A Tough Fall Ahead

[Firehouse]

""Follow one person?".. "There's no such thing as getting better slowly?".. MAKE your alumni get you a house? Um... Really?"

Yes. Really. No disrespect intended. You're correct that there's no one-size-fits-all solution. But, yes: Give one man the authority and let him lead the chapter to success in rush. If they're down to 17 men and it's not the result of a large graduating class, then it is the result of poor leadership in rush. And yes, fraternities that don't get competitive quickly generally don't get much better. And yes, there are some tasks that the alumni must do; undergrads generally don't know how to secure housing.

I don't know anything about Linfield other then remembering that they were a pretty good chapter at one time. So, in the last hour I did some quick itnernet searches and found out more.

There are four fraternities at Linfield: Pike, Kappa Sigma, Theta Chi and Delta Psi Delta, the oldest local fraternity in the Northwest still in existence.

The original poster - the newly elected Pike president - says that 70% of the new initiates have left the chapter. That's not a good sign. He says that his competiting fraternities "exceed 30 members". That number turns out to be low. He says that the house was condemned, but they are trying to raise money to rennovate.
It tuns out that the Linfield Pike alumni have a very active facebook page, and planned an alumni work party at the house for July 17 (don't know how it turned out). They also are appealing for contributions from alumni to rennovate the house; I asume that is in order to "un-condemn" the house.

Delta Psi Delta alumni raised enough money through a capital campaign to pay off their house. The chapter photo shows a large chapter, over 40 men.

Kappa Sigma owns a house that holds 24 men. The 2010 chapter composite shows 53 members.

Can't find out how many members Theta Chi has, but they won a Chapter Excellence Award from their National in Spring, 2010, and members hold the Presidency and vice-presidency of Order of Omega.

My Pike chapter needs to grow to competitive size, and on this campus that appears to be 45-55 men. Their alumni seem to be in position to help with the house, and that should be their job.

Here's a revealing thumbnail look at the chapter's numbers. Our national magazine publishes chapter membership figures in every quarterly issue. These numbers were reported for Linfield:
Summer '10 17 members
Spring '10 15
Winter '09 10
Autumn '09 35
Summer '09 33
Spring '09 33
Winter '08 47
Autumn '08 47

This chapter's membership has dropped like a rock. I don't know why it happened, but I know this chapter needs to catch fire and quickly. If they only have 17 members, you cannot count on all of them to be there, especially if morale is a problem in the chapter. They have strong competition that is twice, even three times their size. They need bold action. They need success quickly that will inspire and motivate the members.

The alumni Facebook page appears to offer some hope for the house. It's an old chapter; one we do not want to lose. But they have hovered between 10 and 17 members for a year. They cannot survive with those numbers against that competition.