Strategies for Change or Time to Shut Down?

[pb13028]

Recently I became president of my chapter when the former president resigned. Since that happened, my life has been the equivalent of herding cats. No matter what me or the other officers do, we can’t seem to see any progress or improvement.

We have some major setbacks that seem to plague our chapter year after year. We’re the only fraternity on campus (out of twelve) that does not have a house. We had one for years but lost it around 2001 because of fire code violations. We have absolutely no alumni support, or at least none since I’ve been around…reason being our alumni community itself (though pretty large) is fragmented or just apathetic.

Our pledge classes continue to dwindle year after year. We’re extremely lucky now if we get three or four a semester, whereas other smaller fraternities on campus consistently get 8 to 12 per semester, and the larger ones up to 20 or 30.

Our membership itself has issues, too. We constantly have members quitting and numerous officer changes. The ones who stay after being initiated quickly get burned out and apathetic. Everyone took an anonymous survey last semester, and there were a lot of comments like “I’m tired of constantly working to improve our chapter while 80% of the other members just sit around.” and “It’s not worth even trying anymore, because we continue to go down no matter what we do.” It’s no exaggeration to say there’s absolutely no feeling of brotherhood, because half of our membership is apathetic and the other half is angry and frustrated at each other.

Part of it may stem from image problems. We haven’t had a very big presence on campus in several years. Though we have a requirement for all members to be involved in two other campus organizations, no one ever follows this, because there are no consequences. We can’t really fine, because people quit when we do (and we can't afford to lost any more members), and we can’t ban people from social functions because we haven't had one in at least three or four semesters. For the few events we do have, it’s a struggle to get everyone there. A significant number of our guys seem to hole themselves up in their apartment(s) and smoke weed every free moment they have from class.

I know this is depressing and the odds aren’t in our favor, but I’m committed to turning our chapter around and making it a success. Does anyone have any advice or experience in major chapter turnarounds? Any success stories? Or is it time to face the writing on the wall and prepare for the closing of my chapter?