[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by Firehouse

My goodness. I certainly did not expect women to post in response to a Pike discussion, and I am surprised at the intensity of the responses (Dr Phil, I assume from your language that you are also female). But it's fine; if we didn't have passion for this stuff there wouldn't be any discussions at all and no website. Thank you for your responses; I enjoy the discussion.

With respect, I have a lot of experience with fraternities over a long time and I have seen this done successfully. It's not a bad thing that sorority women view their organizations differently than fraternity men. My focus is on ressurecting, saving or improving existing fraternity chapters. If you want a weak chapter to get better, someone must step forward and take command - it doesn't happen all by itself. That man must come from somewhere, either from outside (a transfer or a consultant from national), or from the inside. If the inside man is a full time college student, he has limited capacity to get the job done.

Dr Phil, I'm not certain we share the same concept of 'Greekdom' and I'm pretty sure I don't know what you mean by it. I do understand biology and the mechanics of fraternity competition. You made a pretty bold statement: "All of those people FAIL at life and those chapters FAIL their national headquarters with zero exceptions." That has not been my experience.

Linfield is a small school. If our chapter is to survive (National requires 25 members to sustain a chapter) then the members must take immediate action, be creative and find success to motivate the group. Chapters thrive on momentum and morale. Both can be generated by strong, bold leadership.

Fraternities do not operate on the same dynamic as sororities. Women do not fit well into the male model and vice versa.

These are all opinions. I doubt you would attempt to hone in on the perceived emotion if we were not women typing. This is a Greekdom issue and not a gender issue or a fraternity-vs-sorority issue. Certainly you do not assume that you are typing to people who are unfamiliar with keeping chapters afloat or that what it takes is so different for fraternities and sororities across councils and conferences.

The interesting thing about posting such threads on a publically viewable PiKA forum is that anyone can read and respond to it. I notice that NPC and NIC sometimes discuss struggling colonies and chapters on Greekchat and there's a reason why the NPHC orgs tend not to.

Originally Posted by Senusret I

I am a fraternity member and also find this to be a bad idea....

Imagine that.

A chapter that is struggling to survive is always a difficult thing. That doesn't mean that every suggestion is a good one even if it worked for a chapter(s) in the past. Afterall, a brother could take off from school to "work for the fraternity" and the chapter could still lose its charter. That would be fail all around.