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theDIVERSITYissue
WINTER 2004
Creating this issue was an eye-opening experience from the very beginning. After Managing Editor Luke Marquard, Butler 2001, hit the archives to do the in-depth research required to write about membership selection, we quickly became fascinated with Sigma Chis’ membership beliefs and the series of debates surrounding them. We also struggled to understand those beliefs and debates, especially when juxtaposed with Sigma Chi’s ideals. What part of integrity, ambition or courtesy comes from skin color? Why was getting past the white clause and its equally discriminatory derivatives so difficult for a Fraternity grounded in friendship and justice?
The information became easier to understand when we put it into historical context—into a time when U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent 1,000 troops to Central High in Little Rock, Ark., to escort nine black students into a previously all-white school; when U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which declared both segregation in public facilities and racial discrimination in employment to be illegal; when Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed. This was the era when the civil rights movement was in full force and when people’s prejudices—right or wrong—were at a high.
We wondered what this meant for us in 2004. Yes, the door on racial and religious discrimination officially closed in 1971. But how could the Fraternity best leave membership selection issues in the past and press ahead, discriminating only for good character, fair ability, ambitious purposes, congenial disposition, good morals, a high sense of honor and a deep sense of personal responsibility?
The contributors to this issue tell us the Fraternity has moved forward. Sigma Chis today are open to a membership of different temperaments, talents and convictions. Erik Ness, North Carolina State 1996, documents his experience with such progress and delivers his take on how the Fraternity should continue to embrace diversity. Drawing on his business and fraternal experiences, Significant Sig Keith Ferrazzi, Yale 1988, relays why embracing all types of differences is vital to an organization’s success. Mike Valcy, Bridgewater 2001, recalls his struggle to balance being a fraternity man and being gay, and the lessons he learned along the way. Richard Segal, Yale 1988, shares his explanation about how it’s possible to be Jewish and wear the White Cross. Managing Editor Nicole Voges profiles four members of the Iota Chi Chapter, men whose stories encompass the ideals and beliefs that resonate within the chapter house’s walls. She captures the kind of diversity that’s undetectable in Jerry Nelson’s, Utah State 1977, photography. Additionally, Theodis Dancy, a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, delivers a brief history of the African-American fraternity and its place in today’s fraternal landscape.
Our contributors don’t necessarily speak for the Fraternity or see things the way the entire membership does, but they do give us an idea of how far Sigma Chi has come in the last 33 years. And, agree or disagree, they give us a good idea of where we’re heading. Take a look.
~ the Editors
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DIVERSE?
(2/2004)
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