100+ man chapters
 

Recently an Indiana DU posted that his chapter was up to 105 members and doing nicely, brought up a thought how many chapters in your fraternity are at 100+ members, I assume many sorority chapters are this large.
Does size have any correlation to quality IE grades, athletic standing, house alumni support etc.

DU 100+ chapters I know of:
Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missourri, Kansas, Kansas State, Central Florida probably several more but I don't want to be wrong.

To be truthful, I have no clue how many LXA Chapters fall in this catagory, but am sure there are many.

My main thought would be if My LXA Chapters were compreable to those in other GLOs of the same Campus.

I always have wondered How the Members really know each other!:(

Bigger isnt always better.

Chapter size is a reliable correllation of strength, but it is relative to the campus. At Penn State there are 55 fraternities, but a "large" fraternity is around 65 men. At Texas or Texas Tech, those considered the top fraternities will all have considerably more than 100 members.
At the University of Virginia, a chapter with 150 men would seem very much out of place, but fraternities considered the leaders at UVa will have maybe 60 members. On the other hand, a chapter of 60 men at Florida State cannot compete with the 100+ man chapters there, some of them with more than 150 members.
As far as how the members know each other, I'll point out that at may schools there are sorority chapters with nearly 200 members - some even larger - and they don't seem to have any problem with it at all.
I am a proponent of large chapters. If you have enough strength to draw the best men, then those are the men you WANT to be associated with. Fraternities run on momentum amd morale, and brothgerhood is enhanced when you're a member of the winning team.

I know of only 2 or 3 fraternities out of 12 that aren't at a 100 members at our campus.

Sounds great.

Where is this?

I think think I disagree on most of the points made by firehouse.

Numbers does not equal strength or quality. What it does encourage is blanket bidding, easy pledge processes, not worrying about quality.

Sororities here have about 100 members, and they admit that they do not know their sisters that well. Some of the newer girls wouldn't even recognize the older sisters that are that active anymore.

All numbers equate to is more money. In terms of organization, leadership, quality, etc there is nothing a 150 man chapter can do that a 40 man chapter cannot also do.

There are two frats on my campus that hold numbers as the most important aspect. All of the other fraternities view them as a joke because they recruit anyone and everyone.

The Kappa Sigma chapter here at the UA consists of over 200 members. They're the biggest and oldest fraternity in Arizona...and are always getting in trouble, I rushed there last semester and was turned off completely.

It is obvious that with those size of Members as was said, there will be a lot that dont know each other, How Sad!:(

I would also feel fulish if I were walking across Campus and see someone with letters and ask if they are a Member From My Chapter, a transfer, or just visiting.

I never knew a time with a My @ 60 Man Chapter that all didnt know each another.

Liken it to Eng or Math 101 meeting in an amphitheater with 100-200 + students. Just a Number, not a true learning student according to your Instructor.

At Ole Miss I would say that Phi Delta Theta, Kappa Sigma, Sigma Chi, Sigma Nu, Pi Kappa Alpha, and KA Order all have over 100 guys...Sigma Chi and Sigma Nu might even have over 200...the other fraternities range from like 20 members to 90 members...Sig Ep might have over 100 too.

Would you say that at Ole Miss, these 100+ man chapters are among the leaders in power, prominence, and prestige?

Do these chapters lead in intramurals, campus politics, community service?

Do sororities like to have socials with these chapters?

To summarize, these large chapters likely lead the campus in every important way.

Maybe some small chapter has some success, but noting like the biggies do.

The numbers issue has been discussed over and over. Coramoor, I think you and I would probably disagree on the way specific chapters are valued (based on your comments, especially the "easy pledge process"), but I would agree with you that the only proper measure of your fraternity's value to you is what you personally get out of the membership.
I know a little about Morgantown (I'm from Logan originally) and who is - or used to be - considered the top fraternities there. My guess is they are also among the larger chapters on campus.

