Difficult Recolonization Question
 

Hello yall, My name is Jeff and I am a student at a major SEC school. I joined a fraternity here during my Freshman year, but it was not what I was lead to believe it would be. Our chapter size is roughly 80 members, and there are about 15-20 of us who are severely unhappy with our situation. Unfortunately we no longer have the members to create change and we are quickly going downhill.

Due to a large graduating class, "our" numbers (and I say that referring to the group of us who are unhappy with the direction we are heading in) have shrunk and after a few very long chapters riddled with excessive parliamentary procedure, we no longer have any say in the direction we need to go. In essence we are two different fraternities who are stuck together in one. These two fraternities are a typical southern fraternity, and a typical northern fraternity. We think, act, and look very differently. The northern fraternity has seized power and as many of you may know, in the south fraternities mostly dominated by northerns do not get very far. Whether it is right or not, it is the way it is.

Many brothers have disassociated, and we have been meeting regularly trying to figure out a solution. So far we have come up with this:

An major international fraternity which was very popular on campus was kicked off about five years ago. This fraternity has a built in following, it was extremely popular, gave back to both the campus and the community, and it was a backed by hundreds of outstanding alumni. It continues to send many legacies back to our school, and if it were to be recolonized it would quickly regain its reputation and legacy of a quality fraternity with quality men on campus. After they left campus they continued to recruit underground for a year or so, but after this year there will not be a initiated brother or an underground member left enrolled at our university.

Our solution is once we are all officially dissociated from our fraternity, to recolonize this fraternity. We would be gone by the time it was chartered and therefore we would not be a witness to any initiation or fraternity secrets. We would simply be the first people to recruit others in an attempt to bring this historic fraternity back to campus, while getting the tradition, community, and most importantly the brotherhood that we all were lead to believe we would get in our fraternity experience.

Lastly, I know this is unethical and may rub many of you the wrong way. I understand that this is not anything close to being an ideal situation, and that it would be great if we could work to improve our fraternity from the inside. While that would be great, please only respond with constructive thoughts, I am fully aware of what I am proposing and what it entails. Any damage that would be done with 20 or so brothers disassociating will be done regardless of whether we attempt to recolonize another fraternity or not. The situation is becoming detrimental to the fraternity, and it would be best if we could part ways and both "start anew" to try to make both of our organizations the best they can be.

Thank You,
Jeff

QFP

LOL

A few things.

1) It's going to be pretty easy for people on this site to figure out your school and fraternity. And since you've identified yourself as Jeff Cunningham, they're going to know who you are, too. A lot more people check this site than you think, so don't be surprised if this post is seen by your chapter brothers and your fraternity's headquarters. Just FYI.

2) If you are an initiated member of your fraternity, as it seems you are, I have a hard time believing any other fraternity would be interested in having you start a colony of their org.

3) What would you hope to gain by starting a new fraternity you could not become a brother of?

If I were recruiting men for a new colony I wouldn't pick the ones that had jumped ship from another one when it didn't go their way. Being in a colony is tough work, and I wouldn't trust you to stick around. Furthermore I wouldn't recruit anyone who could not really become a brother, that stipulation is ridiculous.

Regardless of the first question, the next two are legitimate. Neither I or my other disassociated brothers will be the figurehead, other men who are not initiated in any other fraternity will be the leaders in the effort, while the rest of us will be working to help grow the fraternity. Already participating in a fraternity, we can certainly help in the paperwork and positions which will need to be held.

We want to gain helping re-establish a fraternity with a strong tradition which can survive in the intense Greek environment of the South. I don't believe our fraternity will continue to exist on campus past 10 years. Many fraternities were originally formed as either responses to others, or as break away groups. Establishing a fraternity which fosters brotherhood in a way which we believe it to be the best way to do so, and having that tradition continue on for many many years is very satisfying.

Yeah, if I were an alum of the fraternity you want to recolonize, I think I'd tell you guys to go pound sand...as big on "honor" n'at as southern gentlemen are. The last thing alums want is for their fraternity to be rebuilt by men who are, in effect, damaged goods.

Helping found an organization which can live on for years to come, which will do both good on and off campus, and improve the men which decide to join is worth it.

