Fraternity Rush at Kansas

[Kedzman]

Originally Posted by Kevin

Brother, I hear what you're saying, but I don't agree 100%.

Back a few years ago, when I was just starting off in my own colony's existence, a long time alumnus who also happens to be very influential within our organization introduced me to the 'iron triangle,' or 3 B's of recruiting -- that being babes, bucks, and booze (not necessarily in that order). These things are key to how many very successful organizations operate today.

Later on, I attended our College of Chapters in 2001 (the first return to Lexington). There, HQ introduced the Values Based Recruitment program. I think that's what you're alluding to. VBR is great in that it involves somewhat of a paradigm shift in recruiting. No more do they want us to go after the guys who are going through Rush only to have a good time -- we want the guys who are after what we're after -- Brotherhood, Support and Friendship. We talk up things like our core values, the reason we were founded, etc.

I still think that the key to success lies somewhere between the old and the new. I think values based recruiting is wonderful, but at the same time, we shouldn't forget the social aspect of the organization, the old 3 B's. Both things are important. I'm not going to pretend to have some sort of cohesive philosophy about recruitment and what works. It never really was my forté. I just think that the truth is somewhere in between the old ways and the new way.. and I'll just leave it at that.

(my opinions are my own, and I do not speak for any other person or entity here)

Brother,

I am disappointed to see you perpetuating "the Iron Triangle" or the "3-B's" of recruitment. Just because that alumnus is influential doesn't mean he is right. We are called to a higher standard than that.

I've been involved in Greek life since 1987 and seen a lot. The 1980's were indeed "the big '80's" where fraternities surged in numbers, in part, due to the popularity of movies like Animal House (1977) and others to come. Until about 1986 or so, there were no rules. Fraternity parties were wide open. As a result, there were many alcohol related deaths, property damage to our historic homes and injuries - and of course, law suits. Risk management rules imposed by National organizations were the result of unchecked liability. Law suits financially threatened the existence of our National organizations.

Risk management heated up in the 1990's. Huge numbers of chapters around the nation were shut down. Other chapter went by way of the dinosaur and were victims of their own actions. The mid to late 1990's on my campus were devastating. At our chapter, for example, I knew it was game over when I saw our "good kids" leaving and the knuckleheads staying. Parties and drugs were increasing. Chapter involvement, GPA and recruitment numbers were decreasing. That was the beginning of the end. You cannot recruit quality TO the organization if you do not have quality IN the organization. Alumni stepped in a quitely pulled the charter. Massive drug busts happened at Delta Upsilon and Sigma Chi in 1999 - two of our historically best chapters. There was a strong "anti-establishment" attitude in the mid to late 1990's influenced by the "grunge" culture with young people - kind of similar to the decline of Greek life in the early to mid 1970's.

In 2005 and beyond, it seems many organizations are becoming a lot more responsible. New groups like ours are starting out on the right foot. Other organizations are trying hard to turn the tide of the culture because of the risk and poor results they have gotten.

I'll challenge you to make a slight paradigm shift. Instead of leading with Beer, Babes and Bucks - try leading with all of the attributes a top fraternity offers by way of leadership development and personal growth. What will happen is the best of the best will be attracted to you. From that, the bucks will come from higher manpower. The Babes will beat a path to your door because quality women desire to be with quality men. The Beer is simply a constant on a college campus and within fraternity culture. Everyone knows it's there. You don't need to flaunt it or promote it. Pushing parties only hurts you - it cannot help you. What I mean is, a party-centric recruitment message can scare away top students who become concerned that they will not be able to be high-achievers if the culture is too party oriented. Conversely, the party-only guys will find a home at your fraternity and they may bring little else to your chapter and put you at risk.

Again, if you lead with personal development, the bucks and babes will follow. The beer will always be there.

[Elephant Walk]

God, y'alls nationals are just as miserable as ours.

Here's a few gems:

What I mean is, a party-centric recruitment message can scare away top students who become concerned that they will not be able to be high-achievers if the culture is too party oriented. Conversely, the party-only guys will find a home at your fraternity and they may bring little else to your chapter and put you at risk.

You're too focused on "partying", to be honest. You can have a helluva social life with a party every night and no one would consider it a "party-centric rush message" (I refuse to call it recruitment, that's more bullshit nationals has stacked on us). The best chapters are up to their ears in drugs and alcohol, but that doesn't mean you can't get stuff done. It's just a small bit of the bigger picture.

