Is it time to get rid of undergrads?

[Blueknowledge]

Yes, the founders were undergraduates - nearly 100 years ago! But let us remember the context for which they lived: they were the social elite. They were college students when the percentage of African Americans attending college was less than 1%. (Heck, over 85% of A/A were illiterate at the time) Today, that standard would at least be a master’s degree (and that’s a conservative estimate).

Perhaps the world of Zeta functions a little different from the world of Sigma, but the notion that undergraduates are looking for role models from the graduate brothers is more fairytale than real. I know I am not that far removed from my undergraduate days and I remember the dubious nature by which we approached the graduate chapters. There were fine brothers in the graduate chapter, yet I know that we cared little for them, as we pursued our own agenda.

In fact, there were two primary objectives when dealing with the well-intentioned, but hopelessly uninformed, graduate “advisor”
1. Don’t let him know when the boys really go on
2. Hit him up for money so that we can do our service projects

We need to seriously reconsider undergraduate chapters. We need to study whether or not they are cost-effective and productive. We can all admit that they are our primary liability and that they contribute very little capital to our organizations. Indeed, we need to study the probability of successfully gravitating from the undergraduate level to the graduate level. If you know, for example, that undergraduate chapter A only transfers 25% of its graduates into the grad chapter, and that the average member of undergraduate chapter A only stays “financial” for two years, then what’s the point?

The founders were different people at a different time. If you were 21 years old in 1914 or 1920, that made you, firmly, an adult. Today, adolescence doesn’t end until you’re 25. I, respectfully, think it’s time to rethink how people get access to our organizations.

Blueknowledge

BTW – I am willing to compromise by having an experiment whereby all undergraduate chapters are collapsed into a graduate chapter. But in my normative vision, the undergraduate membership would be significantly smaller, and the graduate chapter would strictly control the notion of membership.