Former members & drop outs hanging on
 

Writing in from a small chapter (around 20 ideal size) at a small school in a rural area. We have some brothers who for whatever reason have transferred out back to community college or have dropped/failed out entirely. These former brothers incorrectly assume they count as alumnae because they were a part of the chapter then had to leave for a reason other than dropping the fraternity. They continue to invite themselves to functions and ask to have current brothers let them into the house. Some of our current brothers are understandably really good friends with some of these former members as they pledged together or joined together as friends but some other brothers are uneasy about the situation and think their behavior is clingy and kind of sad. I understand these guys don't have much going on but they don't pay dues (they paid their debts but obviously aren't on the roster anymore) and don't even go to our school anymore.. their only connection is past membership for only a couple semesters at most and friends they still have.

Being too heavy handed on these guys would have the effect of pissing off their friends still in the chapter, and might cause some discord in our chapter, but letting these guys continue to cling to our chapter is not our responsibility.

Am I being a bit of a bitch here or has anyone else had this problem? I know at larger schools the system works a lot smoother and is more like a machine but our school support is limited and we play most things by ear

Ummm....I advise you to look at your national policies. Unless they had their membership terminated by the fraternity, they ARE alumni. And you’re not being a bit of a bitch, you’re being a straight up a-hole.

If the problem is that they’re eating your food or drinking your drink for free, ask them to pitch in some money. When they refuse to do that is when you can get irritated at the situation. From what you say, they aren’t misbehaving or causing problems, so it’s not a risk management issue.

This is really common at smaller rural schools, so if you find it so annoying, I suggest you transfer.

Do you have chapter advisors who can help?

This is something you seem to be missing. As alumni of your chapter, they should be welcome to come back when they want to. Our organizations encourage membership for life. It's truly sad that you can't see that distinction.

Perhaps empathy is needed here. They probably wish they were still enrolled. They may have had to leave for financial reasons or other issues out of their control. To add to that pain by telling them they are no longer welcome at a place that feels like home to them is pretty crappy.

What does your brotherhood really mean to you?

To the bold: It sounds like these brothers are still members in good standing with the fraternity. In other words, membership wasn't revoked. If not, and they simply dropped out of school or transferred, they are still members of your fraternity. Your membership doesn't start and end with the school/chapter you pledged and were initiated at. It's for life.

Also, what events are they showing up to that is making some brothers uneasy and uncomfortable? I can understand there being a problem if they were showing up to recruitment/rush events drunk, for example, and making the fraternity look bad in front of potential members, or if they crashed formal having not paid for anything. But if they're just hanging out at the fraternity house, where's the issue?

They're your brothers. Not former brothers, or past brothers, just your brothers. You initiated them and welcomed them into your organization, so why is there suddenly an issue with them? Because you think their life is sad? Please tell me that's not it.

QFP. Yep, being a real bitch here. As has been noted, they are indeed alumni unless you are a local with some sort of weird qualifications for alumni status. If they are trying to come to events that are for actives only, that is one thing. You would be perfectly within your rights to tell ALL alumni that it is an active only activity. But overall - do you not want any alumni support? Because this is how you end up with no alumni support. Just because their lives took a different path shouldn't mean they are somehow "less" than, and it may well be that they end up in a position to do the chapter a lot of good, unless you completely alienate them. And if they are at a difficult place in their lives, shouldn't your brotherhood be supporting them? What is your fraternity about - a good time while at college, and then nothing else?

Oh, you go girl!

There was a similar situation at an NPC chapter that I advised, small school, small chapter. There were a string of women who either dropped out or went through the process to take Early Alumnae status (usual reasons were money and time.) However, many of these women continued to show up at nearly all "fun" meetings, essentially enjoying the benefits of collegian membership without paying any dues. So, the chapter decided to clearly list what events were open to Alumnae and when they could come (like Bid Day, Big-little reveal), and which events were Collegian only (Sisterhood nights, socials, etc.). There schedule was clearly disseminated to all. This really helped.

Now days, a bad alumni can get your chapter in big trouble really fast. So your concerns are not unreasonable. Contact your chapter's alumni group officers and get them involved with the issue. Let them be the "bad guy" on this issue/problem not you, the active.

I was an executive officer for my chapter my entire time as a chapter active. My chapter is not unlike the original poster's chapter. It was years ago. We also had a lot of alumni hanging around, which was good, but we had strict rules. Though I never saw them written down, I'll just list what I remember.

1. Alumni (which included any member not enrolled in the university) fell into two groups. Initiated and uninitiated. As actives, we never knew who was not initiated, but the alumni group's officers did. Though looking back after I graduated, it seems that uninitiated alumni never came back.

