[129] in APO News
Some thoughts for the newsletter and for apo-news
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (mosquito@leland.stanford.edu)
Fri Oct 16 00:26:46 1992
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 21:11:34 PDT
From: mosquito@leland.stanford.edu
To: apocrypha@Athena.MIT.EDU, apo-news@Athena.MIT.EDU
Here I am writing from Stanford. I wrote to apo-news earlier saying I
had a hard time finding Zeta.
Yes, Zeta chapter is still alive. They were just dead for the summer.
I've gone to a few meetings so far, but no service projects yet. :-(
Not sure I can make a beach cleanup this Sunday. I will go to an
elementary school and be with kids next week (it's a long-term project
we're starting). Looks like the pledge class will overwhelm the size
of the active brotherhood. Over 50 actively interested prospectives.
The meeting had many more prospectives than actives. We'll see how many
people pledge next week.
The chapter is fairly young. Most of the officers were activated last
Spring (we're on a year system which makes more sense when your
academic year is on a quarter system). A few have been around for
another year. But I've only met one senior so far. Apparently when
he joined there were fewer than 10 real actives. Last year a number
of pledge got really involved and not too many actives were around for
elections and as a result, officers are inexperienced, and are trying
to figure out what to do to organize an event they only barely know
about. Well, they're starting a number of precedents without realizing
it, just by doing things one way without realizing that things were done
differently before. Like starting this late to organize. Or doing
phone callings--which is beginning to be impractical for a single person
to do every time. There's also a misconception among the officers that they
have to all their work themselves without help from the brotherhood at
large. Sorta intereesting when the membership VP doesn't know the names
of all the actives.
There's an office. It's like a booth in the small activities office.
Not a place to hang out, really. It seems they do okay without it.
Stanford is building a HAAS service center building, and APO is
asking for a space in it. It looks like our chances are good.
At any rate, one issue I discovered: here the female members prefer to be
called "sisters" and they consider the toast song as sexist, etc.
Which is interesting, because as far as chapters go, Alpha Chi and Zeta are
very similar in philosophy. They were one of the first ones to support us
on the coedity issue, push themselves as "dry", and are quite vehemently
anti-hazing. I'd say Zeta and Alpha Chi are about as close in philosophy
and "way of doing things" as Omicron Iota, Epsilon Zeta, or Alpha Gamma Beta.
Well, this year we were kinda disorganized so we're only getting started now,
but that's not the norm.
Anyway, I think if you take anyone from Zeta and anyone from Alpha Chi, they'd
probably agree on quite a number of things, and think in similar ways, at least
as close as someone from their own chapter would. Except on the word you
use to describe female members.
Which has got me to think that maybe this word thing isn't what it's
talked up to be--that people who call their female apo-ers sisters
aren't being more or less sexist. That the only reason our female
members in Alpha Chi prefer to be called "brothers" is because
everyone else preferred it when they joined, and if they had joined at
Stanford, they'd feel differently.
They'd voted last term to sing the official words to the Toast Song, and
wait until National Convention to see if it gets changed. I understand
it wasn't an easy decision. And they're hopeful about it getting changed
this time. Well, some people are.
Ties with scouting are strained here. I don't know all the details, but
apparently the council is trying to force the chapter to side with the
Boy Scouts of America on the homosexuality issue. Essentially, it came
down to this: you won't be able to use our facilities or get a scouting
advisor or anything unless you register with us as an Explorer post
(we had been an Explorer post in name but not in fact for a while) and
register all your members, and follow our membership procedures, which
includes exclusion of homosexuals. Now Stanford has a policy preventing
student groups from discriminating based on sex, race, etc., and sexual
preference. Okay. You're going to have to choose between us and them.
Do you want to be affiliated with the Boy Scouts or Stanford?
As I said, I don't know all the details, and I'm not sure whether or not
we'll be doing projects at scout camps in the future, but there are a number
of former scouts and others in the group who would be sad to see our
scouting ties go. I would argue that the projects we do for scouts does
not require formal ties with scouting, any more than we need ties with
the Red Cross or Habitat for Humanity. And although we used scouting
facilities from time to time for social events and so on, and we may not
be allowed to use them anymore, I'm sure we can make other arrangements,
even if they'll be more expensive. But it's sad to see us fighting with
the scouting offices, just the same. It is probably related to a number
of organizations cutting their support for the Boy Scouts at about the
same time, so I'm fairly sure this is purely political.
Anyway, keep in touch. Send me email (mosquito@leland.stanford.edu).
Send me real mail (12E Quillen, Escondido Village, Stanford CA 94305).
YILFS,
\ /
--OO--
!! mosquito
Kevin Iga
