[9686] in APO-L
Changing Traditions
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Deborah Nina Cherry)
Thu Oct 6 14:57:43 1994
Date: Thu, 6 Oct 1994 14:53:21 -0400
Reply-To: Deborah Nina Cherry <dc30+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU>
From: Deborah Nina Cherry <dc30+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list APO-L <APO-L%PURCCVM.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu>
Without getting into any of the specific debates, I'd like to encourage
everyone to read through the A Phi O National History Book which was
recently published (last year ?). Although it is by no means exhaustive,
it gives a lot of history about many of our traditions. Some things in
particular, many of which I didn't know at all or specifically what had
changed:
-The Coat of Arms was modified
-H. Roe Bartle did a major rewrite of the initiation ceremony
-Kappa (my chapter) came up with a "new" pledging ceremony (I had no ide
a)
-That we were almost the FMB- The Fraternity of Mound Builders
-That the second verse to the Toast Song was added in the 50's (as has
been mentioned here)
If your chapter doesn't already own a copy, I'd recommend purchasing a
chapter copy from Nationals to add to your chapter library, it's
fascinating reading.
I'm not saying this means we should feel free to change our traditions
on a whim, these kind of changes should not be undertaken lightly, and
by the entire Fraternity (that's whnat National Conventions are for).
But if your sole argument on something is that "we can't change
tradition," "the founders didn't mean/want it that way," or "that's how
it's always been," you may be surprised to find out that it may have
already changed (maybe several times). We are an evolving organization,
not a relic of 1926, if we were, we'd still be 1 chapter of Eagle Scouts
at Lafayette College.
Yours in LFS,
Debbie Cherry
Life Member, Kappa Chapter
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA
INTERNET or BITNET: dc30@andrew.cmu.edu
