Boy Scouts program to change name as girls join ranks

The Boy Scouts of America will soon become Scouts BSA. Programing for older boys and girls will largely remain divided along gender lines, with single-sex units pursuing similar activities and merit badges.

|
Charles Krupa/AP
Tatum (c.) carries a tool box she built as her twin brother Ian (l.) follows after a Cub Scout meeting in Madbury, N.H., on March 1. Fifteen communities in New Hampshire are part of an 'early adopter' program to allow girls to become Cub Scouts and eventually Boy Scouts.

For 108 years, the Boy Scouts of America's flagship program has been known simply as the Boy Scouts. With girls soon entering the ranks, the group says that iconic name will change.

The organization on Wednesday announced a new name for its Boy Scouts program: Scouts BSA. The change will take effect next February.

Chief scout executive Mike Surbaugh said many possibilities were considered during lengthy and "incredibly fun" deliberations before the new name was chosen.

"We wanted to land on something that evokes the past but also conveys the inclusive nature of the program going forward," he said. "We're trying to find the right way to say we're here for both young men and young women."

The parent organization will remain the Boy Scouts of America, and the Cub Scouts – its program for 7- to 10-year-olds – will keep its title, as well.

But the Boy Scouts – the program for 11- to 17-year-olds – will now be Scouts BSA.

The organization has already started admitting girls into the Cub Scouts, and Scouts BSA begins accepting girls next year.
Mr. Surbaugh predicted that both boys and girls in Scouts BSA would refer to themselves simply as scouts, rather than adding "boy" or "girl" as a modifier.

The program for the older boys and girls will largely be divided along gender-lines, with single-sex units pursuing the same types of activities, earning the same array of merit badges, and potentially having the same pathway to the coveted Eagle Scout award.

Surbaugh said that having separate units for boys and girls should alleviate concerns that girls joining the BSA for the first time might be at a disadvantage in seeking leadership opportunities.

So far, more than 3,000 girls have joined roughly 170 Cub Scout packs participating in the first phase of the new policy, and the pace will intensify this summer under a nationwide multimedia recruitment campaign titled "Scout Me In."

The name change comes amid strained relations between the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts of America.

Girl Scout leaders said they were blindsided by the move, and they are gearing up an aggressive campaign to recruit and retain girls as members.

Among the initiatives is creation of numerous new badges that girls can earn, focusing on outdoor activities and on science, engineering, technology, and math. The organization is expanding corporate partnerships in both those areas, and developing a Girl Scout Network Page on LinkedIn to support career advancement for former Girl Scouts.

"Girl Scouts is the premier leadership development organization for girls," said Sylvia Acevedo, the Girl Scouts' chief executive. "We are, and will remain, the first choice for girls and parents who want to provide their girls opportunities to build new skills ... and grow into happy, successful, civically engaged adults."

The Girl Scouts and the BSA are among several major youth organizations in the US experiencing sharp drops in membership in recent years. Reasons include competition from sports leagues, a perception by some families that they are old-fashioned, and busy family schedules.

The Boy Scouts say current youth participation is about 2.3 million, down from 2.6 million in 2013 and more than 4 million in peak years of the past.

The Girl Scouts say they have about 1.76 million girls and more than 780,000 adult members, down from just more than 2 million youth members and about 800,000 adult members in 2014.

The overall impact of the BSA's policy change on Girl Scouts membership won't be known any time soon. But one regional leader, Fiona Cummings of Girl Scouts of Northern Illinois, believes the BSA's decision to admit girls is among the factors that have shrunk her council's youth membership by more than 500 girls so far this year.

She said relations with the Boy Scouts in her region used to be collaborative and now are "very chilly."

"How do you manage these strategic tensions?" she asked. "We both need to increase our membership numbers."

Surbaugh said BSA's national leadership respected the Girl Scouts' program and hoped both organizations could gain strength.
"If the best fit for your girl is the Girl Scouts, that's fantastic," he said. "If it's not them, it might be us."

This story was reported by The Associated Press.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Boy Scouts program to change name as girls join ranks
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2018/0502/Boy-Scouts-program-to-change-name-as-girls-join-ranks
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe