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Your problem seems to be that you could get out of pledging or events if you claimed you were studying, with no backup of any sort. People saw this opportunity, and took it.
First, I suggest you should NOT be able to get out of pledging. These meetings, etc. help build future brothers and help the pledges realize what will be expected of them in the future. If the pledges think they can have it easy as pledges, they can also have it easy as brothers. This will only lead to trouble.
You should demand from your pledges their regular events, to be present, etc. You should also have them put academics first. If they need to get out of a chore for studying, let them. But don't let them get out of weekly meetings, etc. One thing our chapter has is mandatory 2 hours of study in the library on Sundays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. As well, they had to mark on a calender the times they studied and have their pledge dad initial it off every 2 days. This does multiple things: The pledges had to study, while having monday nights free for house meetings and pledge meetings, etc., and having friday and saturday nights free. Having their pledge dad initial the calender will make most people actually study, and having it in the library means most pledges will make a daily routine and go to the library at the same time each day...often, pledges study together, so if one pledge does not show up that day, they get questioned by their study partner. As well, it teaches pledges to balance their lives around academics, social, and fraternity life...as they will be needing to do for the coming years.
Another thing our chapter does is to have grade checks 3 times a semester (for actives AND pledges). Have your academic chair collect the e-mails of everyones professors at the beginning of the semester. If e-mails are not collected from someone, give them a fine or extra chores or something. Then, once a couple of weeks into the semester, once after midterms, and once right before finals, have the academic chair e-mail everyones professor asking about the persons attendance, current grade, and comments about the person. This might not work if you are in a large school without big professor involvement, but this will make the student attend class and have good attitudes in class because the fraternity WILL find out during the semester.
Another idea is to try to find a rich alumni of your chapter, and to have him start up a chapter-only scholarship fund...where he gives small scholarships to people in the house based on academics, house involvement, ritual proficiency, etc. $$$ is a great encouragement. Or, you could offer cash rewards for top GPA, most improved GPA, etc.
These measures help bring academics back into your house, and is extremely important for us, as scholarship is synonymous with Kappa Sigma. They work pretty well for us most of the time. Our house GPA may be low among the fraternities at our campus, but above the all-mens average (and we have a competitive, but small, greek system). For example, we have Sigma Phi Epsilon on our campus, which requires a minimum 3.0 GPA to pledge or be an active in the house.
Hopefully you can try some of our ideas...hope they work out for ya!
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