Talk:List of Beta Theta Pi chapters

Major Editing and Citing

I have been going through the list and I have made a number of corrections and edits, adding citations for nearly every change. These citations come from various sources, mainly books published by the fraternity and the official fraternity magazine, The Beta Theta Pi. There are a number of issues with the list that should be resolved (the formatting of the columns, for example), but there is one that bothers me more than the others: Some of the chapter starting dates refer to colonization, while some refer to chartering. In my opinion, the life of the chapter begins at colonization, when local college students become initiated members of the General Fraternity. Some may disagree. The issue is further confused by the fact that the General Fraternity, for a time at least, used a system of provisional colonies as well as full colonies. I just want to bring this up. For the time being, I will use dates as they are available in the historical record and try to note colonization or charter date.Milst1 (talk) 14:58, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Whether to use the charter date or the colonization date is a good item for discussion. The standard practice started in Baird's Manual was to list the date of charter. However, the colony was listed as the predecessor institution with its start date. The way that WikiProject Fraternities and Sororities is currently formatting this information is with an EFN (explanatory foot note) in the reference column that shows up in the Notes section immediately below the table. I have created EFN for chapters with this information and will gradually fix the other entries as I go through the list. That way, all be be the same format and the most information will be included. Rublamb (talk) 23:15, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

I have found another issue. Newer chapters appear to have a date of charter and another date for installation. Depending on the source used, this list is not consistent with which date is used. Since the column title is chartered/range, it is logical for us to try to use the charter date (when known). The installation date can be added as an efn. Rublamb (talk) 17:20, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

I cordially disagree. The date of charter is the most important date; from a legal sense, it serves as the specific date of record that conveys a change in status to the group as a whole and grants that unit its legal rights and responsibilities within the national organization. When an initiation or installation occurs over a weekend, does anyone sit with a stopwatch to determine if the rap of the gavel occurs late on Friday night, or at 2AM the next day, if the ceremony goes long? Unlikely. While it is nice to know when an individual member is initiated, that action conveys their later individual status within the body. Where two dates are announced, the ceremony (~installation) is therefore a formality, and as you mentioned, the date or year of colonization ought to be noted simply as an EFN. Since the recorded date that the national fraternity awards a charter is so commonly used elsewhere, let's keep that as the date showing the formal start of the range, and note colonization as an EFN. Jax MN (talk) 18:01, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

I think you misread what I wrote. I was advocating for the use of the chartered date, which is what you defended after writing that you disagreed with my statement. To be clear, this group has three sets of commonly published dates--colonization, chartered, and installation. In some more recent instances, the last two seem to be confused within the table and within the Almanac. This is an easy mistake to make because of how the articles are written in the fraternity's magazine. I caught the problem when fact checking a change by another editor (without a source, so probably was an insider). Rublamb (talk) 00:16, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Got it. Thank you for clarifying. Jax MN (talk) 00:30, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you to both @Rublamb and @Jax MN for your interest in this page. I really appreciate the massive reorganization that you have implemented. It must have been a decent amount of work.

On the matter at hand, I don't have the desire to die on this hill, but I am certain that Beta Theta Pi Fraternity marks the beginning of a chapter's existence as the date of the installation ceremony, not the date of colonization, and not the date of chartering. I don't really know what other fraternities do. For Beta Theta Pi, while chartering votes occur at the summer conventions (annually in August), the charter is not handed over to the chapter until the installation ceremony. For what it's worth. Milst1 (talk) 21:38, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

I think we would agree that the date on the charter document is most important, as it signifies the legal creation of the campus unit. That appears to me to be what other fraternal organizations use, and I cannot think of an example where another system is preferred. Often charters are delivered to a group after the formal installation ceremony, backdated, and it is fairly common to have a calligraphist list the names of those who were initiated as founders. In my own chapter, several of the founders were listed, even though a couple of them were not at the ceremony because they had graduated, and moved. Over time, no one remembers who was physically there. The founding roster, then, is a formalization of the list of those given the honor of "founder". As Rublamb indicated, where we have good information we sometimes note the year the colony was established as an Extended FootNote (EFN), but from a list sorting perspective, the fraternity will identify a specific date of charter, which we use. Our standard method is to then list all active groups (including colonies) by date of their original charter. Jax MN (talk) 21:51, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Treat Re-Colonizations Differently From Brand New Colonies

Fellow editors, rather than adding all colonies to the bottom of the active chapter list, I suggest that you add re-colonizations to the original chapter's chronological place in history. For example, when Miami was recolonized in 2016, the Alpha Colony was added to the top of the active chapter list, not to the bottom. I suggest that all re-colonized chapters return to their original place in the active chapter list, but with the notation of colony status, e.g., Alpha Colony. I have been moving re-colonizations back to their chronological place in the list. If someone objects, let's please discuss it.Milst1 (talk) 19:39, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree with you. The status column that I just added can be used to indicate that a chapter is currently a colony (by using Colony instead of Active). Another option is the add a EFN (explanatory foot note) saying something like, "This chapter was re-established as a colony in 2022." Of course, the date would need to be address once a charter is reissued--see my comment under Major Editing and Citing above regarding using the date of charter vs. the founding date of the colony. Thanks. Rublamb (talk) 23:19, 28 October 2022 (UTC)