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A couple of things I learned from UIFI.
First I met an AGD chapter conselor at the Indianapolis airport (an AGD I had hung out with a lot was in this chapter being advised) and her little brother was the IU colony president. She said that it was a lot of work, but that the alumni of Pi had been phenomenal, already buying land in the same area that a lot of other chapters are at, as well as just lending all sorts of other support for those guys - I think that's awesome. She also mentioned that there was a lot of push to move back into the old chapter house, which I saw and has an awesome location on campus. Really cool house from the outside. It'll be interesting to see if they go old or new school.
The other thing, about our expansion, in talking to a lot of the traveling consultants for other organizations, is that we as a fraternity baby our chapters a ridiculous amount. Many of the consultants said that when they colonize, a colony will get their chapter within a year. But they also mentioned how they have a lot of chapters die. I had a flight home with one ASA consultant and she said most of their colonies turn into chapters in 8 weeks!!!!
While I think expansion shoudl be pushed, I think it's just as important that we make sure those colonies actually turn into productive, viable colonies. It's not worth expanding at a rate like TKE, just to have chapters close. As we have seen at so many of our colonies, these groups of guys have amazing resumes and are building powerful groups and traditions. We wouldn't be able to do that if we weren't didn't put the time in. That said, I think we could up to 5 colonies/year, increase the amount of self governance that I believe to be such a hallmark of the Beta chapter experience, and still be on rock solid ground with our expansion efforts.
One thing about the old school chapters though, while they'd be super cool to go back to places like Transylvania, it would be a lot different compared to going back to places like Indiana or Cincinatti, and after talking to the VP at ECU during UIFI, it's amazing the difference dedicated alumni can have, particularly at more remote college towns.
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