Chapter Divide

[feaster11]

I’m a part of newer fraternity that has been on campus for 4 years. We’ve had a very slow start recruiting decent members; we have about 40 members and it was a long struggle to get to this point. We have the highest GPA on campus, but aside from that we are not well respected by the majority of the Greeks.

My Chapter was so desperate to fill the house in the beginning that we basically recruited anyone that was willing to join. Because of this, a very visible divide has developed within the house; one side is the more normal and social guys that actually contribute to the well being of the house, while the other half is the painfully awkward group (think dungeons and dragons) who sit around the Chapter house all day with each other in front of the TV for hours on end and bring down our Chapter GPA. (I will refer to the normal guys as Group A and awkward guys as Group B).

Our executive board is basically divided between Group A and B members, with the upper half of the board (Pres, VP, Treas, Secretary) made up of Group A. However, our recruitment chairman and his assistants are all Group B members. The recruitment team is BEYOND clueless about who and how to recruit someone. They don’t understand who the key people in our chapter are that they need to utilize in the recruitment process to impress potential new members. Even when Group A brothers (and our President..) offer help or suggestions, they don’t listen to us. For example, we offer a scholarship to help recruit guys and hold the interviews at our house. The recruitment chairman asked one of our most socially awkward, overweight and unhygienic members to do the interview, instead of asking our well-known, former chapter president, who was sitting in the other room. (I know this sounds shallow, but I personally feel that when you are recruiting, it is absolutely necessary to show off your most impressive members in the beginning). Additionally, the recruitment chairman is willing to give bids out to ANYONE that passes through our doors; in the past he's mentioned giving a bid to a 40 year old man, and we currently have a pledge that has been in the US for less than a year who doesn't talk to anyone because he can hardly understand english. I'm all for diversity, but the fact that our membership is so "diverse" is a turnoff to the other "normal" recruits, and scares them away.

The situation is getting to the point where Group A members are very worried that Group B members are going to be the end of us. Even our advisory team has suggested that we consider impeaching our recruitment chairman—and we intend on doing so, but will face a huge backlash from Group B members. How are you supposed to recruit when you Group B members want to help out and be visible, but they are literally scaring the good recruits away?

My other question is; how can a chapter survive with such a huge internal divide. We are literally like 2 polar opposite fraternities stuck in the same house. Group B is overpowering (unfortunately they make up about 60% of our membership) and they make the Group A members wish they didn’t join (the top half of our executive team is all considering dropping after their term is up). Group A members never come around the house anymore because Group B members are literally wasting away in front of the TV all day. It just really sucks knowing that our fraternity could have such a huge potential on campus if it wasn’t for the Group B members bringing down our reputation (with girls, recruits, other fraternities, and grades). What is the solution to this problem?