Let me turn your analogy on its head: you said a 150 man chapter cannot do anything that a 40 man chapter cannot do. Well, a 40 man chapter cannot hope to compete with a 150 man chapter when manpower is a key factor. The smallest fraternity on campus never wins the overall Intramural Trophy, they don't have the top sororities locked up, they don't have the power in student government and they cannot draw pledges from among the most ambitious guys on campus. The smaller chapters usually keep to themselves and don't compete in anything. Nothing wrong with that; if you don't compete you don't have to worry about being judged. If you making hard pledgeship and hazing a virtue, then you never have to worry about competing to recruit the football quarterback or the student body president - they aren't interested.

It's a mistake to equate large size with low quality. It's a big mistake to equate small size with exclusivity. the truth is that the top men, the most ambitious men, the sharpest men, want to join the popular group with the most men like them.
If you and I start out to create a large chapter by offering bids to everyone, it won't be large for long. No one wants to join a fraternity that everyone/anyone can join. The chapters that inflate their numbers by mass-bidding usually aren't large for long. The fraternities who want to be large because they recruit winners and achievers find that their biggest problem is saying no to potential pledges because so many men want to join.

Tom Earp, I respect your opinions but let me draw another analogy to you about "knowing each other". You spoke of walking across campus and wondering whether or not that fellow in the LXA jersey was from your chapter or not. Consider this: let's say you are in Special Forces, and you're in a strange town where you don't know anyone. You walk into a bar crowded with other military men - you don't know anyone. Across the room you see one other man who's wearing a green beret like yours. You see him; he sees you. You immediately have a bond with that man because you know have more in common with each other than with any other man in that room. You've had the same experience of being in an elite unit. the fraternity parallel is this: if you're the biggest, the best, you're the IM champions, you run the campus and own the sororities, you are in an elite unit, and you immediately have a bond with that other LXA (or Pike or Phi Delt or KA).
Tom, your Lambda Chis on my campus have 150+ men and they are an elite unit. My chapter too. We do have smaller fraternities as well.
Coramoor, some of those 40-man chapters are miserable because they are lesser quality outfits. A few, however, are very happy with who they are because they value different things than we do. I have no problem at all with that. But...don't sit there with 40 men and try to tell me that you could compete with us if you all-of-a-sudden decided to make a game of it. It's perfectly OK to play football for Fairmont State; it can be a wonderful, rewarding experience and you can get a lot out of it. But don't delude yourself into thinking that playing for Fairmont means that the men who play for the Southen Cal Trojans or the Texas Longhorns are somehow less worthy or less enthusiastic or that their high profile "does not equal strength or quality".
I mean no disrespect, it just pisses me off to hear someone say off-hand that big chapters have less quality and that small chapters are more selective. In my experience, the exact opposite is almost always true.

Hoosier: hear, hear!
You said it in five sentences. It took me half a page. Good job.

Well said.

I think it all depends on how your campus runs things like intramurals, Greek Week, etc.

I mean as far as, say, intramural basketball...if the 30 person chapter has the 10 best basketball players there are, and they all play, what does it matter if they go up against a 150 person chapter? You can only have 5 guys playing at once.

I completely agree with what Coramoor is saying, and it is the prevalent attitude around here (dude, I'm pulling you over the Mason-Dixon just for this post, LOL). To wit, the biggest chapters at Penn State, the biggest Greek school, being the size of the smallest chapters at Texas and such. It's not innately bad to be big, but as far as things are concerned in this neck of the woods, it usually seems like the biggest are only concerned with warm bodies and not quality of members - especially where fraternities are concerned. If you see it happen again and again, you will begin to believe that big = full of lame-os.

To elaborate on my campus, which is where I draw most of my experience from, the largest fraternities are no where near the top on campus. In fact, it is quite the opposite. They do not draw on the most ambitious, talented, or active men on campus. They draw on the men with like interests, or from specific parts of the state. Many of the athletes, student gov't leaders, etc don't even look at those fraternities because of their membership.

In terms of manpower, if you have any experience within an organizagtion you will agree that there is always a small core group that do the most work. In the military it's the 80/20 rule. 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people. When that is taken into consideration the numbers gap quickly closes. While the larger chapter still has a slight advantage in numbers-that generally means that it is easier for people to slack off and lay the blame on other people or claim ignorance when something is not completed.

