|
There are two things to that come to my mind when asking what makes someone worthy of my letters. What it means to be a Beta, and what it means to be a member of Alpha Tau in Beta Theta Pi. This is the same for every chapter, and it is 100% that you woulnd't fit in at the majority of your organizations chapters, but your chapter is your home and so it's fair to have chapter requirements.
For Beta Theta Pi's General Fraternity requirements I would say that Loyalty is the premium virtue of a member. "Unfaltering Fidelity" is a pharse on the back of our membership cards. I would also stress academic success, ambition, and dedication to the 3 Great Principles and the Objects of Beta Theta Pi. Finally, I think this quote sums it up nicely as to the sentiment of a Beta about his fraternity:"Again, the Beta is distinguishable and distinguished from all other kinds of fraternity men whatsoever by just a little warmer and just a little stronger, just a little tenderer and more enduring fraternity feeling than any of them can attain to. For it was always so. I do not in the least know how it happened, nor why it persisted after it happened, but a long time ago there came into Beta Theta Pi a fraternity spirit that was, and is, and apparently will continue to be, unique. We know it, who are inside, and they see and record it who are outside the Beta pale. Whether young or old, in college or out, from the small school or the great university, we are conscious of a heritage of genuine fraternalism that has not been vouch safed in like measure -- I say it deliberately -- to any other of the great college fraternities. And we cannot doubt that in this, as in other respects, our 'future will copy fair our past, and that in the world of fifty years from now, as in that of years ago,
. . . as in that that lies around us today —
the first mark of a Beta will be his Beta Spirit."
— Willis O. Robb, Ohio Wesleyan 1879
As for Alpha Tau: One of the things we stress in rush is that "once a Beta, Always a Beta, Everywhere a Beta." And we look at it like this, that the guys we sign, have always been Beta's in their actions adn goals, just never called Betas by name. In other words we look to find untapped Betas and refine them into productive members, not take guys and make them Betas. For our chapter that means leadership, involvement, being social, but having your priorities set. We look for the guys who (if they party) can work their asses off Sunday night through Wednesday night, and then Thursday, Friday and Saturday, can let loose and have a good time. Do I think that it takes more to be an Alpha Tau, than just a Beta? Yeah, but for a Beta cahpter that throws the best parties on a campus, I probably wouldn't be a good fit, and so you might say that for them it takes more to be a XY than a normal Beta.
|