I need ideas to get chapter GPA up, any help welcome!
 

Our GPA is consistently one of the bottom ones. For some I think the problem is overprogramming, but I think that lots just aren't responsible for themselves. We already have a points system that incorporates gpa and mandatory study hours for those on academic probation, but what else can we do? I would especially like some kind of way to help our good grades get better instead of just focusing on the lower ones. We have lots of straight A girls, lots of B grades that could easily be As. Then we have a huge gap, and a a lot of girls whose grades are suffering. Do you have any ideas for programming or accountability?
These are some that I have...
- chapter study hours where everyone must come and study in silence for an hour every other week
- grouping girls with others in their classes or majors and making it mandatory that they discuss topics and classwork on a weekly basis, maybe on a discussion board or facebook thread so that i can verify that they do it

Do those seem like they would help, or do you have any more you would like to offer? If so, I would be very grateful. We are just desperate to get our chapter GPA up this year instead of having it get worse or we may end up on probation in the future. :(

Has it occurred to you stop social activity for a semester/quarter until there is a marked improvement? If you don't stop it yourself, your Panhellinic may stop it for you.

I've heard a lot of girls say that contacting the national office about ideas for scholastic improvement was the best thing they ever did! They have files and files of ideas, I've heard.

Cut the people who consistently don't make grades.

Also, your house might have a drug problem.

We had an "A bucket." For every A (on a paper or test, during the year, in a class for the first meeting after semester break), you can put your name in the bucket. Do a drawing once a week or once a month (make it something pretty nice that people really want). One idea might be waiving the fee to formal, esp if it's an expensive one, or some of the nicer jewelery or badges. It's pretty easy to find stuff that's not going to break the bank but that the girls will love.

Suspending formal events may make people resentful rather than motivated. Carrot, not stick.

Try making study hours more appealing - have food, make sure there are breaks but that they don't last too long (say a 5 minute dance party -in another room in case people want to keep working). Make a 3 hour study period, but people only have to come for one hour.

Make a "study board" where people can post what they need help in, or brag about what they did well in.

Thank you so much! I love the study board idea! I am contacting our regional specialist for ideas, too. And we're not at risk right now to get into trouble like probation, not even close right now, actually. It's just I'm afraid that if we don't improve we could be there in a few years and I don't want to allow any more further downhill movement. We're getting worse instead of getting better right now, so I want to turn it around.

And we don't have a drug problem, haha.

Yes. Does your chapter mention something in your bylaws about scholastic requirements (as in if a member hasnt made grades in so many semesters their membership is up for termination)? You'd be suprised how enforcing this "little" rule gets butts in gear for those that care about membership. For those that dont care one way or the other, then the chapter is better off without them and they should have their membership terminated.


I agree with what Carnation has told you about contacting your HQ for ideas. I will go a step further and also suggest that you contact other Pi Phi chapters to see what they are doing with their scholarship programming, especially those that have won recent awards on their campuses and nationally with Pi Phi.

my chapter went from being in last place for GPA to tied for third-highest in a very short time - a year and a half or two years, i think. we do the following:
-mandatory weekly study hours based on GPA...i forget how the actual break-down is, but it's something like, students with a 3.5-4.0 don't have any, 3.0-3.4 have one, 2.5-2.9 have two, 2.0-2.4 have three, and below 2.0 have four. new members have 4. if you don't make your study hours, you get put on social probation and can't participate in anything until you make them up.
-smart cookies - every week at chapter, if you got an A on something, you put your name and what you got the A on on the smart cookie list, which is read during chapter, and you get a cookie that our director of scholarship brings
-the skippy jar - this also goes around at chapter. girls who did not skip any classes that week can put their name in, and two names are drawn for little prizes each week

i think these are national theta things, but members with a 4.0 for a semester get a pearl that attaches to their pins, and members with a 3.5 or above get a certificate. i know i wanted a pearl so bad and worked extra hard for it this semester

I don't know how this would apply for a national chapter, but for my local, our alumni sponsored a "Scholarship Fund". Basically, if a girl made above a 3.5, she got a discount on her dues. That discount was then covered from the alumni scholarship fund. And while our dues were only $45 a semester, that $10 discount on your dues was a welcome relief!

We consistently had the highest GPA on campus, which is saying a lot considering that we were also the smallest sorority, which meant that each sister's grades impacted the overall GPA a lot.

The bolded is actually a really good point...what majors you have can make a difference. Also, take that into consideration when making study hours. Some majors (art/theater are two that come to mind) probably don't spend much time on books their last two years and might need help with time management instead. Ask the chapter what they need...a time management program? Tutors?

Those are optional for the chapter if the chapter decides to do it/budget for it.

We have "kite cousins" who are just other girls with your major. Great resource for help with projects, teacher recommendations, etc. Also, whenever we get an A on an exam or paper, we email our VPE and our names are put in a weekly drawing for a $10 Victoria's Secret gift card. It's small but it's fun! And it's not hard to get. $20 Starbucks gift cards and the certificate from Theta at the end of the semester for girls with 3.5 or above, and I'm not sure if we do the pearl for 4.0 or not.

I think you should also consider expectations for different majors. If you happen to be the chapter on campus that has 75% engineering majors, don't sweat it so much. If 75% of your girls are student teaching, however, you should be expecting 4.0's from all of them.

Our chapter has a required 5 study hours per week per sister regardless of GPA, academic probation or not.

The week of a social/mixer, study hours are due by the day of the social.

We have a skippy jar for those who do not skip classes during the week. A drawing is held during chapter for a prize (box of Smarties or something).

We also hand out candy to sisters who make A's and B's that week.

The last, and I think the most telling, instead of saying here or present during roll, sisters have to give the number of classes they skipped that week. Girls sometimes don't like it, but those are the girls who skip a lot of classes. You will find out VERY quickly if grades are lousy because of girls skipping classes.

Try increasing the GPA requirements for PNM's and actives. That brings in more studious members right off the bat, and can provide an immediate boost in the GPA. This may sound harsh, but you're not doing women who are scraping by with a 2.1 any favors by letting them waste time in a sorority.

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.