A difficult pledge process doesn't mean that hazing is a virtue. However, in large pledge classes bonding and getting to know people cannot be achieved on the same level. Your example of a man in the special forces is good...for the special forces. On a national level, it would work, but not on a chapter level. I would be embarrassed if I didn't know everyone in my chapter. There is no way to justify not knowing and having a bond with someone that is your 'brother' from the same chapter. Also, a brother that does not have to work for his pin is not going to respect or care about it as much.


It is a far larger mistake to equate a large chapter with getting all the top men. In a class of 50, you are saying that all 50 men are best on campus. The best and the brightest are going to look for a solid group of men, but also one where they will have the most impact internally and externally.

Forty years later, that Indiana journalism training still paying dividends.

PS: Show me a 40-man chapter on a campus with several 100-man chapters, and their biggest trophy this year will be for blood donation.

Show me a 30-man chapter, and I'll show you their empty house in about two years.

33girl, you know I respect you, and believe you to be wise in all things. So I'll bow out here.

I'd have to completely agree with CoraMoor. At my university (University of Arizona, big school) the biggest fraternity on campus is Kappa Sigma. Not that I am ragging on Kappa Sig WHATSOEVER, but on MY campus, they have a reputation pretty horrible reputation among every other fraternity on campus. They have huge parties and get wasted which in turn puts them in the paper at least once a month under the "arrests" section, they play in IM but don't win much, they're among the lowest avg. GPA among Greek life here on campus...Not saying that this is true everywhere, but where I come from, the biggest house on campus is definitely not the best. There are over 200 men in that house; when I rushed there in the Fall the first words out of the brother's mouth (on the tour) was "If you guys wanna get drunk and party every fuckin' night, PLEDGE KAPPA SIG!" It wasn't exactly a classy place... DTD is a relatively small house (80 men) and I won't claim to be the best, but we keep our GPAs up, are very popular among the Sorrority houses - compete well in IM... I guess the point here is that most campuses have different experiences. I think it's great that we can all relate here, but it's a mistake to try to make one generalization (big v. small) - every campus will be different.

there is some empirical data provided by the NIC (can't seem to find it though on their website) where they did a study on the relation of size to behavioral problems, academic performance, and overall campus influence and reputation. The study found that there was correlation between being bigger and performing at a higher level.

I can't find the information, but I do remember seeing it somewhere. This would help answer g41965's initial question about size correlating with fraternity performance. Can anyone help?

I gotta agree with Firehouse and Hoosier on this one.

PS, I thought KS at Arizona got booted? I visited the Beta house when I was down there in 1996 (I think), when Kappa Sig built their new house...pretty nice looking pad. But, since then, I thought they were axed?!

Nope. Sigma Chi and Pi Kappa Alpha got kicked off campus in 2003 as well as Delta Chi in 2002. Where the Sigma Chi house was is now a parking lot. KS is still there.

Here's the link to UofArizona chapter recognization status

http://www.union.arizona.edu/csil/greek/recognition.php

Pike is coming back in the not so distant future though correct? I spoke with a pretty prominent alum from that chapter, and although he was very upset about the chapter losing recognition, he told me the school and fraternity were working on coming back.

I think Sigma Pi resides in the old Pike house now? Or was it someone else?

I would say the bigger chapters are the ones that lead on campus. They tend to have swaps with all sororities, better grades (although not always true because Delta Psi at Ole Miss has excellent grades and they are not a 100+ sized chapter), they tend to participate more in other events on campus because they do have more members to do this.

A few of our smaller chapters are still really good fraternities, i.e. Delta Psi, Beta Theta Pi, DKE, it just depends I guess on what you are looking for in a fraternity.

One of my good friends from Cincinnati is a Kappa Sig at UA, and yeah, from what he says, you're dead on. All he talks about is getting wasted at the house and having parties and breaking stuff...

Per the UofArizona chapter recognization status page, Pike is eligible for expansion as of Jan. 2006 (now). Haven't heard anything though about them coming back. Yes, Sigma Pi now resides in the facility that was the Pike's.

