Quote:
Originally Posted by Serving25/7
I agree. How can you bring in that many people and expect that the pledges get to know one another along with getting everything done that is required in order to complete the pledge process
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See, I love hearing things like this because it highlights the fact that some people take APO way too seriously, and should be called out on it.
I come from a big chapter. My pledge class was 36 people, and we were a small one. My chapter was 90+ when I pledged. I knew every person in my pledge class, and most of my chapter. Just because I didn't know every single detail about every person in my chapter does not make me less of a brother or make my pledging and active experience any less meaningful than someone who pledged in a chapter where everybody knows everybody else's business and if you piss off the wrong person, you might as well not join because everyone will hate you anyway.
My pledge process was more comprehensive and better suited to make me a functional active member of this fraternity that most chapter's process. It was a lot more than show up, do some service, and hope we like you. It was not easy, it was not a cakewalk. It took time and dedication to complete. Being a large group does not make my chapter more like a service club than a service fraternity. My chapter works hard and parties just as hard, and they genuinely care about each other. Contrary to popular belief, we are not a revolving door where everybody who shows up and sticks it out gets a membership card. It's like those TV contests: Many will enter, not everybody will win. In fact, in my experience, I've seen that more in the smaller chapters where you do know everybody and people are more susceptible to "c'mon, they're a great person, let 'em in even though they're missing like 1/2 of their hours".
It says something to the greater campus community when a large group of dedicated students can put in over 3500 hours of service each semester, and they don't give hours for things like APO LEADS, going to conferences, committee or chapter meetings, etc. That's actual in-the-field service. The fact that large chapter such as this one still have large numbers of people beating down the doors each semester to be part of their brotherhood is testament to the greater good that they do to their chapter, campus, community, and country. I think the thing small-chapter people who are so quick to deride a large chapter should ask themselves,
"What are they doing different from us that makes so many people want to do service with them?"
This semester, my home chapter's pledge class is about 100 people. This is after 4 consecutive pledge classes of 70 people. This campus is over 30,000 undergrads with over 1,000 student organizations to choose from, including a couple-dozen service clubs and the largest Greek system in the country. There are easier ways to volunteer in the area that don't involve going through a lengthy, difficult and time-consuming pledge process and there are plenty of other GLO's to join if they are interested in having a set of letters to wear that don't involve doing much volunteering at all. Obviously they're doing something right if they're still attracting so many people.
There is a lot more to be said about this, but I suspect I'll be roasted pretty well for this as it is. This is one of my hot-button topics, and this is why:
Saying that we want quality pledges instead of quantity of pledges and a train of thought that needs to come to an end in all chapters. Using "quality vs. quantity" as a metric to determine if you have a good chapter is like asking "Do I want beer or do I want tacos" (or two other food and drink combos that are both good on their own, but are great together) You don't want only one of those things, you want them both.
Having a real quality program brings quantity, and having a good quantity breeds quality as long as you keep the standards high, as you have all been implored to do. If you are not getting a large turnout at your informationals, that says something about your quality, and it's not good. It also says bad things about your quality if you are getting those large numbers of people but they don't come back the next semester.
Having a chapter program that brings in a lot of people but does nothing to keep them active is just as bad as having a chapter program that purposefully has a small pledge class and does nothing to increase their appeal to the rest of the campus. That's still having your "beer and tacos", but it's Natty Light and Taco Bell. It gets the job done, but it's not very satisfying.
We don't want Natty Light and Taco Bell. We want Sam Adams and Dos Reales (or some other great local Mexican place). That's what all chapters should be aiming for, whether you're big or small.
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