GSS at Lynchburg College

[gamma_girl52]

Originally posted by daffodils
Gee, "we ain't no APO" almost sounds like you don't like those folks for some reason.

Oh no, not at all. I love me some APO. Just ask them over on their side of GC, I'm forever crashing it!

I was just saying that because it's like what 33girl said, they have some chapters that are entirely female. I can't see GSS being like that. Hence the quote "we ain't no APO" and the face. No love lost!

[naraht]

Originally posted by daffodils
Can a person then be both an APO and a GSS? Say if both were on a campus, could a girl or guy be in both? Ever seen this happen?

Yes. Mariza "Riz" Shavelle is both a brother of Alpha Phi Omega and a sister of Gamma Sigma Sigma. She refounded the chapter of APO @ U of Penn as an undergraduate, she was later at Drexel (which has (had?) an all-male APO chapter) and she joined GSS while there. If you want more info, her contact info is at http://www.pacirclek.org/contacts/kiwaniscom.shtml (she is also heavily involved in Circle K)

Randy

[gamma_girl52]

The APO chapter at Drexel (Zeta Theta) is still an all-male chapter.

It's not a regular occurrence, but it DOES happen. But from what I've seen, eventually a choice has to be made between the two.

[Diva06Sweet]

Originally posted by summer_gphib
We had 2 guys in our Gamma Sig chapter, and they weren't very well liked. They were the brother and fiance of one of the members, and caused us all kinds of grief. I never understood why they wanted to be in a sorority.... but they did. They caused our meetings to go longer, we had to be "very PC" or they would give us grief.. for example, you were a "chairperson" not a "chairwoman" *LOL*

I don't have good memories of having men in Gamma Sig, and really believe the bylaws should be changed to GIRLS only.

And we did have a very very active APO chapter on campus.

(my chapter was at Southeast Missouri State University)

aww one of my old chapters i was D1 Director

uh i hate to tell you this but GSS will not be single sexed again
although most men dont want to be in a sorority.

Not all APO chapters have to take women some are grandfathered and will never have women *this is according to them*
If i am not mistaken Omega Phi Alpha was started by APO so they didnt have to take women but i could be wrong.

[naraht]

Originally posted by Diva06Sweet


aww one of my old chapters i was D1 Director

uh i hate to tell you this but GSS will not be single sexed again
although most men dont want to be in a sorority.

Not all APO chapters have to take women some are grandfathered and will never have women *this is according to them*
If i am not mistaken Omega Phi Alpha was started by APO so they didnt have to take women but i could be wrong.

Little more complicated than that. All GLOs that are not social have to allow both genders. But that is *not* because Title IX places limitation on the organizations. it is because the law places limitations on the *school*. Any school which accepts Federal Monies,(and that includes accepting students who get Pell Grants, because those are ultimately federally backed)[1], may not allow non social GLOs that are not accessible to both genders.

Because of that, if a woman wants to sue under Title IX to get entry to the Alpha Phi Omega chapter at Drexel, they would have as the primary entity they would sue would be Drexel University, not Zeta Theta Chapter of Alpha Phi Omega or Alpha Phi Omega, Inc.

When Title IX came into effect, a large number of schools decided that they would be proactive in enforcing what Title IX said. So Alpha Phi Omega found it necessary to go co-ed to keep from losing a *large* number of chapters at the time. And they allowed the chapters that did want to remain all-male (and whose schools didn't force the co-ed) to remain so to keep them from seceding (though the question as to whether they would have been any more successful individually or as a group in fighting Title IX is, IMO, in doubt.)

And APO did work for some time trying to get out from under Title IX. There was a committee of the National Board to try to research how to get an exemption from Title IX until at least 1981.

The same laws that caused Alpha Phi Omega's changes equally apply to GSS and OPA, the chapters can remain single-gender until the school says otherwise, and the school saying otherwise may be their own decision or it may be caused by a lawsuit...

Randy

[naraht]

[1] Almost all colleges and universities count as federally funded in that regard. Most of the ones that aren't are fundamentalist protestant schools.

[preciousjeni]

Originally posted by gamma_girl52
Can a person be in both? Yep. I know of one personally.

I almost did that!

[gamma_girl52]

Well, you still could.

[tsugammasig2003]

Originally posted by daffodils
Can a person then be both an APO and a GSS? Say if both were on a campus, could a girl or guy be in both? Ever seen this happen?

Yeah that can happen My best friend is APO and GSS
I have never heard of Men in GSS but I have heard of GSS sweethearts

[Empress0105]

Originally posted by Diva06Sweet


aww one of my old chapters i was D1 Director

uh i hate to tell you this but GSS will not be single sexed again
although most men dont want to be in a sorority.

