Quote:
Originally posted by ZetaPhi708
Right now, basically, I am at a crossroads on my place within our fraternity. I am a alum brother with a lot of energy and spirit for LXA but have nowhere expand that energy for the fraternity.
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This is something I have been hammering at staff and board members for the last year and a half. Granted, you are in a unique position as a returning student, but there is no mechanism in place for utilizing the thousands of brothers we graduate each year. They get a fare-thee-well and are sent on their way, only to recieve yearly pleas for money from the foundation and thats it. Its rediculious from an investment point of view. It would be like putting thousands of dollars into a house, only to give it away once you saw that it was worth a lot.
Even if only 20% of borthers wanted to stay active/involved with the fraternity immediately after graduation - that would translate into a guestimated 200 alumni brothers a year.
Among some of the problems:
1. We dont train our undergraduate members to be alumni. (the Advisors College, while an awesome program, is geared towards existing alumni - there's no 'senior year program' or transition program.
2. There's no follow through. I think about 17 of us GC'ers are on one of the 'Centnnial Committee's' that have never met.
There's nothing to do for the alumni who want to get involved - other than the off-the-shelf positions of House Corp, High Pi's or advisors. Many of our chapters dont have Alumni Advisory boards set up. Most High Pi positions are filled and many of the HC's board positions are filled. (an alum gets told, come back in april when we have HC elections....)
3. We dont make it easy or understandable for them to be involved in the inter/national fraternity.
4. There is no targeted communication geared towards recent grads and alums under 35. (its a one size fits all deal - yet the different alum 'publics' have different needs and committment levels that arent accounted for.)
I know a huge part of the reason nothing exists now is lack of funding. I also think part of it is shortsightedness on the part of past staff and board members. Failure to think outside of the box -AND- that BS historical hangup 8741 Founders suffers from; if it wasnt a LXA idea, we want nothing to do with it. The belief that Mason (or Cole, if we are acknowledging his involvment in our founding this particular week) would roll over in his grave if we borrowed an idea from another group. Like it would somehow make us less of an org or something. Maybe (hopefully) things have changed recently, but thats EXACTLY what kicked us in the nuts as an org in the 90's. We havent had a new idea as an org in 15 years(and that comes from a former board member, not me).
Sororities, NPHC groups and some NIC fraternities have had this 'problem' figured out for years. (its called junior circles, or new alumni associations) Yet we stand there watching our investment continue to walk out the door each December and May.
ETA: I guess the above is the essence of why I am involved. I want to make the fraternity better for those who will inherit it. We do have the best product. The best brotherhood. We just need to tweak the administration of that brotherhood. Its a continual process. As I have said before, if any board in the history of the org can deal with the challenges we're facing, its this one.