Yup. Delta Chi was booted in '02 for Hazing. KS is sort of a joke on campus here at UA - unless all you want to do is get wasted. It's different at every campus I suppose.

What does Delta Chi and Kappa Sig have anything to do with what she posted?

In my 24 man chapter, we just tied to win Best Alumni Relations along with 90-man Sigma Chi. The trophy they made this year looks like we won a Euro Soccer Tourney. We've been -30 the whole four years I've been in DSP, and we're still at SDSU and definitely aren't in the most danger of closing around here.

We also were very instrumental in our pairing winning Homecoming. We've finished in the top 5 in IFC GPA the last four semesters. We don't get a hundred sorority girls partying at our house every weekend, but that's not an issue with me with five months left.

We've been the most diverse house (I believe the majority of the house are minorities), and I couldn't see my lower-class big brown ass being accepted socially, especially as a BROTHERHOOD, in any other house. In a world of kids with their heads up their asses and their hand's in daddy's wallet, I wouldn't want to be in any other house but Delta Sig, at least at SDSU.

There's no way I could handle having cancer if I was in any other house. If having 24 guys, good times with only those I care about, and none of that petty Greek BS means we're a weak chapter, then there's nothing I can say that'll change your mind.

I acknowledge you're not attacking anyone in particular hoosier, but I disagree that having the most members as the determining factor.

ETA: I know most houses aren't like this, but I've had plenty of experience with certain organizations to know how many feel about thier greek peers who are from less-fortunate, more humble circumstances.

That's the difference.

Even on my campus where the largest frat doesn't break 70, the smaller chapters (around 20 or so) have problems.

I still have an issue with the guys saying that bigger = better. The biggest here also has among the lowest grades, bad participation, and do well in only a handful of Intermurals out of all the events.

I was agreeing with what she said, and adding information about the previous topic...:rolleyes:

As with other parts of Greek life, I think anyone trying to make a hard and fast rule having to do with numbers will find themselves disappointed.

Two examples from BU's campus:

My chapter was the largest on campus, and ended up doing quite well (highest grades, most philanthropies, best in sports, awards from IFC every year). It wasn't necessarily because we were the biggest on campus, but that didn't hurt.

On the other hand, when I was a freshman, DTD left campus. At one time, only a couple of years earlier, they had been the largest on campus. Just as quickly, Delts at BU were just a memory.

It can happen both ways; people have to remember that. Large chapters and small chapters can go both ways; you can't judge a chapter by its numbers.

Wow, what happened to the Delt chapter?

It's different at every school. Where I'm at bigger is definently better.

proven over and over
 

Wilson Benton Heller (UMoPike, Press Agent, WWI ace and the publisher of the College Survey Bureau) pushed the notion that as
a rule the largest chapter will be the most prominent, over all, as a GENERAL statement; I knew him well...you can find our letter
exchanges at IL-CU archives. But, folks ever-changing scenes as
Frau Blücher would say, would amend this a bit. TKE at U of AZ was one of those 160 man chapters along with Kappa Sig. We got too big for our britches, the U wanted the house, we went off
for a coupla years, came back and proceded to fold. We are going
to return in the fall. The 150 man chapters might be a harbinger
of the decline...the pretty airheads of the 200 girls in the south, who wonder why those "without a prominent Dixie rep" won't come on. I'd vote in a second to withdraw a charter to most
chapters who don't meet basic chartering standards, but would
not be thrilled, on the other hand, by getting kicked in the nuts by
a 225 man SAE chapter.
Judge each by it's campus...give some consideration to working
with each other...fraternalism does mean something, and we have
enough critics like the Frau within that we could help each other a
bit now and then.
We are not gonna shine with 5 million dollar homes, believe me.

No idea - when I moved in freshman year, my room had DTD carved in a bunch of places, and I heard they had been huge on campus. The chapter served as a cautionary tale; they had once been the biggest and best, got lazy, and were gone just as quickly as they had arrived.

Too bad.