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Text Box: (continued from page 2) basement game room and rec room for meetings and parties and my mother hosted a lot of visiting brothers through the years. Later, the ADG house was bought diagonally across the street and she would have the brothers & pledges over for visits and meals and often baked cookies, etc. for them. She hosted (in her living room in 1960) the ceremony for the installation of the Bellarmine Colony that became Xi chapter. When Convention was held in N.O. about 1990 (need to check the exact year) the National Board decided to surprise her and honor her as the first Honorary National Sweetheart. My mother died April 3, 1997 and the Board decided to name the award after her at the 1997 Convention in N.O. She had planned to host a party for the Board and all the alums at that Convention - so we went ahead and had that last party at her home in her memory.” Over the years there have been many firsts in the National Sweetheart Contest. Paula Fitzsimmons was the first daughter of an Alphadelt elected National Sweetheart. Marilyn Howard was the first National Sweetheart to marry a National President, Louis E. Stevens III (Tau). Convention 2004 saw a milestone Kappa Chapter. Since its founding in 1950, Kappa Chapter has never had a National Sweetheart. That all changed with the election of Miss Catherine Brooks. Catherine or Katie, is a graduate of the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music, Vocal Performance, at the Catholic University of America.

Text Box: Something needs to change in the ADG, but when you think about it, we have it easy compared to other fraternities (big & small). a. An average of 25 Chapters. b. A range of $175,000 to $500,000 annual operating budgets with an average of 93% collection! c. Hired Chapter service consultants d. An average of half of their Chapters have houses. e. New Officers attend a National Leadership Academy that is helped financially by their Foundations. And sure we can say to ourselves, “What about the Brotherhood??” “We have it and they don’t!” But how long can we last like this? And don’t think that your leadership in the National Council hasn’t done enough to try to save every single Chapter out there, or collect the monies we need to survive. We have done all that we could and more while keeping ourselves employed, going to grad school some of us under-grad still. After knowing what National was like before, not to say that it wasn’t needed, but the output of work that your officers do for you today, aside from the e-mails or gifts or whatever, is absolutely amazing. And, unfortunately, it can sometimes be very draining and disappointing. So am I blaming the actives? No. Am I blaming the actives or alumni for how much work the Council and the Board members do? No. I can’t blame you because this just so happens to be the current culture of the Fraternity. It is clear to me that the reasoning for such strong growth and sustenance of these other small Fraternities was because of the commitment and manpower that they have of their members – Alumni and Actives. Under our current culture, we have actives who want to have nothing to do with Alumni, and we have Alumni who want nothing to do with Actives - and hence, nothing to do with National (or these alumni just fall off the face of the earth). I, personally, get the feeling of the following thoughts from particular actives and alumni: Actives: I'm only in the Fraternity for 4 years. After I graduate, I won't have to deal with the Fraternity anymore. Actives: The Alumni are just old and don't know how to run a Chapter anymore. Actives: The Alumni need to stay out of our business. It’s our Fraternity now. Alumni: It is the responsibility of the Actives to keep the Alumni up-to-date. Alumni: It is National's job to keep my Chapter afloat, not mine. Alumni: The Chapter is not being run like how we ran it, so I think it's a lack of respect and I won't help them. THIS NEEDS TO CHANGE. It is clear that most actives that we have that just don’t care about Fraternity life after graduation that their Chapters suffer because of the help they could have provided as mentors and as financial backers. And National/ ADGEF suffers because of the help they could have provided as mentors and financial backers. And National/ ADGEF

This is the idea of Change that we need. We NEED to change that mentality.

Where does it say that after graduation your responsibility to the Fraternity is no longer needed or welcome? Where does it say the words Alumni or Active? It says MEMBERS. We are MEMBERS of this Fraternity. An alum is a member as much as an active is a member. There is no time frame associated with our Fraternity’s Purpose. Alpha Delta Gamma National Fraternity is a Fraternity for life!

Our Fraternity’s Culture needs to change. We needed to start down path of Change sometime, probably sooner than later, and this Administration chooses now. But this is only an introduction. You can expect Convention will go further into our ideas for this change as we continue to explain a vision for the Future that I think all of us would love to see us get to. But it starts now.

I’m not saying that every one of you as actives will become a National Officer or a Board member serving in the departments. Nor am I faulting every active and alum out there. Because there is a strong genuine spirit that exists in some of you still that want to do more for the Fraternity and stay involved in your Chapters. Come to Convention @ Rho to LEARN MORE!!!

This was an excerpt from the National President’s Presentation @ Conference hosted by Zeta