something that's helped my chapter is to put people below a certain GPA on probation unless they go to the campus library for a certain number of hours each week. at the library, there's a place where greeks can log their library hours, and our officer in charge of such things checks to see who signed in and for how lng each week. so far all of those who were on probation have significantly improved their grades.

Study hours don't necessarily help GPA - everyone studies differently, and too often they turn into social hours instead. They're more of a "look, we're doing something" move. Not to mention if people have part time jobs or full schedules and can't fit them in.

Curtailing social events is a horrible, terrible, awful idea. If you want people to quit the sorority entirely, this is a really good way to do it - especially if people ARE meeting your chapter/national grade standards. You might want to rethink the not allowing academic probation people to go to mixers thing, as well - especially if it's over half of the chapter. The fraternities don't always know that this is why people aren't at the mixer (or even if they do, they don't always believe you) and can get insulted really easily. The last thing you need is to get a reputation as the girls who schedule mixers and then only half the chapter shows up. This might be why you don't have many mixers to begin with. I know it sounds somewhat counterproductive, but if your reputation with the fraternities goes downhill, that transfers over to your reputation with the rushees and you eventually will not have a chapter GPA to worry about since you won't have a chapter.

We had a jar too, but it was a little different - for every class you skipped you had to put in a quarter (I'd make it a dollar these days). At the end of the semester we donated the $$ to our philanthropy.

I guess what I want to ask is WHY you're worried so much about your GPA. Is it because you're sincerly worried about your sisters failing out of school or not achieving success in their careers because of poor grades? Or is it just for bragging rights or to check off a requirement on your campus's Greek plan or to win awards? If the latter are the reasons, I'd be apathetic too.

I really personally like this idea, except that if I were one of those skippers, I don't know if I would want to put in $5 for the five classes I missed. I know that's the point, but no one knows if you missed your classes so I feel like there would be a lot of people who just wouldn't do it at the going rate of $1 per class.
I think that's the good thing about the skippy jar, rewarding good behavior. And I feel like people are less likely to lie to put their name in and win candy rather than lie so they don't have to pay. Punishing bad behavior doesn't always work in a positive way in the end.

Maybe my inflation rate was too high. How about 50 cents? ;)

The whole point is to get you to not blow off classes. I'd be a lot more likely to do that if I knew I had to cough up if I didn't (and we always had to fess up at meetings so that could be funny). That's more motivation to me than putting my name in a jar to get a pencil or a piece of candy.

Also, it depends on how small the campus is...the smaller it is the more likely you are to get busted if you were supposed to be in class at 10 AM Friday and sisters knew you were sleeping off Thursday night. Plus, it's an honors system. If you can't believe your sisters who can you believe?

^^^
50 cents sounds a little more like something that would work!! :)
And smaller campus would definitely be better. I think I have trouble envisioning this because of class sizes & number of sections of classes (can't make one, often people just go to the other one) and I have classes with literally ZERO sisters sooo lol.
Still, I REALLY like the idea because I'm all for raising money for philanthropies. Maybe if people had accountability sisters or something.

When I was active, we also had a jar for skipped classes - at $1 each. I'm sure there were people who didn't put their money in every week, but oh well.. there were a lot of people who were honest about it. We also allowed girls to write "IOU"s on a slip of paper with their name if they didn't have any cash on them, and they would be reminded before the next meeting that they owed a dollar.

Our Scholarship Chair also recorded any As that people received each week (for major tests, papers and projects) and the sister with the most As at the end of the semester received the money in the jar.

With 10-20 sisters in the chapter, I usually saw the jar at about $30-$60.. and sometimes, a little more than that. I think the highest that I ever saw it at was $80. As a college student, that's a great thing to receive going into the last couple weeks of school when the food plan is running low and you need gas money to get home for summer break!

It's not a bad idea, but it's sort of rewarding one sister for another's bad behavior. I think giving the money to the chapter's philanthropy might be less problematic.

You're not really rewarding a sister for everyone else's bad behavior... you're rewarding them for doing well in school. The fact that the money comes from other sisters not going to class is irrelevant.

I don't know.. it was never seen as problematic in my chapter.

If we knew our jar $$ was going to go to another sister (and there were sisters who had CAKE semesters and therefore many As) we would have told the scholarship chair to eff off.

We do a "No Skippy" jar. If you go to every single one of your classes for the week you put your name in, and there's a drawing each week. The winner gets cute sorority stuff that our academic excellence person picks up.