Posted by Kirsten Partenheimer on March 13, 19100 at 06:25:24:
Dear Affiliates,
I´m off in Germany, but I haven´t forgotten my fellow Howard affiliates and I´ve been thinking a lot about our future, which includes getting us a house. I read in the Orient online that AD had just sold its house to the college, and seeing that we´re next in line for a house (at least that´s what we´ve been promised for the last two and a half years), I think Howard (if we haven´t already done this) should come together and decided which fraternity house we´d like to see the college give us and what input we´d want to offer the college, based on our interests as a house. If we don´t demand a say, the college will most likely make important decisions regarding the future of Howard without our input.
I´m also writing, because I´d rather see Howard get Chi Delt. After an extremely short-lived "We Want Theta" campaign by some members of the house in the summer of ´98, some of used talked and decided that if we couldn´t get Theta, Chi Delt would be the next best choice. It has a good location, we liked the layout of the house, it probably needs the least repairs, it has the most-adequate social space, we have traditionally had good relations with the fraternity and during the ´98-´99 school year, we co-hosted a number of events with them. By aquiring Chi Delt, I had hoped to continue Howard programming, but also pick up where Chi Delt was forced to leave off. Jon Cowan and I had told Dean Bradley and Bob Graves over a year ago that a lot of members, given the choice, would like to have Chi Delt, and I reiterated this feeling in a meeting I had with Bob Graves during a visit back to Bowdoin at the end of February, before I learned that AD had been sold. One of my main reasons for not wanting AD is that it´s not as centrally located. As we´re trying to create an image on campus, I don´t want us to be physically pushed to the edge of campus. As much as I want a house so badly for Howard, I´m afraid that we´ll automatically get AD, since it´s the first house to be sold.
I also fear that we will have little or no say in what we want for the house, unless we demand that the adminstration listens to us. Ultimately though, I think us affiliates need to come together and make some decisions and we need to make sure the college hears, in writing, the opinions of individual affiliates of Howard, as well as whatever the house decides on as a whole. I don´t care if you just write Bob Graves and tell him what color you´d like to have the walls of our new house painted, just tell him what you think so that he doesn´t make all the decisions for us.
Well, I hope this letter has sparked some conversation. Feel free to e-mail me either about the house, or just to say hi. I´m checking my Bowdoin e-mail over here. (If anyone has the desire to send a letter via snail mail, my address is: Alban Stolz Haus; #2307, Reinhold-Schneider Str. 37, 79117 Freiburg, Germany.) I saw some of you briefly when I was home, but didn´t really get to talk.
I love the webpage too. It´s kept me updated on what Howard´s been up to this year. Having been so involved last year, sometimes it´s a bit frustrating to suddenly not be involved at all.
With that, I´ll leave you all now.
Have a wonderful spring break.
Love,
Kirsten