U of Charleston Suspends TKE
 

U of Charleston (WV) Suspends TKE for One Year

http://wvgazette.com/News/201110210125

Tau Kappa Epsilon HQ reportedly is also investigating.

Six members in total in the chapter? I hate advocating closing down a chapter, but when your average chapter size is 35-40 and you're at 6, you're really past the point of no return.

TKE seems to have a little different approach to things. That's why they are the biggest fraternity in terms of number of active chapters, but rank a lot lower in terms of average chapter size. At least from my anecdotal experience with our own TKE chapter at my alma mater, which doesn't seem to suffer much from their HQ despite bad numbers and sub-2-point house GPAs, that's been my experience.

For real. Kevin, stop being a cheese dick. It's not very excellent or honorable.

(I think that throwing someone's GLO's motto at them is probably the Godwining of the GC world.)

Did I read this right? Are/were they the only Fraternity on campus. That would also make them the largest and smallest Fraternity on campus, too.

You read correctly, but you may have missed where it said the chapter had six members. A lot of national organizations would shut a chapter down if it only had six members.

I agree with you. While at the national convention, I met a guy from a chapter at a pretty big state school and the group had a house and only FOUR members (despite attempts at fixing things, sending a recruitment person down to that chapter). It blew my mind they were still allowed to operate.

It's funny, because when I was active, the loud and clear message my chapter got from HQ was, "you NEED to double your recruitment," despite us being in the middle of the pack out of 4 (then 3) fraternities.

Agree. Mine would either shut it down or, if there was a good level of alumni support, do a total restructure. I did read that there were only 6 members but if TKE is the only Fraternity, that makes them also the largest (tongue firmly in cheek).

UCWV must have a truly weak Greek program if this is it or maybe they are just really new at this.

This would go with my recollection of the chapter at my alma mater as well. They are doing better now than ten years ago, but they are still quite small. I often wondered ten years ago how they were surviving/getting by as a chapter.

I'm definitely not the only one who has made this sort of observation about TKE. Hell, go do a search, the late and venerable Eric Conard (remember him?) used to joke that his group would open up chapters at strip mall beauty schools if they thought that they could.

Nothing wrong with it, they just have a different philosophy, and it surprised me to see not one but two stories in the same day about TKE shutting down chapters. It's not something you see a whole lot.

And you jumped right to comment on both of them. And you're using the word "different" in the same way my mom used to use it, which is kind of cute. ("She's different" as uttered by Mom33 = "She's a freakadoo whackjob who should have probably been drowned at birth.")

And yet the one Teke who has posted in this thread not only didn't seem to take offense, but agreed with Kevin.

Just sayin'.

True.

As for chapter size, that varies across GLOs and across councils/conferences. The members of TKE can speak for what the criteria is for TKE.

Oh, I definitely take some offense. But it's hard to disagree when you see chapters with 6 people and wonder why the national organization is wasting time + resources at the school. Six people does not a chapter make unless you had many volunteers helping you during recruitment/pledging. That's a lot of money and volunteer hours to spend on a failing chapter.

Pack up the bags, invest that money in chapters who may be on the brink or are experiencing hardship (but aren't lost causes) and go home. Too often, I feel, the national organization is so drawn to the "We have the most chapters" marketing slogan that it sometimes defies logic on expansion.