Greek Decline

[Rain Man]

In a nutshell, when I was most eligible to join (had a 4.0 accum and very active in the college community), there was a moratorium on intake at that time. I transferred to another school, and by the time the moratorium was lifted, my priorities were on building my career and finishing my degree, not pledging.

In hindsight, I'm kinda glad that I didn't pledge as an undergrad, b/c in the 1990s, I sensed a strong spirit of disunity in NPHC orgs with the whole pledging/intake debate and the underground pledging and subsequent hazing, which IMHO created worse results than the hazing incidents in the 80s and the pledging was public back then.

Quite frankly, my not pledging was vindicated when an eternal pledge became a classmate of mine and he told me that he dropped line when he received bruised and cracked ribs. I could only think "It could've been me".

As far as greek decline as a whole, I agree with the other opinions on the thread. But I think more importantly that the NPHC orgs are going to have to redefine their orgs and their images in order to attract quality members. This isn't the 70s, 80s, or 90s and the images, politics, and attitudes that was so prevalent and popular back then isn't going to mean much to prospectives in the 21st century. I think what students are looking for now are orgs with empirical evidence of substance, not just empty rhetoric.

Starting in 2006, and going through 2014, 7 of the 9 NPHC orgs will be celebrating centennial or golden anniversaries. That would be an EXCELLENT opportunity to give a new look and appeal to an old org. Because it appears to be long overdue.

Question: is the BGLO decline only for NPHC orgs or for all Historically Black GLOs?

If the answer is NPHC only, have you considered as a reason for the decline the rise in non-NPHC Black GLOs, Mulitcultural GLOs, and even Latino or Latino/Black GLOs, thus diluting the monopoly NPHC has on the Black student "market"?