How to save a house with declining numbers
 

I am an alumni of an independent fraternity. On campus we are one of 4 fraternities, and freshmen participating in rush have been declining steadily for years, with this past year totalling around 35-40 rushees. Our active chapter currently only has 12 members. Can someone provided thoughts as to whether going national would help save our house?

If you went national, they would probably require your numbers to increase.

If you've heard people on campus saying "[yourfraternitynamehere] - WTF is that? I never heard of them" or saying explicitly that they didn't join because you were local, then look into colonizing a national.

But if there are nationals on your campus in the same boat you are, or locals on your campus that are doing fine - then it has nothing to do with your local status.

Any chance you would be willing to be absorbed by a national along with one of the other fraternities?

A lot of open questions should have been asked first.

1. Are they all local.
2 If any Nationals, how many.
3. What is the size of the campus with male population.
4. What is Greek Feelings on campus.
5. Number of Sororitys.
6. Sororitys, local or National.
7. Type of school.

It sounds like something is lacking. What is it?


Please explain more.

We had houses like that. Even my own house was declining when I was first pledging? And while I sometimes get all Darwinian and think it's ok for the less organized houses to fold up, I think usually with a little bit of work houses can be saved. How organized and motivated and accountable are the house members? If 12 people get committed to each bringing 5 people to rush and if 25% pledge then you can double your house in one pledge class. Next time around you can double it again again and have a 40 guy house. It's funny, some of the best performing houses at my school were the upstarts. They were hungry and they all worked hard. And they came from nothing. No cool legacy. No house. No relationships with sororities. If they can do it, your 12 guys can do it to. It sounds like maybe they don't care or are not holding each and every member accountable.

Actually getting 5 new members/rushees is nice sounding, a more relistic view is 1-3.

Remember also that when members graduate, they need to be at least replace by the ones gone.

When I started a local, it was against 5 existing National well know Fraternitys and one sponsered by another.

Thank goodness, we made the one pick by the Un. to be allowed on campus.

But, it still was with the idea of affiliation of a National Organization. It was a struggle to say the least, but things were fast tracked back then because of lack of expansion by most old line Nationals.

Is it easy being a local, hell no! Who wants to join a local unless there is a really good reason to join. Why should they join? Because of great guys and nothing to really look forward to in the future. We were involved in Formal Rush and got not a pledge. We looked like fools in front of the total campus. But, we went out and recruited PNM.

Beleive me when I say I often wondered if We could have expanded and grown.:D

But, today, I can say, I am a proud member of LXA and have been for many years.:)

Set some goals of what you want to do and bust your butts (ALL) do what you want to accomplish!

Good Luck!