I want to join a fraternity!

[ASTalumna06]

Originally Posted by knight_shadow

Swerving, but you allow non-members to get involved with chapter business? I can see an alum coming back in an advisory role, but not a random person coming around.

Interesting.

It's definitely possible.

On a related note… http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh....php?t=100210:

NutBrnHair: How many non-member advisors are out there for NPC groups?

azgz: There's actually a lot. Campus advisors, for one, are often not members of the organization. My chapter's campus advisor is the dean of the humanities college at Gannon. Every semester for midterms and finals she would send a huge spread to the house so we had food to eat while studying. Plus, she would come to (open) events - we even invited her to feast of roses after initiation.

I know another chapter on my campus had my former boss as their campus advisor, a secretary in the new student services office. She was wonderful and extremely active in the chapter, and the chapter appreciated it. Not sure if she was ever extended membership, but honestly I think that chapter would be crazy if they didn't!

ETA: Our campus advisor was also really really helpful in finding a room big enough to do initiation - and very good at keeping it discrete and making sure that there weren't a lot of groups using those buildings when we were initiating a new member class.

ASTalumna06: From what I understand, AST has quite a few non-member advisors. We are also able to have male advisors, one of which is David Stollman, Co-founder of CAMPUSPEAK, who advises the Delta Phi chapter at NYU. LOVE him!

Blondie93:

I think it is more common on rural campuses where recruiting alumnae to serve is difficult. I went to grad school in relatively-rural Virginia, and there were quite a few chapters on that campus that had advisors who were not members of the organization. Most of the advisors were employees of the university in some regard.

There was also the poster recently who advised the ZTA chapter that her sister had been a part of. That chapter then voted to offer her membership as an AI. IIRC it was a similar situation- rural campus with no one else to help the chapter.

groovypq: I was one. The chapter I advise is pretty much geographically isolated - the nearest alumnae chapters are at least an hour away and, this not being a high population area, there just aren't a lot of alumnae nearby. When the chapter's previous advisor moved away, the chapter asked me to be its advisor - my sister was an alumna of the chapter and I also coach one of the current sisters. So I guess I was a little unusual in that I already had a connection to the chapter, but I wasn't a member when I became advisor. I am now, though.

I know that on my campus, the fraternities all had faculty advisors. I think the only one that had an actual member as an advisor was KDR, who had a faculty advisor who was also a brother.

In all of these cases (even with my own organization having non-members serve in advisory roles), I’m not sure what the requirements would be.