[13185] in APO-L
alcohol hubub
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michele Costabile Doney)
Sat Nov 4 01:32:11 1995
Date: Sat, 4 Nov 1995 01:30:29 -0500
Reply-To: Michele Costabile Doney <costabil@PILOT.MSU.EDU>
From: Michele Costabile Doney <costabil@PILOT.MSU.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list APO-L <APO-L@VM.CC.PURDUE.EDU>
I hope you'll forgive the staleness of this topic- I haven't been at a computer
in more than a week due to illness-- but it seems to me there was a little bit
of a fuss about alcohol use at APO-related gatherings a little while ago, and
since this is a topic near and dear to my heart, I can't log off tonight
without adding my .02.
During the time that I was pledging/active in my chapter, I found that there
was a core group of brothers, including the officers and about 1/3 to 1/2 of
the membership, that really seemed to be in the swing of things, and a sort of
peripheral remainder of people who showed up to projects and meetings, but who
weren't very vocal and didn't seem to be getting as much out of being a
brother. I quickly realized that, with a few exceptions, the people who were
part of this "in crowd" were the ones who were at the parties, and they
perpetuated their "in crowd" existence by constantly making references at
meetings to nicknames, private jokes, and mysterious incidents that they all
could laugh at but which the non-attendees of parties didn't get. Generally,
if your big brother was one of these people, you became one too, but if your
big brother was part of the non-partygoing group, i.e., participating in
service projects and meetings but not parties, you generally never got "in".
Unfortunately, I had the latter type of big bro, and I didn't get past the
not-"in" feeling until nationals at Boston, which unfortunately was at the
end of my last semester as an active. After a while, I started developing
close friendships with other members of the non-"in" crowd (clique, really,
cuz that's what they were- cliques), and we decided together to break into
the "ins" by biting the bullet, going against our nature, and going to one of
the infamous parties which we finally recognized for what they were- rites of
passage from regular brotherhood to "in" brotherhood. But since we weren't
drinkers, and since we didn't enjoy the kind of shameless sexism and reckless
behavior we experienced, we never could enjoy ourselves. So we quit going.
The sad part it, we really did enjoy the service projects and wanted to
participate more fully in our chapter, but we felt a very real obstacle
there, and we weren't prepared to participate in something that made us
uncomfortable in order to be accepted into an inner circle- isn't that the
essence of hazing, anyway?
Now, I imagine there are two types of people reading this post: people who
see this as a major whinefest on my part and deny that such a problem exists,
and people who know exactly what I'm talking about because they experienced
it themselves, whether they got past it or not. The problem is twofold,
really. First, there is the issue of large chapters where it's easy to be
overlooked and fall through the cracks, then there is the issue of social
activites which are based around alcohol which so dominate the chapter's social
calendar that nondrinkers and nonpartiers just never quite feel accepted. From
the point of view of this type of person, what goes on at many of those events
can be a far cry from the principles on which APO was founded. I would urge
all exec board members to evaluate their chapters with respect to this issue
and implement some sort of system to make sure that valuable members of the APO
community aren't lost or made to feel aliented. Providing a case of Pepsis at
a beer party isn't enough to make nondrinkers really feel like part of the
group.
Quite a whopping chunk for two cents, eh? Oh well, I'm sure it'll be
flame-o-rama in my mailbox come Monday, but this is something that I think
there needs to be a serious dialog about, and as an alumna with a grad student's
schedule, apo-l is pretty much my only vehicle. I appreciate your indulgence.
Regards,
Michele
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------
Michele Costabile Doney | No cool quote is available at this time.
costabil@pilot.msu.edu |
