[22581] in APO-L
Re: [APO-L] Gentlemens Agreement, Co-ed Re-activation
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Heather Lyons)
Fri Apr 26 16:41:51 2002
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
Message-ID: <F2423G9Vbj2ltpNebT900001308@hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 16:41:40 -0400
Reply-To: Heather Lyons <heatherapo@hotmail.com>
From: Heather Lyons <heatherapo@hotmail.com>
To: APO-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
I was a voting delegate at the 1996 and 1998 National Conventions. I had the
opportunity to be the 1998 Reference Committee Chair of the Membership and
Extention Committee (this was the committee that was given the Single Gender
Issue). The 1996 Reference committee that was given the single gender issue
could not make a informed recommendation to the convention (1996 Voting
Delegates). They made the recommendation to the floor that a task force be
formed to research the Single Gender Issue as well as the "Gentleman's
Agreement" and report their findings to 1998 National Convention. This
report was given to the 1998 Membership and Extension Reference Committee
and well as the legalistion regarding Single Gender Chapters. Our committee
was in session during most of the two days prior to the floor opening
talking to past and current Board members, other experts on the subject, and
opened the committee meeting for any member of the Fraternity that wanted to
provide feedback on the subject. We had brothers from current all male
chapters and brothers who were all-male and went co-ed. We found that most
of the all male chapters that went co-ed went because of membership issues.
The Single Gender issue is not only about all male chapters. What if a
chapter wanted to be chartered as all female? Another issue is what is the
National Fraternity's role in determining what a chapter membership make up
should be?
The 1998 Membership and Extension committee made the recommendation after
examining all the information presented to them to let all-male chapters
remain all-male until they decided to go co-ed and to require that chapters
chartering or re-chartering would be co-ed. Our presentation to the floor
lasted for 8 to 9 hours. I don't remember the exact time. Most of the debate
during this time was not about the Single Gender issue but about other
things such was the defintion of brother, and pledge. If I remember
correctly the debate regarding the Single Gender issues only lasted about 1
to 2 hours and most of the debate was to amend our recommendation to get rid
of all-male chapters. The floor voted to approve our recommendation.
If would suggest that if anyone would like more information on the subject
they get copies of the 1996 and 1998 Reference Committee Reports and copies
of the mintues.
My personal thoughts on the subject is that every organization grows and
changes with the world around it. As the enviroments on college and
university campus change any organization will need to grow and change to
stay alive. If APO never went co-ed would we would have survived on campuses
where we had active chapters?
Yours in Leadership, Friendship, and Service,
Heather
_________________________________________________________________
Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
