Community College Fraternity?

[naraht]

Originally Posted by Pingyang

What about Parkland College (Alpha Zeta Omega chapter, I think)? They are a community college and were just chartered last year...?

I'm gonna put in a "yeah, but" here...

Parkland College (AZOmega) is on the outskirts of Champaign, Illinois as in University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. The APO chapter at UIUC (Alpha Alpha) brought back 296 brothers this past spring and initiated 109 this past fall (and run both fall and spring pledge classes). The normal issue with a chapter at a Community College is that if *one* pledge class fails or you hit a bump in leadership, there very few people on campus to recruit the following year and the chapter is in trouble. With the chapter at Parkland 10-15 minutes off of UIUC's campus, if they do hit a bad year like that, Alpha Alpha can send over 20-30 brothers to help with recruitment without a problem, which can help them get over the hump in recruiting.

Alpha Gamma Theta at Columbus State Community College survived for 15 years (1990-2005) and was about the same distance from Ohio State University's chapter (Alpha Iota).

Having said that, there are some Regional Directors (The people on the National Board for specific areas of the Fraternity) who aren't interested in extending the Community Colleges at all.

So having a chapter at a CC may work, if the CC is in the same town as a large state school with a stable chapter.

[KAPital PHINUst]

Originally Posted by naraht

Alpha Gamma Theta at Columbus State Community College survived for 15 years (1990-2005) and was about the same distance from Ohio State University's chapter (Alpha Iota).

So having a chapter at a CC may work, if the CC is in the same town as a large state school with a stable chapter.

Naraht, what you don't know about Columbus State is the fact that during that 15 year period, there were large periods of dormancy where the chapter was virtually inactive, some lasting 2-3 years apiece. When I was a student there (1992-94), we only had one pledge class the entire time I was there (Fall 1992) and that consisted of only three people, whom I never saw after that. After I graduated, I remember attending a pledge ritual for two individuals in the Fall of 1995, of which only one got initiated. Then I remember a handful of people getting initiated in 1998 and another handful being initiated around 2000-2001, and the chapter died out shortly thereafter.

APO chapters at community colleges do not work because the community college environment simply isn't conducive to its survival (put another way, community college enrollment can be very sporadic - a student may attend one quarter and take the next two quarters off and re-enroll the following quarter, etc. Plus the school spirit at a community college isn't the same as that of a 4-year school).