Former members & drop outs hanging on

[PhilTau]

Now days, a bad alumni can get your chapter in big trouble really fast. So your concerns are not unreasonable. Contact your chapter's alumni group officers and get them involved with the issue. Let them be the "bad guy" on this issue/problem not you, the active.

I was an executive officer for my chapter my entire time as a chapter active. My chapter is not unlike the original poster's chapter. It was years ago. We also had a lot of alumni hanging around, which was good, but we had strict rules. Though I never saw them written down, I'll just list what I remember.

1. Alumni (which included any member not enrolled in the university) fell into two groups. Initiated and uninitiated. As actives, we never knew who was not initiated, but the alumni group's officers did. Though looking back after I graduated, it seems that uninitiated alumni never came back.

2. Alumni (and actives not current with active chapter dues) were not allowed to come to mixers or any event with a sorority or any official chapter social function where unmarried women were present.

3. Alumni could come to the homecoming party and spring formal if current with active member dues. (We told the alumni group president that alumni who owed substantial dues as actives were showing up at formals. So at the spring formal he stood at the door and made them pay the past dues along with the party fee before they could enter.)

4. Unmarried alumni enrolled in graduate programs at the university and who were on the faculty as graduate teaching assistants were not required to be actives and were welcome at all active fraternity functions. If they were not on faculty, they had to be actives in order to attend social functions.

5. For informal parties, alumni were always allowed. We expected them to behave (and they did). Any sign of drugs or problems and that person was persona non grata.

6. During summers, we did allow alumni to rent a room at the chapter house. They were required to have an undergraduate active roommate though. This would only be done if during the summer session the room could not be filled with an active. However, the alumni had to have a very good reason for needing the room - like a temporary work relocation, attending classes, etc. There were no official fraternity functions in the summer. (For many reasons, this would likely not be workable today.)

7. Alumni who were married could only attend homecoming and spring formal events. They were not welcome at any other official active chapter event if unmarried women were present.

Though these may attract criticism today, they were what I remember and what we did.