Asa phoenix vol 1 no 18 mar 1915

- -0 -EN ----. . . . . . . . . . . . . . March . . . 8,. .1915 ..

VOLUME I T HE

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NUMBER 18

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ALPHA Alpha was much chagrined at not finding i t s elf in the last lineof chapter letters. The chapter historian thinks tha t she has a nerfec;'ly legitimate excuse, but she is not going to offer it, because she knows h~w distastetnl~e;Q~Se§ ar~ to the Central Qffjge with its business inter e are surely in season pretation of ASA- Always Strictly Attentive • this time, however, and it is our avowed intention for the future to be .on the station platform long enough ahead of t he train to g et a reputattion for being even more than right on the minute. · hen we learned from the "PHOENIX ' tha.t some of our alumnae were ooming back for George Washington's Birthday, we ·decided to postpone our Valentine celebration until that day and to hold our initiation at the :same time. This was a very nice arrangement f or us as the J un i or-Senior Recepti on was held here on Valentine Saturday and t he r e would have been ,otherwis e an unfortunate conflict. But before I start in telling you about our in .i. tiation, I must tell you what happened during the weeks before .

If was some time after our return from t he Christmas holidays ' before we could get out thoughts o f f the gl orious times we had at home , for there was so much of interest to talk about, lS'ut finally we got "down to earth again and to business. Our first official act was to bid Virgini~ f~ner and happy indeed when she accepted.

Two of our former ASAs, El~sf &~kie and Jdwina Dani el returned for the pled 5e s ervice and they as wel as Virginia, were deeply impres sed with its beauty and its solemnity and its significance.

Mingled with our pleasure at having a n ew pledge, ho wever, was the grief of having to see Selma Batten leave us. She has been our very capable President and one of the three Batten §jster§, all of whom have .been deeply interested in the we1 fare of t he sorority. e have mi ·' sed 3elma terribly, but we are glad and proud of the fact that i mmediately loon her graduation, she secured a positio n in t he schools of Norfolk.

3till we felt her~oss so, we just had to get interes ted in an other possibi lity, and as a result we pledged gordon Seemap.

Gordon has had many interesting exp erienc es, f or she has liv ed 'L n Mexic o and has travelled quite a lot. She was a t school once at St • .~ar{'s in Raleigh . .N .C., where we had a chapter fro m 190 9 t9 l 9U. Her ·Jes friends were ASAs, but s he had been too yo ung a t the t1 me to be ~ aken into the c ; apter, Lula Drjye; came back f or the pled ge service and, .liked all our other aluuu1ae, thought it very beaut i f ul. Lula fini s hed 1ere in 1911 and i~ now te a ching in Ric hmond , Va. Our Vaientine Party was a gr eat success, when i t d id come of f. e ~d red~ hearts for place cards an d in the ~ent re of ea?h . ~eart was a lilver hoenix • . Hattie Kell . gave us a s plend1d talk on t .c.e 1deals of ~~S .A. and oii its en arged ambitions, and all of us have become more : ~nt nusiastic than ever, if suc h a thing is pos s ible.

Anot her person who 1as been talking ideals and standards to us i.s ou.r honorary me mber. · ~ofessor Eason. He said t hat he thought it high time that some honor nria should come from ASA and t hat in order to have them we should have ;o set high standar ds for pleds es. Since the syst.em of ma r k ing in this ;chool is to begin with A for t he hi ghest and going on i n t he al phabet tlth six points between each letter to F which m ~ a n s 'failur e', we have ~P

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pas s ed a r ul i ng t u.a t -:. e co u.ld no t pl ed 0o-e a gi r l h o d i d mak e ake an 7 • average of c..

Marguerite Dav i s, Cha pt er ni s t.

AL HA

A L ~ HA

. Today is ~ very different day from the same last year. Then we were hav7ng a very eavy snows~orm and ev ery one was snowed in , but he r e a t t he dor~ltory everyone was mak1ng George and Martha outfits to be worn at a Pi Tau party to be given that evening. e were not ASAs then. ~oday is a disagreeable and rainy one, but we have been so very busy recently t hat we have not planned anything so elaborate as last year. Besides, we had our valentine Party last week. It •ook form of a card party just among ourselves. Euchre was played and later light refreshments we r e served.

A great many of the university girls have a mania for dancing and card playing. The dancing mania is more easily satisfied because of t h e r egular dances given by the university.

