Large vs Small chapters

[Psi U MC Vito]

I see I'm the only man, but yeah I can't believe the size of some chapters I've seen, or the houses. Every time I walk down Greek Row here I am jealous of the houses. Then again I'm part of a chapter that just turned 13 this last year. So even our alumni only number about 100-150. I have met at least a third of the alumni of my chapter, so I can't imagine the chapters that have been around for over a hundred years.

[KKGAlumDGMom]

I went to a large university in the early 80's where the Greek system had only just come back on campus a couple of years prior (although my chapter had been able to maintain a small off campus presence during the "banned" years). Our total at the time I rushed was only 48 and my pledge class was only 7 (things have significantly changed size wise now, however). Our house held 12 women.

When my daughter chose a university whose chapters have pledge classes of 50+, I couldn't imagine what that would be like. I have enjoyed living vicariously through her to see some of the differences. There are definitely positives and negatives to both, but I have to admit that I think, for me, the larger chapter size positives outweigh the negatives.

[Gingerdeltaz]

Originally Posted by KKGAlumDGMom

I went to a large university in the early 80's where the Greek system had only just come back on campus a couple of years prior (although my chapter had been able to maintain a small off campus presence during the "banned" years). Our total at the time I rushed was only 48 and my pledge class was only 7 (things have significantly changed size wise now, however). Our house held 12 women.

When my daughter chose a university whose chapters have pledge classes of 50+, I couldn't imagine what that would be like. I have enjoyed living vicariously through her to see some of the differences. There are definitely positives and negatives to both, but I have to admit that I think, for me, the larger chapter size positives outweigh the negatives.

I feel like I could have written the same post. When I pledged my sorority in the early 80's our total was 60 and my pledge class was 15 girls. I knew them all very well.

My daughter's new member class this fall was made up of 130 girls...more than twice my chapter's total! I still can't wrap my head around the fact that they have well over 300 actives present at their chapter meetings.

I completely agree that there are positive and negatives to both. Both have different experiences to offer, based on similar ideas, and big or small, I doubt any of us would trade our experiences for anything.

[gamecockgirl]

My pledge class this year was 112..and chapter totals around 300 I think (South Carolina). Alpha Gamma Delta colonized this Fall and it was just announced yesterday that Pi Beta Phi will be colonizing in Fall 2014 and Alpha Xi Delta in 2016. I will be long gone by the time Alpha Xi Delta gets to my campus but I am so excited to see the pledge classes get smaller at USC. While I feel like I know the majority of the girls in my chapter, it would be so much nicer to have pledge classes in the 60-80 range rather than 100+.

[DubaiSis]

and here's where "relative" becomes glaringly obvious. Most people here would say 60-80 seems freakishly large

[DubaiSis]

Living in a house with maids, a cook, house boys (that's what we called them. I think others call them waiters or something else) is great. I'm really glad I appreciated it while I had it. And no, it's not like living with your parents. It's not like living in the dorms or an apartment either, so I suppose too hard to describe if you haven't lived it. But my chapter house held 60 (and I think now they say it holds 50) in actual bedrooms - no cold air. It seems foreign to me to have 100+ and cold air.

[DubaiSis]

From what little nosing around I've done, I think member retention is kind of a big problem these days. If we lost a single pledge or had 1 sister not come back to school in the fall, it was a HUGE deal. Now it seems like a handful or more is completely expected.

[DubaiSis]

In those huge chapters, they may need to find a way to sort of transition them to half-alumnae status to keep them involved without asking more of them than they're willing to do. For instance, if they lived in, held an office, participated in X number of events over the last 2 years, always paid their bills on time, was never on academic probation (there are a litany of options here singly or in combination), then they only have to attend chapter once a month as a senior, or they don't have to attend any social functions, or they aren't obliged to do service hours, or whatever would keep them in the fold without overwhelming their senior year. Those of us who were collegiate members for 4 years and lived in for 3 can certainly appreciate the appeal of not having so much chapter responsibility as you prepare for graduation and the real world.

There might also need to be some social training for all collegians that when the going gets tough, quitting is not the answer. Or boredom isn't a sufficient reason to dump a commitment.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by DubaiSis

In those huge chapters, they may need to find a way to sort of transition them to half-alumnae status to keep them involved without asking more of them than they're willing to do. For instance, if they lived in, held an office, participated in X number of events over the last 2 years, always paid their bills on time, was never on academic probation (there are a litany of options here singly or in combination), then they only have to attend chapter once a month as a senior, or they don't have to attend any social functions, or they aren't obliged to do service hours, or whatever would keep them in the fold without overwhelming their senior year. Those of us who were collegiate members for 4 years and lived in for 3 can certainly appreciate the appeal of not having so much chapter responsibility as you prepare for graduation and the real world.

This is an OK idea, as long as it doesn't evolve to 1) pushing out women who DO want to be involved senior year/making senior year involvement "weird" 2) causing women to overload just for the sole purpose of being able to blow off everything senior year and still call themselves sisters.

Not only that, there are majors in which your junior year classes can often be WAY more time consuming than senior year classes, judging by how you're able to schedule things.