So in other words, you think 50 years from now, brothers will be learning your names in pledge tests or something? "Jeff Cunningham and a bunch of other dudes dumped their previous fraternity to be underground members of our recolonized chapter. We would not EXIST without them."

hahahahahahaha

What you are proposing might have worked with you guys being "social members" 30 years ago, but that's damned hard to get away with now - and I don't think any group wants to re-enter an SEC school under any circumstances that are the least bit shady.

It has nothing to do with us, perhaps you can not understand as you have not experienced what we have, but helping a honorable organization reestablish themselves is good enough for me.

I'm not looking to become a brother.

Perhaps YOU don't understand.

I don't think this group (if it is as upstanding as you claim) is going to let you get anywhere near its letters. Triple ditto for the chapter alumni. I'm an alum of a dormant chapter, and if I heard "oh, a bunch of girls disaffiliated from ZTA, and they're going to build up an interest group and recolonize ASA in a few years" I would be up at the school in 2.5 seconds asking them who in the hell they thought they were, appropriating my sorority to serve their purposes.

Because that's basically what you're doing. You don't like the group you're in and you think you've found a way to get out of it and still be Greek.

I am not looking for any credit, any respect, I am not looking to gain anything by being a colony member of this certain fraternity. I am aware that I will always be a member of my current fraternity, and that will never change.

What I am looking to do is with my current brothers is to start a new chapter on the values we believe to be true, which can thrive on our campus. If down the road after it were to be founded, it thrived, the simple fact that knowing I had a very minimal part helping to create something that helped others improve themselves to be better men, well that would be more than enough for me.

I am not looking to tell people that I am a member of this fraternity, to use it for networking connections, or anything like that.

Once again, that is simply false. I am not looking to be a member of another organization. I do not want to be initiated, I do not want to be considered a brother, nor will it simply be us. There will be people who are not currently greek who will be the leaders, we will be there to help improve recruiting, organization, and the social re-integration back into the campus.

Imagine if you took all this energy and wanting to help others become better men, and applied this to your own fraternity. Since you'll always be a member of your fraternity and not initiate into a new one...charity starts at home and all that.

Both myself and 20 other brothers have worked tirelessly for the past year to try to change the way things are going, but we simply do not have the numbers. We can not get elected to positions, we cannot even have a legitimate effect on voting on potential new members. It's a lost cause.

Not currently Greek? Are you unaware that the alumni who work at HQ, on the housing board, the advisers - the people who will be making major decisions including who becomes members of the colony - are alumni members of the fraternity. You obviously haven't learned that brotherhood is for life.

As for the "WE" - are you talking about you and the defectors? Why would ABC fraternity want members of XYZ handling any part of the colonization? Most of the business of colonization is privy only to MEMBERS.

One pledge class can change everything. You just haven't tried hard enough.

An additional two pledge classes have come through and only compounded the problem.

The specific fraternity is slowing loosing its foothold on campus, it is dangerously close to having people forget it ever existed on this campus. If it wants to come back, which alumni are making it fairly obvious that they would support an attempt, it has to be now.

It may not be ideal, but it would benefit both parties involved.

Why not go and recruit members to your fraternity (you said your numbers were low) who would be potential colony members (your kind of people) and then over throw the guidos? If they are cut from the same cloth as you they may enjoy an insurrection to remove tanning and hair gel from Greek Life, and replace it with rainbows and Vineyard Vines (or whatever's hot in the SEC these days). How can your HQ not support membership growth? They'd totally support new members, and some not crummy alumni might loan you a beach house to get better members.

Required reading doesn't include Machiavaelli's The Prince and Sun Tzu's The Art of War anymore? Real good information in those.

Bonus points for getting the Jersey Shore crowd in unsavory photos, and having your HQ kick them out administratively, saves you the work. They probably won't be mistaken for regular people with their Christian Audigier shirts and pooka shell necklaces. Let them plan a foam party, call the cops to bust it, and be elsewhere (say duck hunting in Stuttgart?) so you're innocent.

How?

I still fail to see how your being a member of a colony for like 8 weeks and quitting is really going to do for it.

The people who really contribute to the growth of a fraternity are those guys who stay with it.

Your idea is full of fail.

Thats what we have been trying to do for the past year, we simply do not have the numbers to do it anymore. We literally could only get 4 out of 20 pledges which would be considered legitimate fraternity men on any southern campus. You can try to make change as much as you want, but without numbers your efforts will always be futile.

