[12998] in APO-L
Re: Greek Councils (caution long)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Randy Finder)
Tue Oct 17 14:16:57 1995
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 14:12:31 -0400
Reply-To: Randy Finder <naraht@DRYCAS.CLUB.CC.CMU.EDU>
From: Randy Finder <naraht@DRYCAS.CLUB.CC.CMU.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list APO-L <APO-L@VM.CC.PURDUE.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <01HWJQ23JPKWQT6M8V@DRYCAS.CLUB.CC.CMU.EDU>
On Tue, 17 Oct 1995, Jason Jones wrote:
> To: multiple recipients of APO-L <APO-L@VM.CC.PURDUE.EDU>
>
> Hey, Brothers, one and all:
>
> Since Randy Finder mentioned Capital University's Greek Council and I am an APO
> brother at Capital, and Upsilon Rho chapter is interested in knowing what it is
> like to be a FORMER member of Greek Council, I have to take the bait.
Cool. First hand knowledge!
This response will be long since it represents an article of the SCAA I
have been thinking about quite a bit over the last couple of years.
>
> First, I like to say that Randy mentioned the bylaws prohibiting APO's
> membership in Greek Council, but what he did not know (through no fault of his
> own) was that the bylaws prohibit membership in Greek councils that are SOLELY
> SOCIAL fraternities (and sororities). CU's Greek Council includes Phi Beta
> (a professional fine arts fraternity), Omega Phi Alpha, a service sorority;
> Phi Mu Alpha, a professional music fraternity, Alpha Kappa Alpha and Delta Sigma
> Theta, two black service sororities. These organizations' memberships
> automatically nullifies any assumptions about APO's membership into an all
> all-social Greek Council.
I agree with Baird's manual of American College Fraternities of grouping
of Greek Letter Organizations. The editors group GLOs into 4 categories:
Social, Professional, Honorary, & Recognition. Within Recognition, there
is a sub-grouping for Service (Includes APO, GSS, Intercollegiate Knights,
& Collegiate Spurs). The NPHC fraternities, IFC fraternities and the other
socials are all listed together. (Similarly for the Sororities)
Just as I feel that joining a Greek council becuase Gamma Phi Beta is a
member violates the spirit of the article, (the only sorority which is a
sorority according to its own by-laws), I also see using the fact that
there are NPHC greeks on there as violating the spirit. However OPhiA &
Phi Mu Alpha do make a "wider" greek council.
The fact is that the article is could be written better. We are basing our
what our chapters are able to do on internal definitions of other
organizations. There are several characteristics that we can base things
on other than whether they call themselves "social", some of which have
other problems.
1) Do the groups maintain housing for their members. Become irrelevant at
schools with NO greek housing.
2) Do the groups have limitations on whether student can join other groups.
I believe that the NIC,NPC, &NPHC have mutually exclusive membership clauses
as part of joining (but I think you can belong to both an IFC & NPHC
fraternity simultaneously, theoretically)
3) Single Gender. Bad both becuase of single gender APO chapters AND
co-ed socials.
Number 2 is perhaps the best, but becomes difficult to phrase.
"...shall not join any organization where for any two groups on the
organization an agreement shall exist prohibiting membership in both of
the organizations at the same time..." (I'd really like this improved)
OTOH, both number 2 and the current could lead to problems if another
organizations (say GSS) has the same rules and neither could join until
the other did.
>
> He was right about being APO being forced to join Greek Council--until
> recently. After a long battle of attempting to disengage from Greek Council,
> a couple of weeks ago, we finally succeeded by submitting a letter to the Greek
> coordinator stating such action, with reasons including the rather high member-
> ship dues to belong to the Council, the inability to attend council meetings
> due to the large volume of service projects we are executing this (and next)
> semester--and training pledges, and most importantly, the credence the social
> Greeks has been receiving, whereas the professional and service Greeks has been
> getting "kicked to the curb". The coordinator was royally pissed with our
> walkout, however we told him that if the situation changed, i.e. we was made to
> feel more welcome in action(s) than in name only, we would consider returning.
> Until then, sayonara.
Good luck! OTOH, it could have been worse, the honoraries could have been
members. :)
>
> As "punishment" the coordinator said we would not be notified or invited
> to any Greek events, but as you can see, our hearts are bleeding over that one
> (smile). Nevertheless, our letters are still on Schaaf Hall (a dorm with the
> best campus view), and we are still recognized by the university (reluctantly).
>
The last is the key. If the university doesn't recognize you, *PFIT*,
there goes the charter...
> So, to conclude, what the university and the social Greeks fail to
> realize is that for the most part, APO is THE model fraternity on the Capital
> University campus, and if APO gets thrown off campus, most likely the other
> organizations will fall like dominoes. We're THAT good.
>
Make sure you keep it that way!
YiLFS
Randy Finder
Kappa (Carnegie-Mellon) Alumnus
Section 84 staff
> Peace.
> Jason M. Jones
> via Rho Theta chapter
> Brothers of the Rising Sun!!
>
--
Leadership, Friendship and Service - Alpha Phi Omega
