help! how to keep the guys involved

[stagebear]

How do we keep the fraternities and IFC doing their part and contributing to the Greek community? Our PHC and individual sororities are active and plan greek events, but the guys seem to not care. They lack particiption in Greek Week and are practically nonexistent in our annual G.I.V. Month (greeks involved in volunteering). When we pair sororities and fraternities together, the sororities usually have to cover for both. As far as planning events, PHC does the planning and IFC "co-sponsers" by cutting us a check.
Our PHC has thrown around the idea of cutting all ties with IFC as we continue to take leaps and bounds, but we have decided to give them another chance as they are trying to rebuild.
We just don't know what to do anymore. Any suggestions?

[Kevlar281]

Trophies – I know that sounds lame but it’s a pretty big deal on my campus. We have only come home empty handed from one event this semester.

Socials/Mixers – Panhellenic sororities should know that this is your one true bargaining chip. Of course you would all have to be a united front in requiring fraternities to participate in philanthropic events before they would be considered for any social functions.

[OnePlus69Is70]

Ask yourself, why do we want them around? I know that's what we ask ourselves- it's what everyone here asks themselves. Fraternity guys, here at least, either have girlfriends (and I think we know how much my gf would love me to hang out with sororities) or have a lot of unaffiliated women throwing themselves at them. Why should we hang out with the sororities? I'm not a big believer in doing things for their own sakes. The purpose of mixers is for single-sex organizations to be able to have a full social life- but if you can do that on your own, y bother with all the trouble? (And yes, coming from a local and a very f*cked up Greek system anyway, my ideas about Greek unity are a little skewed, but I have a point.)

The same line of thinking happens on the other side of the line. I used to be social chair, and conversations with sorority social chairs went something like this: "We'd love to do a mixer, but we've really already got our budget wrapped up in bid day and our date parties, so why don't you call me beginning of next semester?" Eventually, you stop asking. The only time I see sorority women at fraternity houses is when they're not supposed to be there- during some huge party with 36,000 risk management violations.

So my advice is, don't even bother. This is post-modern American, women can do anything they like. So have fun on your own and nevermind the men- if they feel like they're missing something, they'll come running.

[Kevin]

That was actually very much the case on my campus 2 years ago. We've moved forward quite a bit. We had huge fraternity participation in Greek Week becuase instead of every group for themselves we each paired off with a sorority and that was enough to keep us involved

We won Spring Sing by the way... were lucky to be paired with the Sigma Kappas.

[navane]

Originally posted by stagebear
How do we keep the fraternities and IFC doing their part and contributing to the Greek community? Our PHC and individual sororities are active and plan greek events, but the guys seem to not care. They lack particiption in Greek Week and are practically nonexistent in our annual G.I.V. Month (greeks involved in volunteering). When we pair sororities and fraternities together, the sororities usually have to cover for both. As far as planning events, PHC does the planning and IFC "co-sponsers" by cutting us a check.
Our PHC has thrown around the idea of cutting all ties with IFC as we continue to take leaps and bounds, but we have decided to give them another chance as they are trying to rebuild.
We just don't know what to do anymore. Any suggestions?

Of course, some people may not like my opinon, but hey....

I once heard a story about a secretary who worked at a university. The department policy was that professors needed to turn in any papers they needed photocopied at least 24 hours in advance. One professor *never* did so. He always waltzed in an hour before his class and handed her syllabi or tests to make 100+ photocopies. She always had to drop everything for him because "he's a professor." She tried to explain the policy to him but he ignored her figuring that "She's a secretary, it's her job." Eventually, she really did get fed-up with him. One semester, during finals week, he handed her a stack of exam papers that he needed copied for that day's final exam. She pointed to a memo on the wall and said "Sorry, 24 hours notice needed" and handed them back to him! He had to run off to the campus bookstore and spend his own money for the copies. He never did that to her again.

Do you see the moral of that story? Your NPC groups and IFC groups have established a relationship based on "the sororities plan things, the fraternities cut checks." If you're telling me that the sororities are not happy with this arrangement, then you need to break the cycle. Be it have a roundtable discussion with them, threaten to not mix with them anymore, etc. Yeah, it could backfire. The fraternities might say "fine, we didn't want to participate with you anyway." You could take that as your opportunity to cry or to be glad you cut off the slackers. It all depends on what you value. If you value the monetary contributions, then you might end up having to stick with this arrangement.

I would suggest a roundtable discussion to start. If they don't get the picture, cut the ties. Like the professor, they'll get the memo loud and clear.


.....Kelly

[stagebear]

thanks for the suggestions - here's my responses to those as they apply to our greek system.
1) we do have trophies, but they don't seem to be that big of an incentive. since we dont have houses, they cant really display them.
2) on the social level, the fraternities are pretty good about having mixers with us.
3) they're pretty good about getting teams together for our philanthropies
4) whenever PHC plans an event like greek week and giv month, we always pair a fraternity and sorority (we're lucky to have an even number). but we're still seeing them slack of - like right now, a fraternity is refusing to work with us on adopt-a-family.
5) our PHC brought up the possibility of severing all ties with IFC and planning a sorority week instead of greek week. when our greek advisor mentioned it to the guys, they all got really pissed off, so we had an IFC/PHC exec meeting. we understand that they had hit rock bottom and are rebuilding, but at the same time, we don't want to drag them along. we havent cut ties yet, but told them that they need to take initiative or else we will reconsider.
6) i have also hosted a few presidential roundtables this semester to find out where we are and where we want to go as a system. i have gotten postive answers from the fraternities, but so far no action.