Wednesday night was sorority meeting. A partial summary of t he "PHOENIX" was given and parts of it read. This is always done, because the girls like to discuss it and because we want to be sure that every one fully understands all that is in it. ~he next day we initiated Louise · McFall, Isabelle Kg and =- l:l.elen Edwap]R. Following the initiation, the ~feshmen entertained the initiates and upper class girls at the banquet in the Green Tree Inn. The decorations were very lovely, and our freshmen deserve gre at credit. ~is week-end Isabelle Key has had as her guest Edith Dixon from her · home do\vn. Miss Di ·a a d attended school ( 1 here at Miami. It is ' ust another case o Tri Si rna's e · ec of her · alumnae • . As Miss xon is a dear riend of Isabel e, she came to vis it £er instead of her sorority sisters.

Last nig ht Ruth Slonaker and Gladys Fenton ent ertain the remaining Alpha Al pha at Carson Cottage at a lovely buffet lunc heon. As we opened our napkins a little hatchet fell out and on it were the names of one of our g irls and that of a man with whom our member corresponds. The j oke was well carried out, but some of us are still 'on the fence' as to what wo believe. Saturday morning ASA played DSE to a game of basket ball and won. SSS had a game scheduled with GD, but for some reason D.G. f orfeited t he game to Tri Sigma, so the champions hip lay between ASA and SSS. I do hate to tell it, but Tri Sigma won. ~o say we were disappointed, doesn 't begin to express it. Nevertheless it was a wonderfully good game.

At the end of the first half it was a tie, and at the geginning of t he sec ond we made two f ouls. ~hen SSS did the work. They have a girl who has played for eight years , and couldn't miss a basket, they sap, wit h her eyes closed. Although we were disappointed, we took it like soldiers. r--------,sss has been in the lime light again t his week. They all app eared one day 1n white dresses with knots of t heir colors, and upon· inquiry we were told of a new chapter in Colorado. How that did stir up all t he Al pha Al pha girls! If there is any way in which we can hel p in the matter of extension, we shall be very glad to do so, f or of cours e we do not ~w an t SSS to beat us in that particular. Bishop Hall, one of the dormitories, gave a perfect George Was hington party. Several of our girls went and one of t hem Eloi s e Everett danced in costume. After a few stunts were put on by the girls, the rest of the evening was spent in dancing. Then we had a jolly surprise. A mysterious package arrived and upon opening it we found a lunch cloth with ASA embroidered on each end. The work was b eautifully done and was t he gift of two of last year's g irls, Jess Chenowit h and Katharine Schultz. With the package was t h e following v erse , For your s preads, before you hit the be dWe have prepared a linen, to be your table trimmin', Now sto p your grinnin 1 , and thi nk of t he s pirit In wh ic h it was g iven. Puss and Jess.

Hele n Boggess , Chapter Sec r et ar y .

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AL?HA BETA . . Alpha Beta has not been making his t ory of the interes ting kind, for 1mmed~~tely followi ng t he jolly Valentine Party at t e Doyle home every o~e ~n th~ C h~pter had to get ready or t he term examinations. Our school ~s pecul1ar ln.having four terms in t he year, eac h t hree mont hs long~ The last week 1n February was given over entirely to examinations and 1~s close meant t he end of t he winter term. There were a few days vacat1on ove~ t he week Qnd and pract ic ally t he whole s tudent body, as well as many of t ne faculty, left the town for visits to home The first week in March will s ee the opening of the new term with all that it i mnlies in matric~ation and re~djustment to courses.

We are expecting all girls back w1th the except1on of Mrs . Anna Swartz and ildred ard who have finished t heir course. ' Although the undergraduate chapter has been too rushed to hold meet~ngs or to p l~n any special sorority affairs, our ei-~hola memb ers are keep1ng up their 1nterest and showing themselves quite active . We are 路expecting to be able to state soon that we have two more gr.aduate clubs here in Missouri. That would make four in this one state alone. One group will be formed in Hannibal, where there are two Kappa Theta Psi girls teaching and our recent bride, Mrs . L. E. McClair, who was Clarice Shackleford of St. Louis. Within easy distance are several ASAs . The other graduate club will be at Moberly , which those of you who atten&d~ h e Convention will remember is the home town of Lennye Tucker, who went as a visitor from our chapter. ~here are nine girls living in or near Moberly . Some of them are not as yet members of ASA, but we are expecting that they will be as soon as we can arrange for their initiation. Not all of them could get back for the former initiation, but they are all seemingly very interested and a number of them have sent in their subscriptions to the "PHOENIX", believing that it will be a good plan for them to absorb as much of the sorority 'atmosphere' as possible prior to initiation.

