Status of all-male chapters

[Virtuous Woman]

I obviously feel a more intimate connection with our version of the Purpose than the original penned by Horton

How can you feel a closer connection to your chapter's purpose than that which was written by The Lightbearer himself?

They need to have their own organization if this is the mindset that they have.

[AndrewPiChi]

well, the current purpose that the chapter uses is what we pledged

The purpose, is very strongly emphasized by Pi Chi during the pledge period, if you do not know the purpose of the fraternity then why are you here?

[lisarpotter]

I am a member of Omega Phi Alpha, which I assume you all know is based off of A Phi O. I am curious about this situation because I find it strange that nationals would require all chapters to be co-ed. In OPA we are mostly all female chapters, however we do have chapters with male members. We do not discriminate against anyone who wants to join, and yet we are not forced to be co-ed.

Our purpose in OPhiA as far as I know, has always been:

The purpose and goals of this sorority shall be to assemble its members in the fellowship of Omega Phi Alpha, to develop friendship, leadership and cooperation by promoting service to the university-community, to the community-at-large, to the members of the sorority and to the nations of the world.

It does not contain any gender biased language, it simply refers to "members".

It would have been interesting to hear the discussion at convention when this action was voted on. It seems like there could have been a better compromise in the national organization rather than to say make these changes or leave.

By the way... does anyone know if there are any APO chapters still around in Arizona? I went to NAU, and there was a small chapter there when I was still in college, but I don't know if they are still around.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by lisarpotter

I am a member of Omega Phi Alpha, which I assume you all know is based off of A Phi O. I am curious about this situation because I find it strange that nationals would require all chapters to be co-ed.

APO and OPA have two different "nationals."

[lisarpotter]

Originally Posted by 33girl

APO and OPA have two different "nationals."

I never said they didn't.

ETA: I'm sorry if I wasn't clear before. I just meant that I thought it was strange that APO as a national organization would require all of its chapters to recruit women. I know our two separate organizations (OPA and APO) are similar, so I was just interested in how they, as a group, were handling this situation.

[33girl]

It seemed from the wording of your post that you were saying that. Just my interpretation.

You said that "you do not discriminate against anyone who wants to join." The problem is that some of the all male chapters were doing that (i.e. discriminating against women).

[gamma_girl52]

Originally Posted by 33girl

You said that "you do not discriminate against anyone who wants to join." The problem is that some of the all male chapters were doing that (i.e. discriminating against women).

I hope I am not out of order for asking, but are there any documented cases of this happening? That's a pretty strong statement to make.

Also another question. Wouldn't this ruling have an affect on any chapters that are all female, because to my understanding, the fraternity has a few of them as well? So aren't they discriminating towards men if that's the case?

Without quoting lisarpotter's whole post, Gamma Sig is the same way. We are mainly comprised of women, but we do have male members. However I couldn't see our organization making our chapters be co-ed. I also wonder if there were any attempts to compromise before this happened.

Again I hope I am not being out of line...but just wanting to know so I have a clearer picture.

[naraht]

Originally Posted by lisarpotter

I am a member of Omega Phi Alpha, which I assume you all know is based off of A Phi O. I am curious about this situation because I find it strange that nationals would require all chapters to be co-ed. In OPA we are mostly all female chapters, however we do have chapters with male members. We do not discriminate against anyone who wants to join, and yet we are not forced to be co-ed.

Our purpose in OPhiA as far as I know, has always been:

The purpose and goals of this sorority shall be to assemble its members in the fellowship of Omega Phi Alpha, to develop friendship, leadership and cooperation by promoting service to the university-community, to the community-at-large, to the members of the sorority and to the nations of the world.

It does not contain any gender biased language, it simply refers to "members".

It would have been interesting to hear the discussion at convention when this action was voted on. It seems like there could have been a better compromise in the national organization rather than to say make these changes or leave.

By the way... does anyone know if there are any APO chapters still around in Arizona? I went to NAU, and there was a small chapter there when I was still in college, but I don't know if they are still around.

If Omega Phi Alpha is not a social sorority, they are covered by Title IX just as Alpha Phi Omega is.

I would be interested any ideas that you might have as a compromise.

U of Arizona is active and running about 90-100 brothers. Arizona State is under 20 brothers, I think. Northern Arizona University is inactive, however efforts have taken place this semester in trying to bring it back.

[AndrewPiChi]

Originally Posted by Virtuous Woman

They need to have their own organization if this is the mindset that they have.

this comment was stated in response to the purpose???

How dare you make such an remark

I don't think anyone in Pi Chi, or Sigma Xi to the best on my knowledge, would type such a comment and fail another brother out of respect to fellowship regardless of the fact the chapter be All Male, All Female or Coed. We are all brothers, regardless of the chapters current membership policies, mind you these being in transition.

[33girl]

Andrew,

I'm getting really confused.

Can you perhaps write out the purpose your chapter uses so we can compare it with the original purpose penned by FRH and the current purpose?

It just sounds like you're saying your chapter took the Purpose and added/subtracted bits to get something you liked. If that's not the case, I'm sorry for thinking so.

[KAPital PHINUst]

Just for the record:

Sigma Xi chapter was not the first chapter to secede from APO due to being forced to go co-ed.

Theta Xi chapter (Parks College of St. Louis University) was an all male chapter that had to merge with another chapter when Parks College closed down. The chapter they merged with was co-ed and would not allow the all-male group to stay all male, so the all-male group seceded from Alpha Phi Omega and formed a social fraternity which later got picked up as a chapter of Theta Xi Fraternity.

Interesting story.

[naraht]

Originally Posted by KAPital PHINUst

Just for the record:

Sigma Xi chapter was not the first chapter to secede from APO due to being forced to go co-ed.

Theta Xi chapter (Parks College of St. Louis University) was an all male chapter that had to merge with another chapter when Parks College closed down. The chapter they merged with was co-ed and would not allow the all-male group to stay all male, so the all-male group seceded from Alpha Phi Omega and formed a social fraternity which later got picked up as a chapter of Theta Xi Fraternity.

Interesting story.

And pretty much correct. The additional information that I have heard on the issue is as follows.

At a non-APO level... Parks College was founded as an Aeronautical School in 1927 in Columbia Illinois. In 1946 he gave the school to St. Louis University. In fall 1997, St. Louis University decided to close down the campus in Illinois and move all Aeronautical and related programs onto the mail campus.

A timeline for Delta Delta chapter and Theta Xi chapter is at http://www.slu.edu/organizations/apo/timeline.html . To boil down, Delta Delta was chartered in 1944, Theta Xi was chartered in 1950. Delta Delta went inactive in 1971, and reactivated in 1990 (I believe it was reactivated co-ed). In 1997 when SLU-Parks was closed, all of the students at SLU-Parks became students at SLU Main campus.

As such, the question as to how to handle to the two charters came up. I know the Regional Director ended up at campus at one point in the discussion. Delta Delta was a fairly large chapter and I believe that internally had 3(?) families designed to help with giving a smaller group for some fellowship activities. One proposal was to allow the group from Theta Xi to become an additional family, with only male new brothers added to that family. I'm not sure whether that proposal was considered seriously.

I knew that the brothers of Theta Xi chapter had looked into forming a chapter of Theta Xi fraternity and I thought they had succeeded, but apparently that chapter of Theta Xi is not active any more if it was. Theta Xi National doesn't show a chapter at that school and Theta Xi isn't in the list of F/S at SLU.