No, that reflects poorly on NIU.
So GDIs?
Woo hoo, I go to a school a lot better than NIU and even the chapters which are thought of as the coke-heads have a better GPA than that. They're outperforming you, at a much better school, on two hours of sleep a night. Really overacheiving there, huh?
Mmmhmm, and if you are attracting the best leaders, tell me again why you need a leadership development program? You said it yourself, you're a SOCIAL fraternity.

This thread has some ridiculous arguments in it...

I think it's safe to say that the truly top-tier chapters are the ones that are doing everything well. They have good grades, their members are involved and leaders on campus, they benefit their community, they have fun, and the girls love them. They are the chapters that are producing our lawyers, doctors, and leading businessmen - not because of some "old boys' network" but because they're taking talent and molding it through brotherhood and high expectations into something better. The best chapters are those that are taking good men to begin with and making them shine.

To say that a great chapter can't have an active social life is ridiculous. But so is saying that national leadership programs aren't beneficial to individuals and chapters alike.

Really, balance is the key and should be what every chapter is striving for. If you get to far to the extreme in any direction, especially at the expense of other achievements, it's a recipe for disaster. Yes, if you're too "party-centric", you're only going to attract those guys who care more about getting drunk than going to class. If you only care about being number one in grades, you're going to get a bunch of nerds and the sororities aren't going to associate with you. But there are plenty of guys out there that want both and so it's up to the chapters to appeal to that ethos if they want to attract those guys.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm...endid=90893788

Way to brag about your chapter's 2.9 gpa on your Myspace. I figured with the way you talked it would be higher than that, my chapter is probably around a 2.9 and we actually have cool kids (weird huh?)

Man, you guys are really missing FH, aren't you?

Maybe a Dale Carnegie scholarship or partnership (or something of the like) would be better - so the members who want to pursue that can? Taught by people who do that for a living, rather than fraternity/sorority officials who have other stuff to do?

I was thinking as I read this thread, if every member in a chapter is a "leader" you're going to have a lot of head-butting and ego clashes. Lots of people think the Beatles broke up because they were all too strong-minded of individuals - they all wanted to have the spotlight. You can't have a group where everyone is like that and expect to get things done. You will have the guys who are Mr. Everything, but you also need to have the guy who never holds an office but is always THERE for companionship, support, etc.

Our chapter average is a 3.2 and we are a purely social organization. No "training", no academic programs, nothing. And yeah, we actually have cool kids too.

Hell, I go out every night of the week and have a 3.7. And I hate nationals. But according to his logic my house is full of lazy drunks, who are falling behind the times and setting themselves up to fail in school and life.

It's almost like you're wrong, Kedzman.

Most have Old Row still...but I quit Old Row a year ago or so, so I have nowhere to e-frat but GreekChat.

Bringing up a GDISpace in a thread is classic OR/FH stuff. CB's comment about cokehead fraternities making better grades on two hours of sleep was epic.

It would seem that way...

Kedzman, I have talked to HQ alot this past year and to be honest they have alot of great advice and knowledge to help out chapters. But I believe that the other Greekchatters present a valid argument as well. Every school is different and I think that saying that one approach works for every university is a stretch. And that also goes with people, you cannot tell a person that non-hazing works for everyone, we all grow up in different lives and maybe hazing works for others. I believe someone said in an earlier comment that the army hazes, and you know it works for them to pump out fighting machines. But all in all I think that life does not have a certain equation for every situation otherwise it would be boring. And also my favorite saying is ALMOST everything in moderation, but for me personally moderation for drugs and hazing is zero usage, and a note to leave on is, I think that we can all learn a little bit from each other and if you cannot learn to see from another person's point of view then you are just ignorant.

No way, he can't be wrong, he's too smart to be wrong, and Sigma Nu Nationals said so!

Ummmm, 2.9 blows, my chapter is full of people who don't go to class and stay out acting like degenerates till all hours of the morning and still manages to have a waay better GPA...and I am not at some shit directional school in the middle of some flyover state.

As far as following the party line of nationals, to each his own, but to say that we all joined a SOCIAL fraternity for the wrong reasons because we wanted to do SOCIAL things is retarded. In fact, in the original minutes of my fraternity's first few meetings, one of the founders was recorded requesting cigars and brandy to be purchased out of the budget...and thats the only thing we have documentation of him saying at a meeting...ever.

deleted already.

Come on Kedzman, be a sport. It's not like getting outed is going to limit you to lower-tier, boring houses during rush. You apparently did that on your own.

Proves his embarrassment.

Yep, formal recruitment is in June for the boys. I guess the idea behind this is that new members will know which house (if any) they'll be in early on. That way they have time to cancel a contract with the dorms when they get a bid or find housing if recruitment didn't work out.

My understanding is that fraternities are a lot more open to informal rush than sororities. It's a hassle for a lot of people to travel to Lawrence for a few days during recruitment and then make a second trip out for orientation (which also lasts two or three days). I imagine it's tough for many of the houses to make quota with formal.

I love whoever hacked it, that site was a bunch of douchebags who try way too hard.

Don't bring that quota bs in this fraternity rush forum.

Oh, I get that. Seems like this would be a bummer for guys who are coming from out of state and don't know or are not able to make the events. But, like you said, the guys are better about informal rush, so I guess they can get picked up by houses in the fall.

ha ha, don't worry, it's not like you have to carry a man-purse now since you read the post.

Formal Rush makes me cringe just thinking about it.

Open Rush on the other hand, makes me want to drive to the nearest lake party.

Why not? I don't know a lot about fraternity rush. Bring me up to speed.

Oh ps, that's a pretty rude way to reply to a completely benign post.

Quota is a bunch of BS.

