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Great discussion and a.e.B.O.T. I think you have made some solid decisions.
In my experience, as an active at two different chapters (transferred half-way through college), as one who has talked with many other chapters at times and as a current advisor to my old chapter, I have seen the 2.5 GPA for initiation rule both strictly observed and blatantly ignored.
The best accomodation I have found, and one I personally prefer, is to let a man pledge regardless of his scholastic history- but if he fails to make a 2.5 in his pledge semester, then he is held over and has a chance to make a 2.5 the next semester and be initiated with the following pledge class. During that holdover period he is no longer a pledge, but he is not a brother yet either. He will pay dues and participate in all aspects of the chapter except that he may not cast votes in chapter meetings- nor can he participate in any ritual.
It can be hard to stick to these rules when you are in a real life situation wanting to pledge someone who would make a great Beta, but it is my experience that a significant number of men who are initiated with a deficient GPA will very soon be leaving their chapters.
The major reason is obvious- your average parents will see a bad report card, remember that big check they wrote to the fraternity and conclude- rightly or wrongly- that the fraternity is too much of a distraction and force their son to leave.
Other common outcomes are that the student loses financial aid or scholarships and then cannot afford the fraternity. Or he will fail out of school entirely.
If you think telling a man he cannot pledge because of his grades is tough, it is exponentially more difficult to initiate someone into the brotherhood and then have to watch him walk away and resign his membership because he cannot stay.
That is a disservice to the chapter and to the student who has to leave.
A big part of being in a fraternity is learning how to make these kinds of tough decisions that will become commonplace in your adult life. And I congratulate you on the decision you have made and convinced your colony to make.
To address two other questions,
1. A good scholastic chair will start the semester with a calendar of every announced test for each pledge (get a copy of their syllabi) and will keep track of the grades they receive. This not only helps plan events around school, but it allows the chapter to identify and help pledges who are struggling while there is still time for them to salvage their GPA for the semester.
Additionally, in this way you can tell going into finals who is very unlikely to get a 2.5 or better and then hold them over a semester without delaying initiation for the entire class until the following semester.
2. When a chapter or colony is small, it is very tempting to bend certain rules to get the member count up. In my experience, that never works. Never.
It actually has the opposite effect. You devote rush funds to students who are less likely to stick around and be good Betas, and then when they leave early it creates a serious morale issue for the entire chapter- and potentially grave financial issues.
If you bend a firm recruitment rule once, future dishonor of that rule will be expected when other members of the chapter have friends or family who want to join and will require the same special treatment to get it. Refuse them after giving that special treatment to someone else, and you can lose good members very quickly. More than once I have seen small groups of actives leave or at least lose interest in being active participants because they felt slighted in a situation like this.
Best of luck to you in writing the by-laws. It is a tricky balance between practical realities and the need to adhere to certain standards without exception- but in the end it is in the ongoing honoring of the by-laws without frequent changes that they strengthen a chapter. I would only suggest you stick to a very high level of rulemaking and keep it simple. Even things like study hour requirements are best set as a rule- but with specifics left to the decision of EC each year.
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