[19524] in APO-L
Re: Fraternity houses
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jamey Wood)
Tue Oct 27 20:00:40 1998
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 18:00:30 -0700
Reply-To: Jamey Wood <woodjr@COLORADO.EDU>
From: Jamey Wood <woodjr@COLORADO.EDU>
To: APO-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
A lot of people have given a lot of good arguments for chapters not to
have houses. However, not one person has been able to argue that if a
chapter were to have a house, it would somehow be violating what APO
stands for.
Bylaws such as the current ban on fraternity houses are unjustified
restrictions on the freedom of individual chapters. I believe that a chapter
should be able to do anything that it wants to, as long as it does not
violate the base values of APO or significantly threaten the name or liability
of the national organization. Our national structure in in place to support
chapters, not to stereotype and restrict them for the sake of convenience.
Most of the arguments against houses that I have seen on this list are
good ones. In fact, they are a perfect example of why a house is probably
a bad idea for my own chapter. But these arguments should be made on the
chapter level, where these decisions belong.
The few arguments that I do challenge are those saying that one brother's
membership dues would pay for another brother's housing, or that chapters
would turn away pledges when the house ran full. These arguments make
unwarranted assumptions about the local financing and management of a house.
Why couldn't a chapter place the entire financial burden for a house upon
those members who live in it? And who is to say that all pledges would be
required to live in the house? Again, these arguments place an outside
judgement upon decisions that should be made by the local chapter.
It has been successfully shown on this list why a house might not be
the right choice for the "average" chapter. But every APO chapter is
different. I cannot believe that there are no chapter whose circumstances
would make a house the right choice. Let them make that choice on their own.
--Jamey Wood, Gamma Theta
