While I'm proud to see Alpha Gamma Delta being ranked as a Gold Chapter, I have been pretty open about not liking when the administration takes on these types of rating systems. I am even more shocked that it was published for all to see. If they MUST do this type of rating, I could see rewarding the chapters who did well, and even publishing that report so that other chapters could read it and see what the differences are and to get ideas, but publishing the poor ones? That kind of information should be confidential. I also agree that some of their recommendations may very well go against the policy of the organization. In fact, some things a chapter may be praised for may even be against the policy of the organization.

Moravian, on the other side of Bethlehem, has a points system like this with Gold, Silver & Bronze Star designations. You earn points by your chapter GPA, member involvement chapter programming, attending certain "Gold Star" events with a certain % of chapter attendance and holding joint programs with other GLOs on campus. Chapter Pres's fill a binder with documentation of meeting the various criteria...our Greek Life advisor reviews them & awards are given out afterwards. Things may have changed since I filled the binder in '02 but I wouldn't be surprised if Lehigh had a similar points system.

And yes Lehigh use to be all male and Moravian was once the all women's college on the other side of the River! Glad those days are over!!!

One of my good friends is in Delta Tau Delta at Lehigh, so good for them for achieving the silver listing. :) My computer won't let me access any of the chapters' links, so I'm clueless as to what criteria was used or what's been published, but I feel bad for the chapters (such as my GLO :( ) that didn't do so well in the rankings. However, just from what I've heard my friend say, this doesn't seem to really match up in all cases with what he thinks to be strong chapters on his campus. I'm surprised Lehigh published something like this.

It's all about the paper work.

It doesn't matter if you actually do something or not, long as you have the documentation to back it up.

I agree. I think this has good intentions, but I don't see a need to post it on the internet for everyone to see. If a chapter is struggling, it should be between the chapter and the greek life office/university and shouldn't be anyone else's business. For all we know, these "poor" chapters could be chapters in good standing or better within their respective National offices.

Everyone that said it is correct, it's all about the paper work and who fills it out. The Greek Life office of the chapter I worked with had a similar packet they had to do every year. Which was fine b/c it was pretty much what we were doing for our national process anyway. The Greek Life office used their packet to give out the "Greek Awards".

That's what makes me sad. I'm sad, of course, to see DG ranked as poor, but that does not alter my feelings on publishing something like this. It just seems like it would target chapters that are not as strong - almost as a catalyst to get them off campus. Who would want to pledge a "poor" chapter?!

I agree though, it'd be great to recognize the top chapters, but don't punish other chapters!

I don't give a rat's ass if we were ranked as poor by some buffoons in university administration. Who the hell cares?

The report recommends increasing study hour requirements because a minimum of two study hours per week is not enough. I think the whole concept of study hours is bogus, and adult women should be free to study on their own. The report is critical of the fact that the chapter had few speakers discussing leadership with members. Um, if I were a college aged woman, I think I'd try to poke myself in the eye with a letter opener if forced to sit through a speech about leadership. WTF kind of bogus thing is that?

Also, am I the only one who thinks that it's none of the university adminstraton's damn business how we conduct new member education or officer transitions?

Honestly, after reading why we suck, I can't help but think that this is probably a pretty fun chapter whose members don't engage in excessive asskissery on campus. I really hope that most of us are independent thinkers who can take crap like this with a grain of salt.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm getting at. I mean honestly, and again this is not picking on anyone, it just seems like the top chapters are the ones that have the most cute names for their programs. The other chapters might be doing the same thing, in fact it looks like they are, but they haven't named it and quantified it. I don't think they should be punished just because their marketing skills are not as up to par as other groups'.

I also just noticed one of the recommendations for AOII - that the standards board is good but they should have formal training through the office of Student Conduct. What if the OSC tells them to do things that are completely counter to what AOII's HQ tells them? Following along with this, should the chapter treasurers be trained by the Bursar's office? I mean, that's the whole point of holding an office - learning to do things on your own, not having someone tell you what to do all the time.

ETA asskissery = best new word of the month.

GPAs at Lehigh

Because some people have commented on GPAs, I thought it might help to mention that Lehigh has the Spring 2005 Greek GPAs for each chapter posted. You can go to

http://www.lehigh.edu/%7Eindost/greek/grkserv.htm

and click on the link for statistics.
Looks like the all women's is 3.275;

all sorority is 3.23;

all undergrad is 3.09;

all Greek is 3.06;

all men is 2.982;

all fraternity is 2.937

In addition, there's another link under statistics that covers recruitment results for 2004. For each GLO it gives the number of bids extended and the number of bids accepted. For the sororities, of course, it also states quota. In that list we can see that, as is often or almost always the case, sorority new member classes are around 2 to 3 times larger than most fraternity NM classes. Fraternity NM classes themselves vary widely in size.

This means that fraternity members are stupid and should be banned.




(kidding)

aren't mandatory study hours hazing? does this mean that the university is now hazing the fraternity and sorority members? (remember hazing isn't only for new members, but anyone with perceived power trying to exert this power on someone else who feels helpless/ pressured into participating in order to gain social acceptance.)

sorry if i make no sense, it is 3 am and i am wayyyyy overtired.


oh, and i love the way they suggest they should find ways to keep seniors active...lol, aren't we all? and the part about getting more members involved, not just having the same few people run everything....i just wonder how the chapter is going to solve a typical problem of group dynamics. what stupid reccommendations!

eta: i should have read more... can someone please explain to me how having a tray of bagels delievered to a faculty member each week helps a chapter to increase its gpa? i don't get how it impacts a scholarship program unless there is something else going on.

Wow-how ridiculous is this? It seems like the more bagels you send to the professors the better ranked you are. They need to just put the recommendations into one sentence: Kiss our ass, give us food and you will be a gold chapter.

I hope A&M will never do this to greek life.

I completely understand what the Greek members at Lehigh are going through. At Millersville University (in PA) we have a very similar system they call "The Five Star Greek Organization Evaluation". It's nothing more than a bunch of shit where the administration is trying to control fraternities and sororities. We get evaluated on criteria such as our new member education, campus involvement (holding events for the student body), community involvement, GPA, educational programming, philanthropy, with the ranking depending on the amount as well as the percent of brother participation.

While the universities themselves DO have an obligation to their students to encourage good grades and shit like that, they all too often fail to recognize Greek Organizations as private organizations. I can understand the universities pushing the organizations to be as active on campus as possible, however in our assesment they award or withold points for pointless stuff like putting down the address of our advisor and alumni contacts, or the number of personal and chapter awards we have earned. Also, they witheld a few points from my chapter for not telling them the contents of our new member education program; which we keep very secret from everybody outside the fraternity.

luckily for my university, unlike lehigh, Millersville does not publish the results as they are kept private between the fraternities/sororities and the greek advisor and proper administration. But even still -- if you fail to obtain 4 or 5 stars in every category and in total, your chapter is placed on probation. You are placed on suspension if you receive a zero in any one category though -- so basically, if your chapter hadn't received any national or campus awards, you would be suspended - even if you just started up.

I think part of the problem, or issue, may be the areas in which these evaluations take place. From what I know, it commonly happens at small universities and colleges. And in respect to lehigh and Millersville, they are both in highly conservative communities -- which seems to always serve as an impressive obstacle for fraternities/sororities.

Millersville University
Lambda Chi Alpha
Delta-Tau Zeta
High Secretary

Lehigh, Moravian, Millersville all in PA, all with similar grading systems...hmmmm