fraternity disconnect

[hoffmann]

hey all,

just an interesting situation with my fraternity. feel free to provide thoughts / feedback / opinions.

i joined my school's sigep (private school, east coast) about 3 years ago as a freshman. back then we had a small chapter of about 35-40 guys and nationals had us on the chopping block. we actively tried to recruit charismatic, non-"bro" type guys. we were the "not your typical fraternity" on a largely non-greek campus.

in the last year we expanded by about 20-25 guys, which was truly an impressive feat. but as we started growing, it was evident there was a growing disconnect between some of the older brothers and the newer brothers. i guess this can happen when you grow that quickly. some of the brothers a year older than myself actively were a little unhappy with the direction of the fraternity and they just stopped paying dues. i would say we lost a good 4000 bucks in dues in the past few semesters from these brothers.

to be honest, i'm not sure i feel happy with the direction the fraternity is heading, either. the same can be said of many other brothers who represent the last of the older guys in the fraternity. we're graduating about 25 seniors this year so our numbers are going to be diminished.

here's my concern:

we have a lot of internal e-board arguments. some of the younger guys we recruited recently aren't really the quality guys we were used to getting -- we've often been split about who we offer bids to, etc. the fraternity is cliquish. a lot of the older guys including myself are close to the other older guys and some complain that there's a lack of brotherhood, a general lack of desire to meet new people (and reach out to the rest of the campus instead of the same old sorority girls), and too much general "bro"-ness (excuse the term). i'm in that same position. but i don't want to just bail on my brothers (they're still brothers to me and will always be) by not paying my dues and not showing up to any of the events (another common phenomenon). what do i do? what do we do?

of course i don't expect any solutions, but i thought this would be an interesting talking point. maybe i'm just getting old, who knows. anyway, thanks for hearing this out.