Younger Members

[miller11386]

Hello everyone!

I have looked to this forum for ideas before, and hopefully someone can help me out now.

I am a member of Lone Star Fraternity at the University of Akron. We have been a local chapter for over 125 years. (since 1882)

Our chapter has always been about bonding and being a close knit group of guys.

we have found it to be very difficult in the past few years to recruit members. Many of my brothers attribute this to the "i don't want to pay for my friends" idea that has been projected through mass media. The other portion just seem to "not be interested" or just don's see any benefit.

We set up a "meet and greet" BBQ, but were not impressed by the number of new members we got from that event.

I am determined to get us heavily involved in Greek life, but I fear it could be too little, too late. We already have a core group that are mostly over 21.

I guess my question is, How do we attract younger members? How do you advertise in the dorms?

Any tips are greatly appreciated

[33girl]

Do you have any members who are RAs?

Does your campus have any sort of mentoring program for freshmen? If so, brothers need to get involved in it.

Are there still members living on campus, or has everyone moved off campus? If it's the latter, make sure your members are seen on campus - at the dining hall, student center, library, whatever. I know that when people get older too often it becomes "off campus house, building where I have all classes in my major, bar" and you're not walking around campus a lot.

[knight_shadow]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Do you have any members who are RAs?

Does your campus have any sort of mentoring program for freshmen? If so, brothers need to get involved in it.

Are there still members living on campus, or has everyone moved off campus? If it's the latter, make sure your members are seen on campus - at the dining hall, student center, library, whatever. I know that when people get older too often it becomes "off campus house, building where I have all classes in my major, bar" and you're not walking around campus a lot.

Co-sign.

Aside from just being seen, you also want to make sure your members are involved. Branch out to groups outside of Greek life -- Student Government, Student Programming, etc.

My university also has a Freshman Move-In Day about a week before school begins. Members of different organizations (including GLOs) assist families with moving belongings into the dorms. Doing something like this makes you the first thing the freshman sees while also leaving a good impression with the parents (who are often reasons why people don't join GLOs).

Also, be seen at the different campus events. Sporting events and university traditions (ex. my campus has mud volleyball and "Bedraces" each year) typically have high freshman attendance, so being at events like this will help market your organization.

Hope this helps.

[miller11386]

Originally Posted by knight_shadow

Co-sign.

Aside from just being seen, you also want to make sure your members are involved. Branch out to groups outside of Greek life -- Student Government, Student Programming, etc.

My university also has a Freshman Move-In Day about a week before school begins. Members of different organizations (including GLOs) assist families with moving belongings into the dorms. Doing something like this makes you the first thing the freshman sees while also leaving a good impression with the parents (who are often reasons why people don't join GLOs).

Also, be seen at the different campus events. Sporting events and university traditions (ex. my campus has mud volleyball and "Bedraces" each year) typically have high freshman attendance, so being at events like this will help market your organization.

Hope this helps.

Yes we also have a freshman move in day that we participate in every year. Although, other than talking to some of the kids that we move in, we are not allowed to apporach them about joining during this period. Approx 5,000 move in and usually we are comissioned to help the ladies move their stuff rather than the young men we are looking to have join.

I have been pushing for more of a campus involvement, and wearing shirts around campus, but the only thing we have going for us is that we have "Lone Star" on the shirts rather than our greek letters (because we are local)

All of our fraternites have seen less and less members recruited every year. I was just curious if this was a sign of the times, or if we are an exception.



I was thinking that we need to start soliciting new members in the dorms. Although our campus can be quite restrictive on what we can pass around in a dorm setting. I think this is our next tactic we are going to try, but I don't know how sucessful we will be there.

:Crosses fingers:

Thanks for all the tips so far!

[knight_shadow]

Originally Posted by miller11386

Yes we also have a freshman move in day that we participate in every year. Although, other than talking to some of the kids that we move in, we are not allowed to apporach them about joining during this period. Approx 5,000 move in and usually we are comissioned to help the ladies move their stuff rather than the young men we are looking to have join.

I have been pushing for more of a campus involvement, and wearing shirts around campus, but the only thing we have going for us is that we have "Lone Star" on the shirts rather than our greek letters (because we are local)

All of our fraternites have seen less and less members recruited every year. I was just curious if this was a sign of the times, or if we are an exception.



I was thinking that we need to start soliciting new members in the dorms. Although our campus can be quite restrictive on what we can pass around in a dorm setting. I think this is our next tactic we are going to try, but I don't know how sucessful we will be there.

:Crosses fingers:

Thanks for all the tips so far!

What does your being a local have to do with you not being able to wear letters? Is it in your bylaws or something? If not, I'd consider wearing shirts with the actual letters on them.

As far as the move-in day, can you request a specific assignment (ie. an all-male dorm)? If you haven't tried, give it a shot.

On my campus, the RAs are very strict with soliciting in the dorms. You might want to try talking to housing to see what restrictions are in place as far as advertising in the dorms is concerned.

Do you participate in formal or informal recruitment?

I got a chance to check out your website. I remember when I was an interest, I gauged several of the fraternities on how up to date their websites were (if they couldn't take the time to update a website, they were probably slacking overall). Your website doesn't really have much information on it, which is strange considering how long you all have been around. You should really look into getting someone to update/maintain it.

[miller11386]

Originally Posted by knight_shadow

What does your being a local have to do with you not being able to wear letters? Is it in your bylaws or something? If not, I'd consider wearing shirts with the actual letters on them.

As far as the move-in day, can you request a specific assignment (ie. an all-male dorm)? If you haven't tried, give it a shot.

On my campus, the RAs are very strict with soliciting in the dorms. You might want to try talking to housing to see what restrictions are in place as far as advertising in the dorms is concerned.

Do you participate in formal or informal recruitment?

I got a chance to check out your website. I remember when I was an interest, I gauged several of the fraternities on how up to date their websites were (if they couldn't take the time to update a website, they were probably slacking overall). Your website doesn't really have much information on it, which is strange considering how long you all have been around. You should really look into getting someone to update/maintain it.

We have always chosen to wear Lone Star rather than our letters. There are no rules against it, we just choose to do so.

Fraternities on our campus don't have much "formal recruitment." Greek Life sets up some events, but once again, we never really get much interest there either. Many of the members have been disillusioned with the greek admins and their events. So we are much more informal with our recruiting methods.

I am curious as to which site you looked up? We are currently developing a new web page, and yes, it should be maintained better than it is currently. If you are looking through Uakron's page, that is more of our alum's stuff than ours.

I know some RA's in the dorms that may be able to help me out. Hopefully we can pull some strings.

Thanks for the help!