I'll challenge you to make a slight paradigm shift. Instead of leading with Beer, Babes and Bucks - try leading with all of the attributes a top fraternity offers by way of leadership development and personal growth. What will happen is the best of the best will be attracted to you. From that, the bucks will come from higher manpower.

Hahahahaha. Where do I start?

Leadership development? We recruit guys who are already leaders and want to be leaders on campus. If you mean better leaders? Sure, being a part of a fraternity forces you to do that. Structured and intelligent hazing creates personal growth in the fraternity. Without focusing on "leadership development and personal growth" we're a very strong fraternity. We pull the strongest guys because being in a top house pulls top leaders, not top partiers. Furthermore, the bucks have been there for ages and will continue to be there without doing a "paradigm shift". Pulling in the top leaders means pulling in the top bucks generally (hefty generalization I'm guilty of, but I think for the most part it's true).

The history of bad things

We well know the history of fraternities. Thanks for updating us nationalsman. We were taught plenty of that during pledgeship. Gah.

[EE-BO]

FYI- Kevin is a highly educated contributing member to society and a credit to Sigma Nu. Rest assured your "disappointment" in him is very poorly placed, and alumni like us tend to get pissed off very quickly when someone takes all of our work and financial contributions to a chapter or to Greek Life in general and then says we are bad guys because we did not take some leadership course or because we refuse to tow some party line and never say what we think.

The rest speaks for itself. You are taking a few incidents and blowing it up into the need for a revolutionary vision that you think will magically attract a new kind of rushee- which implies you have disdain for all who have come before.

You are that upper middle-class white guy who thinks he can go be a teacher in an inner city school and overnight inspire and change the lives of your students- which of course requires you assume they are so unable to think for themselves that only you can help them. (And there are many more like you- I am not saying you are just out there on your own.)

I think your general assessment of Risk Management evolution over the past 20 years is largely correct, but by acting like you have discovered some magic inspiration- you really insult everyone around you.

Consider too how alumni might feel about this kind of "Ivory Tower" approach. I can tell you that it pisses a lot of them off- and they are the ones whose donations really fund nationals and chapter houses.

Leadership development has its place- but the idea that it is some magic solution to a problem that is largely mischaracterized as a flaw in fraternities in general is great leap.

[PhiGam]

Originally Posted by Kedzman

Brother,

I'll challenge you to make a slight paradigm shift. Instead of leading with Beer, Babes and Bucks - try leading with all of the attributes a top fraternity offers by way of leadership development and personal growth. What will happen is the best of the best will be attracted to you. From that, the bucks will come from higher manpower. The Babes will beat a path to your door because quality women desire to be with quality men. The Beer is simply a constant on a college campus and within fraternity culture. Everyone knows it's there. You don't need to flaunt it or promote it. Pushing parties only hurts you - it cannot help you. What I mean is, a party-centric recruitment message can scare away top students who become concerned that they will not be able to be high-achievers if the culture is too party oriented. Conversely, the party-only guys will find a home at your fraternity and they may bring little else to your chapter and put you at risk.

Again, if you lead with personal development, the bucks and babes will follow. The beer will always be there.

Nationals are supposed to say this kind of stuff, not actually mean it.

[62231]

I have no idea what you're talking about Kedzman. The chapters at my school that are on top of the social ladder are also home to the campus leaders.
I'll give an example breakdown for UF.
~130 members
~75 have some sort of leadership position in a campus organization other than the fraternity.
Probably 10-15 of those are very active in several campus organizations.
And ALL 130 know how to balance school with drinking and girls.

You're probably the same guy who claims it's too difficult to have quality and quantity in a pledge class.

[CrackerBarrel]

NIU is only about 5% Greek. This reflects poorly on the quality of Greek Life at NIU.

No, that reflects poorly on NIU.

Sigma Nu believes there is a market to create a winning organization that will appeal to those who have not been attracted to Greek Life at NIU thus far. We've accomplished that by recruiting 40 new men who would not have joined the Greek System otherwise.

So GDIs?

They have posted a 2.91 cumulative GPA as a fraternity vs. the All-Men's average of 2.70. Sigma Nu is the only NIU fraternity of the 15 that is above the All-Men's GPA making them the pre-dominant academic fraternity at NIU.

Woo hoo, I go to a school a lot better than NIU and even the chapters which are thought of as the coke-heads have a better GPA than that. They're outperforming you, at a much better school, on two hours of sleep a night. Really overacheiving there, huh?

