Scholarship Incentives
 

Hello Gentlemen,
My fraternity is trying to make more of an emphasis on grades and I proposed that there be some kind of incentive. Our scholarship budget is small, about 200/semester so we cant do much with that.

Any ideas on a weekly incentive or commendation that could be given at chapter each week?

Thanks.

What are you doing now? $200/semester for scholarship seems pretty good to me.

You could give gift gards ($5-10) per week to the person who achieved the most As for the week in their classes. Or you could give a raffle ticket for each good grade. As = 3, Bs = 2, Cs = 1. Then at the end of the semester raffle off one awesome prize. Like a DVD player, tv, gaming system, etc.

We would give candy as prizes during the week and at the end of the year all your good grades would earn you scholarship bucks and we would have an auction. The auctioned items were either small things paid for by the budget or donated by chapter and alumnae members. Those auctions would get heated!

Plus, bragging rights holds a lot of power. You can buy a small trophy to be presented to a "member of the week". You'd only need one so it wouldn't cost much.

I am obviously not in a mens fraternity, but here are something that worked in my chapter:

My chapter gave a weekly award for the person that clocked the most hours in the library. They were dubbed the "study bug" and give a small prize.

Each semester the sisters with GPAs of over 3.5 were given an award in front of the chapter, and a gift card. The sister with the highest GPA in the chapter was given the same and a scholarship pearl for her chapter guard.

At chapter each week we pass around a jar, and if you did well on an assignment you write your name and the class, assignment, and grade on it and put it in the jar. Near the end of chapter our scholarship chair pulls out one paper and reads it, and gives them a small prize (we call it the "Highlight of the Week"). If you have a small chapter or have time, I would like to encourage you read ALL of the papers to commend everyone.

My only other suggestion is to be careful with rewards for the amount of As or Bs a certain person gets. Problems with this system include people not being honest about what was a major exam, a project, or a small quiz. Also, remember that all professors grade differently, some profs give several exams throughout the semester and some only give 2. My final thought on the grade rewards is that for majors like mine (engineering) you could get a 60% on both your major exams and then after the curve get an A or B in the class.

Right now my chapter does a "monthly major" program, but I wish that it was more like weekly, and that sisters could individually talk about their program and the specific requirements and demands it puts on a student.

The chapter I advise does a free incentive where the sisters submit their names and accomplishments for the week (i.e., A on paper, B+ on organic quiz, etc). The scholarship chair chooses one or two as the sisters of the week, then those sisters are allowed to wear jeans/casual clothes with letters on chapter day (when everyone else is in badge attire).

Another thought. Scholarship isn't just about the grades. It's about not skipping class and studying too. During finals, or when lots of people have mid terms, arange for study breaks. Lots of coffee and snacks and time to just relax for an hour or two. :) Our campus was unhoused so we would just reserve a meeting room or classroom for study breaks.

We did something, that I don't think will translate to guys to well, called "Don't kill the dove" or "Don't break my heart". We'd have a cutout of a dove or heart (SK symbols) and it would be passed around the room. The sisters had to punch a whole in it for each class she skipped the week before. The goal was to not have a completely destroyed dove/heart by the end. It helped visualize how skipping classes can hurt you and the chapter.

As advisor I have found that people are going to study as much as they want and monetary incentives have not worked, no matter how much they are. In the past we have done a scholarship dinner (Steak and Beans), at the beginning of each semester for the previous quarter. Guys who have received over a 3.0 will eat a nice steak and those with a lower grade get beans and salad.

In my chapter, one thing that we do is that our roll call at chapter is answered by the number of individual classes missed in the last week. Also, we have in-house scholarships, one for the best new member GPA and one for the most improved GPA.

You can recognize good grades at meetings. We had a "mom's fridge" - it was just a bulletin board b/c we didn't have a house - members could use a post-it note and write their name, class and grade: Susie got an A on her bio 2 test. You could also give a reward of some sort to members who tutor other members and help them with their grades. Another chapter on my campus bases their dues on member's GPA. The higher your GPA, the lower your dues. They say it has worked and their grades are pretty good. Another chapter tried this and it's apparently against their rules, so you may want to check with your regional/district reps just to make sure.

Just give it out at the end of the semester or year when all the marks are out. Highest gets the $200.

One thing my Chapter does is give a financial incentive for good grades. If you are on Dean's List you are given a slight discount on your dues. It's small but adds up.

We have the No Skippy Jar for people who go to all of their classes that week. We use an empty Skippy peanut butter jar. There's a raffle at the end of the quarter and if your name is in their a lot, you have a better chance of winning!

We have the "smarties" jar. Before chapter starts, sisters can write on a piece of paper their accomplishments (ex. Susie got a 95 on her term paper) and academic chair gives them candy and reads it out loud during chapter. Also, we recognize everyone who got onto the dean's list every semester.

We also have academic probation and mandatory study hours if you get on probation, as well as losing voting privileges and (on a case by case basis) sisters can lose social function privileges. But it sounded like you wanted more positive incentives. We have a mandatory minimum GPA, so if you're below that then you get called into standards and they (along with academic chair) will figure out what needs to be done - whether it's hooking you up with an older sister who can tutor, test files, etc.

I'm an advisor to our chapter. Every week we do a "skippy" jar and if you skipped a class, you have to put in a quarter. It's not much, but people come forward and do it. Also, as an advisor, we started a GREAT incentive about a year ago. Whoever increases their SEMESTER GPA by the greatest from the semester previous to the semester that just ended gets a Kate Spade bag donated by alumni. That seriously put a huge spark into our girls. They want the bag bad and we've definitely noticed an improvement all over the place in grades. We've also had "runner up" prizes such as Target gift cards, Starbucks giftcards, etc. Our alumni are really giving, coming from a small chapter (total is 50), but the girls seriously get motivated!