Shortly after sending in our last letter, Marion Gardner, who was serving as State Secretary and who was back doing some postgraduate work was elected to the faculty of Central College at Lexington, Mo. Centra! is what is known as a 'junior' college and was , established in 1869 under t he inspiration of the Methodist Episcopal church. The 'junior' college idea is rather peculiar to Missouri, so perhaps it would be well to explain a little about the plan. The pinnacle of the State's educational system is the state university at Columbia. A great mahy people have not been willing to send their daughters to ' tate' immediately upon t he completion of t heir high sc riDol course in t he home town. They have felt that t h e girls were too young to be allowed the free'dom that is found usually in a state university town, for state universities as a rule do not exercise muc h supervision over t he student body outside of the lecture room.

In consequence those families who had strong religious preferences got into t he habit of sending their daughters to church schools. The only difficulty met in t he case, however, was that these church schools were not recognized as equal to ' tate' , so far as instructions went. After. considerable agitation , it was finally arranged t hat t he 'State' would g1ve the name of 'junior' college to such instituti ons as proved upon exami nation to be doing work equal in quantity and e~lity to that done by the state university in the freshman and sophomore classes. uite a few of the famous old finis h ing schools in Missouri have qualified and now their graduates may enter the third year of the state univerwit~ wi thout examination.

This arrangement has proved very satisfactory to t he small colleges for women and to the parents who wanted their daughters to enjoy a pleasant home life during t he fir s t half of their college course~ I~ is into s~ch an a tmos phere that Marion Gardner has gone, and we can 1mag1ne how del1ght- 路 ful J she will find it. Alpha Beta shares quite joyously in t he hon or that has come t o her much loved member.

our

ALPHA GAMMA.

. . . Four ~f our alumnae came bacl~ for the Valentine week-end and were 1n1t1ated 1nto ~lpha Sig~a Al _ha. ~hey were Mary Duncan of Windber, El~anor Lowry of Asp1nwall, Haz~l McCreight of Reynoldsville and Margaret Ve1l of Scalp Level, all towns 1n Pennsylvania. Alice Veyman has sub~cribed for the ~~~H~ENIX" and together with the other four will try to 1nterest our rema1n1ng ~umnae to whom the idea of nationalization is a very new.one iddeed~ .A~ice, who liv ~ a at 322 Middle Avenue, ilmerding, is very anx1ous to be 1n1t1ated, but has not found it possible to date, though we_hope that she will be able to get back soon, because we want all our old g1rls to know what it means to be an ASA. ~he four who were fortunate enough 路 to get back, together with our two faculty members were deeply impressed with the service and surprised at its beauty and solemnity .

After the service refreshments were served and the rest of the time was spent in reminiscences. ~he week following initiation Sigma Sigma Sigma installed a chapter here. As there are in school two other sororities that lay claim to being National Sororities, we are V路3ry glad, indeed that we have a right to make that same claim, because it usually happens that all the sororities want the very same girls, and if we could 路not offer rushees as much and more than our rivals we should be at a distinct diaadvantage.

Our Spring rushing season is in full swing now, and we are in hopes of adding to our present number a goodly delegation of new members, but we have several weeks yet to wait before we shall know our fate. Please all of you wish us good luck. When we write our next letter, we hope that we shall be able to tell you about the strong girls that we nave added to Alpha Gamma.

Beatrice s. Je 'fries.

Those chapters that meet Tri Sigma must not get excit ed when they hear of the two new chapters that their rival has established. Rather should they be glad. Every chapter that SSS adds to its list will mean another chapter for ASA too eventually, for since there are but the two that can really lay claim to being normal sororities, it must naturally follow that when one enters a school the other will be sure to follow.

Rea~ly the odds so far are in favor of ASA, f or SSS started out on its normal course as far back as 1911 and it has not added any chapter for three years, while it has lost many chapters in that time, chapters that were in colle ges mostly and which were only waiting until they should be taken over by a N. P .C. Soro~ity. ASA, on the other hand, has really added to its roll three chapt ers within one year, for Miami Cha~ter, though it had the Convention, is only a few months older than those at Kirksville and Pennsylvania.

The Central Office feels that the sorority has really added enough chapters during the present school year and is not particularly keen for any further extension just now, preferring to put all its available strength on internal development, to the end that chapters and officers should know one another intimately and so be in a position to accomplish the most possible as an organization. Even supposing we had a new chanter what colors should we wear? That is something that has not been thou~ht out yet. Many sororities and fraternities have only two colors a~ it is easy to make the combination, but ASA has four. Now it does n~t want to nut all those 4 colors on at one time. It wants to have each colo r mean some particular t hing. Suppose you talk this matter over in chapter meeting after you re ceive your '. PHOENIX", and then ins~ruct your ~ecr c tary to write your ~ational Pres1dent.as to what you th1nk would be t he most distinctive color of the 4 to wear 1n honor af a new chapter.

Your National re s ident has her own idea of what would be most a . pro priate, but s he wants to s ee if it would be your choice too.

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