2. Alumni (and actives not current with active chapter dues) were not allowed to come to mixers or any event with a sorority or any official chapter social function where unmarried women were present.

3. Alumni could come to the homecoming party and spring formal if current with active member dues. (We told the alumni group president that alumni who owed substantial dues as actives were showing up at formals. So at the spring formal he stood at the door and made them pay the past dues along with the party fee before they could enter.)

4. Unmarried alumni enrolled in graduate programs at the university and who were on the faculty as graduate teaching assistants were not required to be actives and were welcome at all active fraternity functions. If they were not on faculty, they had to be actives in order to attend social functions.

5. For informal parties, alumni were always allowed. We expected them to behave (and they did). Any sign of drugs or problems and that person was persona non grata.

6. During summers, we did allow alumni to rent a room at the chapter house. They were required to have an undergraduate active roommate though. This would only be done if during the summer session the room could not be filled with an active. However, the alumni had to have a very good reason for needing the room - like a temporary work relocation, attending classes, etc. There were no official fraternity functions in the summer. (For many reasons, this would likely not be workable today.)

7. Alumni who were married could only attend homecoming and spring formal events. They were not welcome at any other official active chapter event if unmarried women were present.

Though these may attract criticism today, they were what I remember and what we did.

It’s very normal at my daughters chapter (where she’s a sweetheart). They’re welcome anytime and still hang out. If there is a party, they are expected to contribute cash or supplies. If there is a problem with one/more of them, they’d be asked to leave.

Are you talking guys who just left or did they have their membership revoked? Are they causing problems? Do you feel you’re competing with councils past? Maybe if you explain your issue with it, you’d get a better response.

He says they had to leave for a reason “other than dropping the fraternity” so either they transferred or failed out of school. I would think if they were causing trouble of any sort, he would have brought that up to strengthen his case. It honestly sounds like these guys are just coming back to hang out with their friends. His main complaint seems to be that they’re clingy and sad.

Also, if girls were upset by their presence at mixers or parties, I would think he would have brought that up too. Fact is the girls probably know them and have no problem with it. We’re not talking about 30 year old alums trying to pick up girls at mixers, these are college aged guys.

I realize that if your Greek experience was something very structured it might seem strange, but I honestly can’t think of a group on my campus where recent alums and/or transfers didn’t come back and hang out.

To the OP - I don't think you are being a bitch here. It sounds like these individuals didn't fulfill their end of the organizational deal but are trying to reap the benefits. I understand that frustration both from an undergrad perspective and from a national officer perspective. When I served on our national board, our insurance covered active members and alumni, so when rogue members dropped by it was a clusterfuck for us.

Check your organization's policies (or your regional/national HQ if you have one) to see what the rules are regarding alumni status and/or what happens when members aren't upholding required standards. If there aren't rules and your chapter is still concerned, consider laying out some ground rules about when/where non-active members can show up. If there are rules, then present those to the non-members and their member friends.

Good luck.

They ARE alumni. They became alumni when they left school in good standing with the fraternity. They don’t have unpaid dues so they DID fulfill their end of the bargain.

So I think policies are different in different organizations, so consulting our national organization would be your first step.

In DPhiE, if you fail out of school or transfer out to a campus that does not have a DPhiE chapter, you do not automatically become an alumnae member. Based off of the semester you were a new member, the year in school that you pledged and what your anticipated graduation year would be (so if I pledged in Fall 2019 as a freshman and my anticipated graduation year is 2023, I'd be active for four years), that determines your status.

In my example, let's say I transferred after spring 2020. So I was active for one year, and if I had stayed at my university, I would have three more active years. Our national organization requires that you pay national dues for the years you would have been active, and THEN you can become an alum. The national organization bills these transfer/non-continuing status folks, and you pay directly to national.

Reasoning behind this is you may apply to and be accepted at a new school that has a chapter of the sorority and you'll be active again OR you may transfer to another school that has DPhiE and you could be active again. That's how it is SUPPOSED TO work. Of the roughly 20 women who took transfer/non-continuing status when I advised my last chapter, there were three women who definitely left school for a year, and then transferred to another school where there was a DPhiE chapter.

Just a real-life perspective...take it for what you will :)

And in Delta Gamma, once you are not in the school where you were initiated, you are automatically an alum. If you transfer to another school where have a chapter, you can seek to affiliate...or not.

In your organization. Obviously this isn't universal.

