[24043] in APO-L
Re: [APO-L] Intrachapter dating
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Christopher Stromberg)
Sun Dec 7 21:20:30 2003
Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2003 18:20:07 -0800
Reply-To: Christopher Stromberg <Christopher.Stromberg@pomona.edu>
From: Christopher Stromberg <Christopher.Stromberg@pomona.edu>
To: APO-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Michael,
You have brought up one of the trickiest subjects possible in a chapter.
Being a co-ed fraternity, we have to deal with the fact that there are bound
to be relationships within our chapters (okay, single gender groups could
face the same problems, but probably with less frequency).
I will preface this (in the interests of full disclosure) by saying that I
am currently dating someone that I met in APO, and we started dating while
we were both officers.
Few chapters that I know of actually have an "official" policy on this
subject, but most have an unofficial one. That policy is usually centered
around avoiding conflicts of interest and/or disparities of power in
relationships (or the appearance thereof). Thus, it is usually considered
quite bad for an active to pursue a relationship with a pledge or to return
a pledge's advances during the pledge period (after the pledge process is
over, all bets are usually off).
The scenario that you mentioned is, however, a pre-existing relationship.
In that case, because the relationship existed before the person pledged,
the power issues are less of a concern. The possibility of conflicts of
interest (real or perceived) still abound, however. The best advice that I
can give on this one is to make sure that your VP Membership will have
nothing to do with the pledge process. If this person is still going to be
VP Membership when his fiance pledges, it may even be a good idea for him to
step aside, depending on how involved your VPM is in the pledging process
and how rigorous your pledging process is. It may be enough for your VPM to
simply recuse himself from any discussion of his fiance (like not even being
in the room when she is discussed), but that would depend on the workings of
the individual chapter.
Inter-officer dating or dating between officers and actives can also result
in similar issues of power differences and conflicts of interest (perceived
or real), as well. For those cases, few hard and fast rules exist. They
must be handled on a case-by-case basis. Both people involved in the
relationship must not only be sensitive to their own feelings, but also the
feelings of the rest of the chapter. The President or other appropriate
officer may even have to intervene if a conflict arrises (either between the
two people dating or between them and other members of the chapter). This
can be especially true if a relationship between two brothers ends messily.
That's about all of the random rambling I can come up with for now. The
best advice that I can give you is, if the situation does come up, have the
President meet with the VPM (and any other appropriate officers, such as
Pledge Educators) to work out something that everyone is comfortable with.
Chris Stromberg