I'd rather see this as something chapters initiate locally rather than nationally mandated - the chapter that has pledge classes of 100 every year may find some merit in this. The chapter that has pledge classes of 10 will be crippled by it.

[DubaiSis]

Originally Posted by 33girl

I'd rather see this as something chapters initiate locally rather than nationally mandated - the chapter that has pledge classes of 100 every year may find some merit in this. The chapter that has pledge classes of 10 will be crippled by it.

Oh absolutely. Just as we've discussed the variations on Alumnae chapters, the collegiate chapters also have to run differently, including the number of activities and the number of offices held. As it is, I think a lot of chapters would be surprised at what the minimum requirements are to be a real chapter. And if the house isn't full, you have to live in. That's just how it goes - bills have to be paid. But if you have the freedom to limit the responsibilities of the seniors (still, president is pretty much always going to be a senior, isn't it?) I think that would help. And for the heavy junior load, maybe there could be a 1 semester "off" type policy, if you can justify it and you've done your part up to the one killer semester. AND a few people being off the radar won't affect the chapter as a whole.

There might a benefit as well to a KROS (seniors) program.

[ColdInCanada11]

Originally Posted by DubaiSis

In those huge chapters, they may need to find a way to sort of transition them to half-alumnae status to keep them involved without asking more of them than they're willing to do. For instance, if they lived in, held an office, participated in X number of events over the last 2 years, always paid their bills on time, was never on academic probation (there are a litany of options here singly or in combination), then they only have to attend chapter once a month as a senior, or they don't have to attend any social functions, or they aren't obliged to do service hours, or whatever would keep them in the fold without overwhelming their senior year. Those of us who were collegiate members for 4 years and lived in for 3 can certainly appreciate the appeal of not having so much chapter responsibility as you prepare for graduation and the real world.

There might also need to be some social training for all collegians that when the going gets tough, quitting is not the answer. Or boredom isn't a sufficient reason to dump a commitment.

I wholeheartedly agree with you, DubaiSis. Our chapter was not huge at all (usually ~25 members), but they could have afforded to have 3-5 of us not there all the time. I can say for those people applying to grad school, there are far more important things to be doing than mini-golfing or whatever the exchange is. I understand that you would want senior members there at meetings because they will have the most experience and therefore may be able to offer a solution that younger members hadn't considered. By my last semester, I was focused on the fact that I was moving 5,000km away and that I needed to start researching sources for my thesis, not on random events. Obviously, some events like COR and philanthropy need to have members there, and I think that those should not fall by the wayside. However, social and sisterhood are a different matter. Some of my favourite memories are from sisterhood events, but watching "Insert chickflick movie here" a month before I graduated was not going to make/break my experience. Ditto for exchanges, if I haven't met these people before now, it's probably not the end of my life.

I know that Alpha Gam does have provisions for seniors, and the Delta programming (I'm assuming other orgs do as well), but sometimes younger members need to try to understand what graduating members are going through outside of the chapter.

[DGTess]

And a small chapter may not have the luxury of doing without some of its sisters.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

We did the following for seniors:

1) No more door/phone duty
2) Senior events, like exchanges (mixers) or happy hours at 21+ venues
3) A special senior/phi event so the seniors got to know the new members
4) A senior chair in charge of planning 2 and 3

It's less about course load and more about the fact that nobody cared, by senior year, about going to fraternity exchanges and stuff like that. You have your group of friends who you want to hang out with, and you don't need to meet random dudes once/month. I would say that this was mostly fourth-year seniors, though. For women who pledged as sophomores, and were thus in their third year as a senior, it was common to still live in the house.

I would say, across campus, a soph/jr president was just as common as a jr/sr president.

[TSteven]

Originally Posted by BAckbOwlsgIrl

So if you have NM classes of 100+ and chapter size is 310ish. Wouldn't chapter size be 400ish? What happened to the 100 members that left? That is a dropout rate of 25%. What is being done to retain members? Sure we can say that part is finances, some don't like sorority life. But 100 members is HUGE! Then again, 25% is huge. I wish that this board would address membership retention more. I realize that it walks the line on membership selection, internal chapter operations, etc.

Originally Posted by 33girl

I'd like it to be that chapters aren't lauded/penalized for making/not making quota, but rather for their retention rate. I have no doubt that some of the chapters that are getting bitched at after every recruitment would all of a sudden be the fair-haired girls, and vice versa.

I suspect that in most cases, these 300 plus chapters are over campus total even after members quit or become alumnae. Also, the chapter may not hear much about retention from their HQ simply because HQ knows that these "mega" chapters are likely to have retention issues. Yes 25% is a huge amount and I am sure the HQs desire to retain everyone. But I am guessing it would be difficult to develop specific retention programs for these “mega” chapters - especially in the cases where campus expansion is possible and thus more manageable chapters.

Frankly, I wouldn’t know where to begin to address retention issues for such large chapters.

[Titchou]

The 300 member classes are after recruitment. They probably only came back with around 210. Then you have those who don't get initiated, leave school, transfer, do an off campus program where PH doesn't count then in total or graduate early. General attrition in other words. Not all resign...some leave thru normal channels.