To be the best, you have to attract the best. This new fraternity is not for average men or underachievers. We seek top students, athletes and leaders to claim the top spot amongst NIU's men's social fraternities.

Mmmhmm, and if you are attracting the best leaders, tell me again why you need a leadership development program? You said it yourself, you're a SOCIAL fraternity.

[BigRedBeta]

This thread has some ridiculous arguments in it...

I think it's safe to say that the truly top-tier chapters are the ones that are doing everything well. They have good grades, their members are involved and leaders on campus, they benefit their community, they have fun, and the girls love them. They are the chapters that are producing our lawyers, doctors, and leading businessmen - not because of some "old boys' network" but because they're taking talent and molding it through brotherhood and high expectations into something better. The best chapters are those that are taking good men to begin with and making them shine.

To say that a great chapter can't have an active social life is ridiculous. But so is saying that national leadership programs aren't beneficial to individuals and chapters alike.

Really, balance is the key and should be what every chapter is striving for. If you get to far to the extreme in any direction, especially at the expense of other achievements, it's a recipe for disaster. Yes, if you're too "party-centric", you're only going to attract those guys who care more about getting drunk than going to class. If you only care about being number one in grades, you're going to get a bunch of nerds and the sororities aren't going to associate with you. But there are plenty of guys out there that want both and so it's up to the chapters to appeal to that ethos if they want to attract those guys.

[PhiGam]

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm...endid=90893788

Way to brag about your chapter's 2.9 gpa on your Myspace. I figured with the way you talked it would be higher than that, my chapter is probably around a 2.9 and we actually have cool kids (weird huh?)

[nittanyalum]

Man, you guys are really missing FH, aren't you?

[33girl]

Originally Posted by BigRedBeta

To say that a great chapter can't have an active social life is ridiculous. But so is saying that national leadership programs aren't beneficial to individuals and chapters alike.

Maybe a Dale Carnegie scholarship or partnership (or something of the like) would be better - so the members who want to pursue that can? Taught by people who do that for a living, rather than fraternity/sorority officials who have other stuff to do?

I was thinking as I read this thread, if every member in a chapter is a "leader" you're going to have a lot of head-butting and ego clashes. Lots of people think the Beatles broke up because they were all too strong-minded of individuals - they all wanted to have the spotlight. You can't have a group where everyone is like that and expect to get things done. You will have the guys who are Mr. Everything, but you also need to have the guy who never holds an office but is always THERE for companionship, support, etc.

[CrackerBarrel]

Originally Posted by PhiGam

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm...endid=90893788

Way to brag about your chapter's 2.9 gpa on your Myspace. I figured with the way you talked it would be higher than that, my chapter is probably around a 2.9 and we actually have cool kids (weird huh?)

Our chapter average is a 3.2 and we are a purely social organization. No "training", no academic programs, nothing. And yeah, we actually have cool kids too.

Hell, I go out every night of the week and have a 3.7. And I hate nationals. But according to his logic my house is full of lazy drunks, who are falling behind the times and setting themselves up to fail in school and life.

It's almost like you're wrong, Kedzman.

[Elephant Walk]

Originally Posted by nittanyalum

Man, you guys are really missing FH, aren't you?

Most have Old Row still...but I quit Old Row a year ago or so, so I have nowhere to e-frat but GreekChat.

Bringing up a GDISpace in a thread is classic OR/FH stuff. CB's comment about cokehead fraternities making better grades on two hours of sleep was epic.

[62231]

Originally Posted by CrackerBarrel

It's almost like you're wrong, Kedzman.

It would seem that way...

[TechSigmaNu]

Kedzman, I have talked to HQ alot this past year and to be honest they have alot of great advice and knowledge to help out chapters. But I believe that the other Greekchatters present a valid argument as well. Every school is different and I think that saying that one approach works for every university is a stretch. And that also goes with people, you cannot tell a person that non-hazing works for everyone, we all grow up in different lives and maybe hazing works for others. I believe someone said in an earlier comment that the army hazes, and you know it works for them to pump out fighting machines. But all in all I think that life does not have a certain equation for every situation otherwise it would be boring. And also my favorite saying is ALMOST everything in moderation, but for me personally moderation for drugs and hazing is zero usage, and a note to leave on is, I think that we can all learn a little bit from each other and if you cannot learn to see from another person's point of view then you are just ignorant.

[nate2512]

Originally Posted by CrackerBarrel

It's almost like you're wrong, Kedzman.

No way, he can't be wrong, he's too smart to be wrong, and Sigma Nu Nationals said so!