And those men who contribute to the growth of the fraternity will be great men, those will be the people that are asked about in pledge quizzes in thirty years, not me.

The simple fact of creating something which we all know is possible and can envision, and seeing it come to light is enough for all of us.

So you want to feel good about yourselves is that is? Instead of trying to see if there is something you can do with your own fraternity. You claimed that you got two pledge classes with more of the same. doesn't seem like the other faction is hurting the fraternity.

LOL @ selfish people who think they're selfless

Regardless of whether I am creating something, I will play a part. It is pointless to have petty arguments about whether other people will look down upon what I do or accept it. That part is not for anyone to decide, if the right people agree, that is all that is needed.

I do not want to "feel good about myself". If you get have a group of bad guys, and you recruit more bad guys, I'm pretty sure that you continue to hurt it by doing so.

I am not being selfless. Do you think when I pledged and was initiated I wanted to do this? No. I did not. Sometimes things happen that are out of your control, and you need to act accordingly. I am not selfless, I am fully aware that I am betraying the values that have been laid down by my fraternity and the brothers which have founded it both nationally and on my campus. I am not proud, let alone selfless.

So where will these guys for the new fraternity come from, magically appear to be a decent group? it is a serious question, if you can't get people now, how will this other fraternity do that in a recolonization?

AND

How do you know that it won't be run by a dude from the chapter at say, Utah Clown College? You can't tell me that there isn't a risk of a consultant who thinks a fraternity should have a root beer keg and floats with a make your own sundae bar as a rush event. The people in that school's HQ may have a new program, Gentlemen United Intellectuals Defining Originality, and they can't wait to roll it out with the recolonized chapter who had all kinds of behavior in the past they didn't like.

If you can't recruit people into your own organization, why would you be successful with this new one? You can have all kinds of alumni cash, but you can only gold leaf a turd so many times.

Question: Who recruited these douche canoes to begin with? Were you not present at rush and able to blackball them? Someone not only gave bids to these people, they also let them initiate. Who would that have been? Because someone had to put out the welcome mat to let the Abercrombie and Hollister catalog impersonators in.

You can't recruit good guys into an organization that is 80/20 terrible. You can recruit guys into an organization that while smaller, is quality through and through.

I am very familiar with our IFC's policies for having new colonies on campus and what that means. There will be no ice cream floats.

Let there be no confusion, I was not accusing you of being selfless :rolleyes:

I think I remember Elephant Walk saying that HQ always sends "their weirdest yankees" around for colonization, lol.

So, you came here to:

...say that 1/4 of your chapter is unhappy.

...separate yourself from the other 3/4 of the chapter by using phrases such as, "Our numbers," and, "There are two different fraternities stuck together in one."

...indicate that the "northerners" know nothing about running a "southern" chapter. But of course, you aren't willing to work with them.

...tell us that the unhappy 1/4 has been meeting secretly to "fix" things.

...imply that a fraternity chapter that was kicked off campus is better than your chapter... which is still on campus.

...reveal your solution: bring another fraternity back to campus, with your FRATERNITY BROTHERS, without becoming a member of this second fraternity.

...reveal your search for brotherhood, which, ya know, you already have with those brothers who are supporting you.

...talk about your wanting to re-establish a fraternity with a strong tradition which can survive in the intense Greek environment of the South (even though it couldn't, because, again, they were kicked off campus).

...state your belief that your fraternity won't survive longer than 10 years. Way to be optimistic!

...overall, make it known that you have no loyalty to your fraternity, to the brothers who have stood beside you, and to all of the brothers who have helped make the chapter what it is.

Yes, please... drop out of your fraternity and attempt to re-establish a chapter of another fraternity without actually joining. And be sure to come back and tell us how that all works out!

:rolleyes:

If you were to read back on my original post, it was about whether or not it was "legally" viable. I am not worried about the social simplifications, nor should anyone else who doesn't know what state, fraternity, or school I am a student of.

And you expect another fraternity to let you near a colony with a 10 foot pole, especially since you will not initiate?

Did you miss what I said about stealth recruiting? You find like minded people and get them in on the plan. Do you not think your affiliation with your group may turn people away, since , in your words, it is terrible? Like I said, someone bid them, and that is going to follow you.

Being sneaky and devious is fun, you should try it, honestly.

Fair enough. I thank everyone for their feedback. I do appreciate it.