose Hulman for VI even though there was one year (semester?) when they fit that definition. There were only something like 6 women taking classes there and they lived in dorms at another college.

I wouldn't count Tau Lambda (Rose-Hulman) either, as it wasn't single-gender by choice. I honestly do not know how long it took our chapters to go co-ed. I'm confident in saying that most of Illinois (at the time) went co-ed right away, if they weren't already jumping the gun. I'd assume Indiana, with it's large number of inactive chapters, probably did "co-ed or die". No idea about Michigan, though.

[naraht]

Originally Posted by arvid1978

I wouldn't count Tau Lambda (Rose-Hulman) either, as it wasn't single-gender by choice. I honestly do not know how long it took our chapters to go co-ed. I'm confident in saying that most of Illinois (at the time) went co-ed right away, if they weren't already jumping the gun. I'd assume Indiana, with it's large number of inactive chapters, probably did "co-ed or die". No idea about Michigan, though.

From what I understand Tau Lambda asked the RD whether they needed to go co-ed as soon as the school did and were *specifically* told they didn't have to get one of the first six women who were students and that it probably wasn't a good idea if they tried. They however did get one of the next group of women (~20) on campus.

I don't think any of the Regions really tried for co-ed or die at any time prior to 2006...

Randy

[arvid1978]

Originally Posted by naraht

I don't think any of the Regions really tried for co-ed or die at any time prior to 2006...

No, I'm not saying they were directed to go co-ed or die, I'm just guessing that the chapters in Indiana that didn't go co-ed all died out, because up until recently they were down to, what 7-8 chapters in the state out of 16 or so charters total?

[naraht]

Originally Posted by arvid1978

No, I'm not saying they were directed to go co-ed or die, I'm just guessing that the chapters in Indiana that didn't go co-ed all died out, because up until recently they were down to, what 7-8 chapters in the state out of 16 or so charters total?

Well, that is about the average for the Fraternity, we only have about half of our charters active.

[KAPital PHINUst]

Originally Posted by naraht

Well, that is about the average for the Fraternity, we only have about half of our charters active.

That has always been that way for at least as long as I have been a brother (15 years +). Personally I find that to be pretty dang pathetic, but that's just me.

[naraht]

Originally Posted by KAPital PHINUst

That has always been that way for at least as long as I have been a brother (15 years +). Personally I find that to be pretty dang pathetic, but that's just me.

Well, I tend to look at the glass as more than half full in at least some ways. There are certainly inactive chapters at schools that ,IMO,*should* have chapters that only lack someone to get it started like University of Kansas, UN-Reno or U of Miami. However, I'm not sure that these represent a majority of the inactive chapters in the Fraternity.

I'd say that a siginificant number of those schools with inactive chapters are schools that fall into one of a couple of categories:

A) Closed, there are 13 chapters that will never exist again, including Central YMCA where APO President Pinky Hirsch initiated.

B) Smaller Community Colleges. APO has (at a guess about 40 charters mostly from the late 1960s and 1970s) that are at CCs, and while some are larger like the ones at Tarrant County, OTOH, you have a few like Herkimer County (NY) Community College where the total *county* population is 64,000 (a little bigger that the student body of Ohio State).

C) Religious Schools that right now don't trust anything calling itself a Fraternity and only trusted us back in the 30's, 40's & 50's because the Council Scout Executive (a good God fearing man) talked directly to the Dean of Men. (Perhaps an exageration, but for a few, I expect pretty close).


It also varies *significantly* from area to area. Western Pennsylvania (64/65/66) has 21 active and 3 inactive. OTOH, New York city/LI (97)has 3 active and 16 inactive. (oddly enough there are areas of significant percentage of the chapters are inactive at each of the compass points (Wisconsin, NYC, LA/MS and UT))

The closest two inactive chapters to where I am sitting are not likely targets any time soon. Gallaudet University (I still don't understand why) and Northern Virginia Community College-Annandale. Instead, the extension in the area is to schools where we haven't had chapters before: Uof DC, U of Maryland-Baltimore County and Salisbury University...