While I understand the reasoning behind it (not that I agree with it), it ends up doing the opposite of what it is intended to do. If you're trying to make all the houses relatively the same size, then put methods in place that do it. As it stands, at schools in which you're allowed to go over total to make quota, the big houses continue to get bigger, and the small houses remain forever small.

There are campuses - Nebraska for sure, I bet there are others - in which you can't go over total no matter what. Each house then has a different "quota", and the top houses are the ones that do the best job of keeping their members involved for all 4 years. They are rewarded with smaller classes which are more exclusive and filled with a much higher percentage of their most highly ranked girls. The houses that can't keep their members involved however still have the chance to start each year at total though, because they can take as many girls as they need to reach that point.

Basically, if you're going to intervene, make sure your intervention works. The way quota works at most schools, it's a completely flawed system.

All that said, I much prefer the fraternity method of not giving a rat's ass about keeping everyone the same size. There's no artificial manipulation of the chapter's rush efforts. Your house puts in the work (both during the school year and during rush) and gets the right guys in the forefront of rush as rush chairs, you'll be able to pick and choose the number and quality of rushees you want.

It's not the system that is flawed - it's the PNMs who refuse to consider anything other than the top 2/3/4 houses, and the people who talk shit about the smaller groups (often for no reason other than they are small) and make girls think "I guess I'd rather be nothing than be this." Oh, and it's also the national offices that award making quota after 4 days of rush, rather than awards for retaining members throughout their college career.

If quota/total wasn't made out to be such a big deal, it would work a hell of a lot better.

Fraternities have no quotas. We can take as many, or as little of pledge classes as we want. And I'm sorry if that came off rude, it meant for it to come off in a joking manner, since I assumed everyone here knew that were no quotas for fraternities.

Well I talked to a fraternity guy at KU who said his house had a quota. The way he described it, it sounded like the quota only applied to that specific house and the other houses had different quotas. So maybe you're kinda right.

It's not like sororities necessarily love quota either... I'd rather take a smaller group than bid a bunch of people who don't fit in for whatever reason and will likely drop anyway.

I should thought before I spoke, I totally forgot about one major key component of quotas. The fraternity quota are in essence, rush goals, they aren't binding at all, but bigger fraternities, such as those at SEC institutions have no problems with this, they are solid chapters and HQ won't push them very hard. Where quotas begin to come into play in the fraternal division, is when you have under-performing chapters at universities not really produce a very good Greek Life, the pressure mounts immensely for these group to get the unrealistic numbers their nationals has placed on them.

I didn't think dudes were dumb enough to do this. Or is it just certain national fraternities?

i would imagine most have a similar system, its just not as pronounced to outsiders, but i cannot be sure.

I know of one, maybe two, national fraternities that will set 'goals' for their chapters. They look at how many pledges the chapter has had over the last couple of years, the average pledge class of the groups on the campus, and then set a goal for their chapter.

Alpha Beta Fraternity

Alpha chapter at University of Whatever has had an average of 18 pledges for the past 5 fall rushes. The campus average for IFC rush at Whatever is 27. Your goal this year is 22 pledges.

Beta chapter at Whatever State University has only had an average of 9 pledges the past 5 fall rushes. The campus average for IFC rush is 22. Your goal this year is 14 pledges.


I don't know if there is any punishment for not reaching their goal. The one fraternity that I know set goals had the goal and the number of pledges on their website, but it is not there now.

Maybe you said it all, one Fraternity at the KU Campus and not all!:rolleyes:

I guess it would depend on which Fraternity you are refering to and how close they are!

If they are a Jewish Fraternity that may be true. But knowing a bit about KU recruitment, over all you are incorrect!

KU has a strong Greek Community with big houses and memberships for most!

But of course in The Major Houses membership counts!

OOPS they have to pay the bills!:rolleyes:

What the hell tom?

To summarize the thread: Rush Sigma Nu, they are AWESOME at Kansas.

Come on PhiGam. No one said that. It's a re-colonization; just saying they shouldn't take the usual 5-10 years to get out of the dumpster.

They're strictly non-alcoholic if you aren't 21 parties are the best on campus.

Obeying underage drinking laws= Phrat

Creating an account on an internet message board to make fun of a start up colony who is doing what national requires it to do in order to get a charter = Phrattier.

Creating a name on a message board to glorify a colony into something that its not, and recruiting for said colony on greek chat = phrattiest.

Colonies deserve to get made fun of sometimes because the only time they don't suck is when the house was top tier, off campus for only a few years and was underground/under a different name for the whole time. And that sometimes when they deserve to get made fun of is when people somehow associated with them act like the colony is no different than a top-tier house.

Colonies are never top tier, that's a perfectly reasonable assumption. And doing what no other chapter in the country does and actually obeying drinking laws isn't going to make them cooler any time soon. So it seems like a perfectly reasonable statement on his part.

I understand that there are a lot of Sigma Nu's here, but stop trying to recruit for a colony by denying the obvious. It makes the whole organization seem desperate when you do, when really its only one colony which needs numbers who is despearate.

And why, exactly, do you all care so much? You're all securely there in your "top tiers", right? Then just stay up on your high horses and let these other groups go about their business. There's a way to be "elite" without being judgmental jerks, you'll grow as men when you figure out how to do it.

Greekchat is probably the last place I think I'd want to recruit anyone.

I'll say one thing about colonies -- they are not your typical experience. They're hard work. It's sometimes a huge pain in the ass. I'm a former colonist. We worked our asses off and received our charter. What I accomplished for my chapter in the time I was active was, is something I feel justified in being more proud about than, for example, joining and belonging to a top tier house on campus.

This KU chapter, FWIW was a decent chapter just a few years back. They still have a beautiful chapter house. They have a very supportive alumni base and but for the last three or so years and WWII, the chapter has been at KU since 1884.