[19466] in APO-L
Re: APO House
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (The Rogue Scholar)
Fri Oct 23 11:38:05 1998
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 10:38:00 -0500
Reply-To: The Rogue Scholar <macke@HBAR.WUSTL.EDU>
From: The Rogue Scholar <macke@HBAR.WUSTL.EDU>
To: APO-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
In-Reply-To: <981023003922.ZM6961@cii3130-21.rcs.rpi.edu>
As far as I can tell, there are two main purposes to having a house.
Discussion should focus on the merits or follies of both:
1) To have a place to serve as a "base of operations," such as storage,
office space, a place to hold meetings and rituals, etc.
2) To have a place where brothers live together.
(I'm going to try not to focus on the monetary aspect here, because
that's already been discussed quite a bit. Let's assume for the sake of
argument that all necessary moneys fell from the sky.)
As for point 1, I see no problem with that. Many chapters already have
office space provided on campus (though many are also stuck with only a
closet or not even that), and for the most part the needs for a "base of
operations" are met. Purchasing a building seems unnecessary, but I
wouldn't dispute the chapter's right to do so for only purpose #1.
The problem comes with point #2. Having a house is a serious detriment
to Alpha Phi Omega as a service fraternity. This is very different from
the case of a group of individual brothers choosing to live together in a
dorm room or apartment. First, they chose each other and chose to live
together. Second, they do not represent the whole chapter, but only a
small group of individuals.
With a house, things get far more complicated. First, the rush program
must become far more selective. Why? If you will have people living
together, they must be at least somewhat compatible. Also, there are only
a limited number of beds in a house, so some potential pledges may need to
be turned away just because of sheer numbers. Second, you rule out the
social greeks and other members of independent living groups as potential
members. Even if the chapter is not forced to become a part of the
campus's IFC, the members of greek fraternities will be forced to choose
between houses. Their own fraternities may not even give them that choice.
You may be prepared to rebut, "But you can solve those problems by just
permitting brothers to live either in house or elsewhere." This creates
its own problems, which leads to my third point here: houses have a
cloistering effect. They close the fraternity off from the rest of
campus life and even from the rest of the campus brotherhood. Those who
live outside the house would be "outsiders" to the rest of the chapter,
to be seen only at meetings and social events. Their odds of being
elected/selected for any leadership position would be drastically
reduced, and their sense of fellowship with the in-house brothers would
also suffer. And how do you choose who gets to live in the house and who
must find other living arrangements? In larger chapters this would
present a very large problem.
And then, there are issues of insurance and Risk Management (gasp! I said
the magic word!) which make right now an especially bad time to start
permitting chapters to have houses.
I have other points to make here, but I will close with just one more
point: houses may turn off some people who would otherwise fit the
Cardinal Principles to a T. I love my brothers and like spending time
with them, but you couldn't get me to live with many of them if my life
depended on it. I am not what you would call compatible for
cohabitation, and I know that. If APO had had a house, I never would
have pledged. I'm not just saying that; one of the things that finally
convinced me to pledge after many years resisting (because of the greek
letters) was that I was told we don't have houses.
In general, our Cardinal Principles are simply NOT any better served by
having houses, and clearly may suffer if we did have them.
I hope I'm being clear. I haven't had my caffeine yet this morning.
(I also hope that my points haven't already been posted in the time it
took me to write this message)
YiLFS,
---Bob Macke
AXcoAPO alum
Alpha Phi chapter active
Section 49 Service chair