YiLFS
Randolph Finder

[GMUAPhiOAdvisor]

Originally Posted by naraht

The closest two inactive chapters to where I am sitting are not likely targets any time soon. Gallaudet University (I still don't understand why) and Northern Virginia Community College-Annandale. Instead, the extension in the area is to schools where we haven't had chapters before: Uof DC, U of Maryland-Baltimore County and Salisbury University...

YiLFS
Randolph Finder

Randy,
As a former Gallaudet student, I "think" I know why Gally isn't on the list for rechartering. There are several factors to take into account:

1) The language barrier. Other than myself, I have yet to meet another fluent, hearing signer who could go in and help the rechartering efforts. That, coupled with having someone learn all rituals in ASL (which I had to do for my social sorority, at a National Convention no less, which I joined at Gally). From experience, I can tell you it's no easy feat.

2) All Gally students are required to complete 80 hours of community service prior to graduation. Given that they already have to do this, having a service fraternity only duplicates the required hours. Again, from experience, I have heard enough grumbling from students about THOSE hours, and I'm not sure anyone would join A Phi O to do more.

3) As the face of Gallaudet changes, so too does the face of the Greek system. There are several social GLOs on campus, but few of them are "national" organizations. Gallaudet, being the center of the Deaf community, has several GLOs that were founded by Deaf, for Deaf. There are currently four social sororities - Phi Kappa Zeta, Delta Epsilon, Alpha Sigma Theta and Delta Zeta. Of these, DZ is the only national group and the reason it was only chartered there is because DZ's national philanthropy is speech and hearing. Not that this is exactly what Gallaudet stands for, but back in the 90's, Gally was not as "Deaf-centric" as it is now. Then, it was more accepting of people whose first language wasn't ASL. Now, as the Deaf community shrinks due to genetic testing and the implantation of cochlear implants in younger and younger children, the Deaf community has become more insular. (This is a similar situation with the social fraternities as well)

4) As the number of Deaf of Deaf shrinks, so does the number of incoming students into the school. The incoming freshman class when I started at Gally (2001-2002) was less than 300 students, and of those 7 of us were hearing. The school is struggling to stay viable now, and it will only get worse as the years pass. With that "shrinkage", the student body will become more "Deaf" and those students who are from generationally Deaf families will want to join the fraternities and sororities that mom and dad joined, and those will tend towards the ones that were founded by the Deaf, for the Deaf.

HOWEVER...having said all this, should A Phi O choose to try and recharter at Gally, I'm happy to lend a hand (or both, as they're both used in ASL )

[arvid1978]

Originally Posted by KAPital PHINUst

That has always been that way for at least as long as I have been a brother (15 years +). Personally I find that to be pretty dang pathetic, but that's just me.

Eh, I don't see it as pathetic, it's a sign of the ever-changing dynamics and demographics of college students. It would be great to get some of our inactive charters back, but sometimes it just isn't in the cards. Considering how groundbreaking APO has been in terms of it's expansion (taking a fraternity based on Scouting, with 100% Caucasian founders and chapters, to HBCU's during the time of "separate but equal, opening membership to women and treating them as equals during a time when most women were sent to college to get their "Mrs.", bringing APO to commuter schools), there had to be something that wouldn't work out very well. Expanding to community colleges during the 60's and 70's is our something that didn't work out well. We were too aggressive and didn't take into consideration the fluidity and turnover of community college students, which is much higher than at four-year campuses. I think it could work at some community colleges (granted, I'm a sponsor to a community college effort), but the student dynamic has to be right, the section support constant, and the advisory committee phenomenal, but I digress.

There is also the general rebellion against all Greek-lettered organizations that you found in the 60's to 80's. ALL groups suffered membership losses, some national organizations even folded altogether. Those that could adapt to changing student needs survived, those who couldn't or wouldn't...didn't.