[17654] in APO-L
Section 77 and all-male chapters
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Todd Smith)
Wed Nov 19 19:11:47 1997
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 19:10:02 EST
Reply-To: Todd Smith <phantomyankee@HOTMAIL.COM>
From: Todd Smith <phantomyankee@HOTMAIL.COM>
To: Multiple recipients of list APO-L <APO-L@VM.CC.PURDUE.EDU>
As some of you may already know, I am member of Upsilon Rho Chapter in
Section 77. Our section has two all-male chapters, Gamma Lambda at
Clemson and Kappa Tau at the Citadel. The rest of the chapters in our
section are co-ed. This does not mean we view the brothers of those
chapters any differently. Nor do they view us as different.
Kappa Tau is all-male because until recently, its school was all-male.
Though the Citadel has gone co-ed, Kappa Tau has chosen to remain
all-male. None of the brothers I know from there has said anything about
the school forcing them to go co-ed. Gamma Lambda has remained co-ed by
choice and maintains a sister sorority on their campus. As many APhiO
chapters did before going co-ed. They regard themselves as
traditionalists, not male chauvinists or sexists.
The remaining chapters of our section are all co-ed and some are very
female dominated. The current and two previous presidents of Upsilon Rho
have all been female. The president of Iota Mu, University of South
Carolina, last year was female. These differences in memberships of the
chapters actually help our section by providing us with differing
viewpoints. While the rest of the section became co-ed, these chapters
remained all-male becuse they could and they wanted to. Does this make
them any less brothers for not admitting females? Personally I don't
think so.
Upsilon Rho itself did not become co-ed until 1986, ten years after the
agreement in question. Our chapter did this because females were
starting to outnumber males on our campus and the chapter felt it had
readied itself for this. We took our time before deciding to go ahead
with the co-ed switch and did it on our own, for our own reasons not
because we were forced to. So my brothers, if we do decide to make the
all-male chapters become co-ed in the future. Give them time to adjust
and ready themselves for how they will do it and let them make it a
gradual process. Don't expect them to change overnight because they
might not be able to or they just might leave the national fraternity.
By the way, will new chapters getting their charters now be able to
start off as all-male or must they be co-ed from the start?
Remember the famous philosophy of Star Trek my brothers, "I.D.I.C.=
Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations."
In LFS,
Todd "Yankee" Smith
VP-Service Upsilon Rho
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