Exactly. In my organization and some others like it, alumni status is granted if 1) you graduate or 2) you get special permission for early alumni status. If you just decide not to show up anymore, your status changes and if you don't square things up, your membership is terminated. But, if have circumstances that cause you to leave then you can apply for early alum. But even then, not all membership types can attend all events/gatherings, which is another concern that the OP seems to have.

If the OP is having this many questions, my guess is that there's a similar condition in their organization.

So if someone initiates, and then leaves school the following week, they are still considered an alumna? Interesting. When I worked a ton with other organizations (granted, not a ton of them NPC) there was almost like a "required" period in order to retain membership (ie. you have to remain active for at least x semesters). Looks like another YMMV situation.

I don’t think the OP has a clue what the conditions in his organization are. I think he’s just being an unfeeling jerk. This is the definition straight from his fraternity’s national website (bolded mine):

Alumnus: An initiated member of Alpha Sigma Phi who has received their undergraduate degree and/or are no longer enrolled in college.

Yes, that could happen. It would be highly unusual - and if egregious enough circumstances, Council could terminate her membership.

I'm gonna just break it down and respond to everyone individually because I tried for a little while to write one big response and it just wasn't working. Also, I would like to acknowledge my use of the term "former brother" being incorrect. I meant former active brother, and thus alumnus. I also specified some were not alumnus, this refers to one who was not formally initiated due to covid, then dropped out before we could do it for him this fall.

The alumni in question owe multiple brothers money, and refuse to pay it, and basically act like they are invincible since they feel they can't be punished because they aren't an active, and they think we can't do anything about them being able to come back whenever they please because they're an alumnus. They have also used our house to host their own unattended gatherings, parties without letting anyone know or asking for any sort of permission. I realize I left out some information about the fact that yes, they are misbehaving and causing problems.

Yes. We've reached out but the process of punishing them or reporting the issues is slow, and we're trying to work something out without having to go in any sort of extreme direction. We don't want to kick these guys out, we want them to understand how to be better about these things so all parties are less frustrated and we can have more fun.

Your first point is correct. They are members for life and yes they are alumnus (except one who was never actually fully initiated since he was the last one due to covid cancelling our spring semester, following which he dropped out)

As to the lifetime point, we have 50+ year old members who have full time jobs, families, etc and still find time to help us with renovations, advice, even finding internships or jobs for recent grads, they are truly our greatest asset and I certainly do understand the lifetime commitment.

My brotherhood is very important to me, that's why I don't want to see it fall apart due to people not following our guidelines. Again, the reason we don't just go heavy handed on them is that we want to keep these guys around because they are our brothers.

Membership was never revoked, and most are in good financial standing, the only reason they are in good behavioral standing is that none of us have wanted to actually cite their misbehavior, we've wanted to be lenient and just hope they mature up a little and realize that yes, they most certainly are welcome in our house but they still have to follow the rules.

The event issues have been that they have showed up to rush events and represented our chapter badly, they've showed up late, not in letters like we asked, some have shown up to late night events with alcohol when the event was specifically dry, and then they claimed it didn't apply to them because they weren't active current members, but alumnus. The final issue is that our house was empty for the entirety of the covid pandemic, and also no brothers lived in the house this past year, since we had a large amount of seniors leave, 3 juniors who held on-campus RA positions, and at my school freshman and sophomores cannot live off campus (our house is off-campus despite being a block away). We specifically told the alumnus they were welcome to come visit, we even encouraged it and offered the invitation to all recent alumnus, but asked that they let us know when they were going to come by so that we knew someone random wasn't just parked outside or had broken in (we've had break-in issues in the past). On numerous occaisions we arrived and the house or the vicinity smelled of pot, and we found the inside of the house trashed on multiple occasions after these brothers had admitted to recently coming by and failing to let anyone know.

No I don't think their lives are sad. I respect their decisions to leave our school for whatever reason they chose to do so. Some of these guys were my pledge brothers and very good friends when they were close with the brotherhood, the problem is that these guys are close with the house now, not their brothers.

Yes they are alumni, I was wrong to describe them as former brothers. Yes they come to active-only events. Ironically they rarely ever show up to alumni-specific events.

This. Exactly this but the fraternal equivalent. Thank you for your advice, truly.

Not to you directly but I realize that some may read my OP as "I hate people who aren't active who come around our house". This is not the case, speaking to point 6 our house remains completely empty during the summer save for when we go to maintain it. This summer, my roommate for this upcoming year and I have been cleaning and working on the house every weekend in addition to work. The thing that spurred all this frustration in the first place is that on several occasions this summer, I'd find that someone had left the door unlocked, someone had left trash everywhere, someone had used my room to hang out in (the lock is broken right now), etc. Several times we'd ask in our actives groupchat who had come to the house, and it would always be crickets, followed by, "I drove by and I saw so-and-so's car there" or something like that indicating who was actually there. Several times we called police and asked them to drive by every so often because we thought our house was being broken into. The alum actually got pissed at US for calling the cops saying that they could have gotten questioned for being there, even though they didn't let anyone know they were coming, and despite them not supposedly having current keys (we change the locks yearly so someone would have made them a copy, or they climbed in an unlocked window).