Not all APO chapters have to take women some are grandfathered and will never have women *this is according to them*
If i am not mistaken Omega Phi Alpha was started by APO so they didnt have to take women but i could be wrong.

please pardon if this is silly, but

if that is purely the case, then why do APO chapters that are rechartering HAVE to have a certain perentage of women to be reactivated? what if girls just don't wanna do APO at a certain school, does that mean they can't come back to campus

i can kinda see the logic in what you said, but speaking as an undergrad, most student activity offices could give a rats butt about who joins what org as long as they meet university requirements. there is a distinct difference between telling chapters they have to let both genders if both genders are trying to join, and forcing them to admit a certain amount of each gender in

when laws against racial discrimination came out, i didn't see any org force it's chapters/colonies to admit a certain percentage of minorities or else they can't operate...


maybe im misunderstanding you though...please enlighten me

[naraht]

Originally posted by Empress0105
please pardon if this is silly, but

if that is purely the case, then why do APO chapters that are rechartering HAVE to have a certain perentage of women to be reactivated? what if girls just don't wanna do APO at a certain school, does that mean they can't come back to campus

i can kinda see the logic in what you said, but speaking as an undergrad, most student activity offices could give a rats butt about who joins what org as long as they meet university requirements. there is a distinct difference between telling chapters they have to let both genders if both genders are trying to join, and forcing them to admit a certain amount of each gender in

when laws against racial discrimination came out, i didn't see any org force it's chapters/colonies to admit a certain percentage of minorities or else they can't operate...


maybe im misunderstanding you though...please enlighten me

There is no set quota. If we had an extension effort at Virginia Military Institute which has, as of 2003, had 1238 men and 68 women, I believe that such an extension group *could* charter with only men, however the local staff would try to be sure that the recruitment did not deliberately exclude the female cadets. Now that *doesn't* mean that the chapter specifically has to try to recruit at least one female, it just means that that the rush materials says "all cadets welcome" instead of "all men welcome" for example.

However at a school which is 40% male and 60% female, the staff would be *much* more incredulous if an effort contained only men.

These comments would be similarly true if the genders in them were reversed. The fraternity has had over the last 10 years, as far as I know, *one* single gender charter group at a co-ed school. That was Carlow College which is 99% female with an all-female chartering group.

My *personal* rule of thumb is that for *most* characteristics that govern student interaction, that percentages in the group (race, gender, college w/i a university, etc) shouldn't be off from that of the school by more than 25%. If they are, that doesn't necessarily mean that the group is unsuitable to charter, but it does mean that the group should ask whether students who might be interested in an under-represented group don't have the opportunity.


You are right that most student activities offices don't care, but that laxness, doesn't necessarily mean the National Fraternity required to be at that laxness.

As for Race. I'll put Alpha Phi Omega's track record on race up against any of the NIC Fraternities, many of them did not allow blacks until the 1960s and Alpha Phi Omega had it's first chapter at an HBCU in 1947.

Why should Alpha Phi Omega be limited by what the NIC fraternities do?

Sorry for rambling, I'm doing this at about 1AM.

[OhSoDetermined]

But can someone explain the relationship between APO and GSS versus the relationship between APO and OPA. Is there a relationship bewteen OPA and GSS? Are there any schools where all 3 organizations are active? Thanx

[naraht]

Originally posted by OhSoDetermined
But can someone explain the relationship between APO and GSS versus the relationship between APO and OPA. Is there a relationship bewteen OPA and GSS? Are there any schools where all 3 organizations are active? Thanx

There are no legal ties between them. However both GSS and Omega Phi Alpha did have some help at the beginning in terms of organization. (at least according to each group's history on their national page). However the APO national Office/Board knows about both OPA & GSS. I know that the national Board officially sent greetings and congratulations to GSS on its 50th, they may have done something similar for OPA, but I'm not sure.

There are no schools where all three are active. There is one school that has both OPA and GSS, Western KY, but that has no APO chapter. A full list of OPA's chapters can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Phi_Alpha and Gamma Sigma Sigma's chapters are on the national web page in the members area.

Randy

[gamma_girl52]

Originally posted by OhSoDetermined
But can someone explain the relationship between APO and GSS versus the relationship between APO and OPA. Is there a relationship bewteen OPA and GSS? Are there any schools where all 3 organizations are active? Thanx

Essentially, all three organizations are tied historically in some way. I can't speak for OPA, but for GSS, some of our founders were dating Alpha Phi Omega men at the time and wanted to form an organization that was similar to APO (keeping in mind that women didn't have the option of joining APO then). While that certainly isn't the MAIN reason for why we were founded, that's a factor.
Even during the early years of our sorority at our first few Conventions, a representative from the Fraternity was present. At our 50th Anniversary, we not only got an official congratulations from Alpha Phi Omega, but when we had celebrations in various areas, we had a representative from the Fraternity present in true historical fashion (we had the privilege of having the National President at the time attend ours in Atlanta).

There's no relationship between OPA and GSS other than the fact that we both have a historical tie to APO. We're a little older than OPA though.

There aren't any schools in which all three are active as Randy already stated.

[OhSoDetermined]

Thanx naraht and Gamma Girl for your responses. Will GC ever cease to amaze me?