Once again I'd apologize for my vagueness and incorrect terminology. This refers to guys we have had problems with but ARE currently still in good technical standing.

They are causing some trouble, sorry for the vagueness of my OP. Yes they do come to hang out with friends, and we have no problem with that. We are there friends too, not just one or two members within our brotherhood, they are closer with some than others and feel that they can get away with more with their friends obviously. Upperclassmen greek girls in my year and above have let some of us know that they'd like us to keep them from coming to socials because they don't want to have to explain to their recent alum why they can't come but ours can. We asked them for this reason and they either tried to circumvent it or just ignore our rule.

This is nearly exactly my complaint, they want their cake, they want to eat it, but they don't want to pay for it and they don't want to do the dishes after either. There are no guidelines on a national level to maintaining good alumni standing. The only thing our contract states is that the chapter has no right to expel a member, the national HQ must do it. Link to the contract

Technically, yes. Absolutely correct. Only one has unpaid dues but to his credit he has set up a payment plan. Unfortunately our guidelines don't provide for when alumni act against our chapter rules. They did become alumni but that doesn't necessarily mean they matured any. Some of these guys weren't good actives, and others were total all-stars but becoming an alumni didn't change a whole lot. Consider that some were only actives for 2 semesters, in which they were pledging for the majority of the first one, and halted by Covid-19 in march for the second. Some of these guys were really only "in" for about 2-3 months total.

To be completely clear, the scenario I'm afraid of is this:

Guys keep showing up to active-only events, trashing our house, or ignoring any alumni rules we lay out. They give us the ultimatum of "is this brotherhood for life or what?" and claim we can't do anything about their misbehavior. It kind of puts us in a bit of a pickle. If there are no stakes for them they have no incentive to behave or listen to anything we say.

That's a very interesting system. For us dues are only paid for years you are active and attending the original school you initiated at, if you transfer to another school you are an alum and do not pay any more dues. This is the only way to become early alum as an Alpha Sig to my knowledge.


Thank you all for your input. I realize my OP was very vague, it came from a place of frustration and for some reason I guess I wrongly assumed that people would read between the lines, totally not the case and the confusion is my fault.

You pretty much told the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears with only one bear.

If Andy Alum owes Chad Collegian money, that’s up to Chad Collegian to get it back from him. It’s NOT a fraternity issue and making it one will only make things worse. Now if Andy Alum never paid the chapter for his fall 2019 dues, that IS a fraternity issue.

If they are really doing things like crawling in a window to get in a locked house, then they probably should be terminated even if they’re alumni. That’s crazy.

As far as them not going to alumni specific events...like I said in one post, they’re college aged guys. I doubt very much that they want to go on a golf outing with a bunch of 30+ year old men talking about their jobs and families.

I totally agree, the one that owes money is the same one who has the payment plan, and its more of an example of how he's taking advantage of the "c'mon man we pledged together" type of thing.

Yes some have broken in.

And I totally agree they wouldn't wanna go to those sorts of events, I completely understand and I wouldn't either, but we also show up to these events except for one which is only for seniors and alumni, so if they want to hang out they have options, they're even welcome to bring plus ones to parties.

In my active days, we had guys who were 7-year-actives who only withdrew from the university after their grades caught up with them. We also had guys who are now department chairs at major universities. So today -- we would likely be called a balanced chapter. I know it's hard for some guys to realize that their fraternity days are over. Your problem alumni will sooner or later come to that realization.

They are alumni now - they should only be participating in alumni activities. If they want to be actives again, they need to re-enroll in your university.

About the house. Get your housing corporation involved. There are some inexpensive security things you can do. Some in the $60 range. But what you can do depends on the laws in your state. So I'm not going to make any suggestions. You should have a house manager who is in contact with your housing corporation. It is important that you chapter and your housing corporation get a handle on what's going on at your house. I know of a university that will suspend a chapter for the conduct of alumni while they are visiting your chapter house, even if no actives are involved in the conduct.

Tell the guys crashing your party that the sororities are conditioning their participation on the fact that only current actives would be attending.

Greek Chat is not going to solve all of your problems here, but many of the folks commenting have a lot of experience and your problems are not really new or unique - but they are solvable.