Size of Pledge Class

[emb021]

Originally Posted by arvid1978

There is a lot more to be said about this, but I suspect I'll be roasted pretty well for this as it is.

We've found a witch, may we burn her?!?


Seriously, I think that's a great post. As a past pledgemaster, pledge education is something that is important to me, as I feel that a good pledge program leads to a good chapter (and fraternity). So I get a little annoyed by some people's stupid attitudes regarding pledging.

I've never bought into the 'big pledge class/chapter' is bad idea. Tho its hard for me to see it working, based on my experiences with smaller groups, I've never rejected them out of hand.

[arvid1978]

Originally Posted by emb021

We've found a witch, may we burn her?!?


Seriously, I think that's a great post. As a past pledgemaster, pledge education is something that is important to me, as I feel that a good pledge program leads to a good chapter (and fraternity). So I get a little annoyed by some people's stupid attitudes regarding pledging.

As do I, obviously. I think people sometimes forget that the ultimate purpose of pledging is to prepare those people to be successful actives who will continue to grow and advance the chapter, and by association, APO as a whole. Any chapter whose pledge program is doing anything else is failing those pledges, their chapter, and by association, APO as a whole.

I've never bought into the 'big pledge class/chapter' is bad idea. Tho its hard for me to see it working, based on my experiences with smaller groups, I've never rejected them out of hand.

I advise a big chapter and I advise a small chapter. I see the same problems in both, but they're actually amplified a lot more in the small chapter. If there is a rift in the membership and people decide to take their toys and go home, it does not impact the big chapter nearly as much as it does the small chapter.

Honestly, a lot of people spend more time worrying about what other GLO's are doing instead of focusing on what makes us different than the rest. Nothing makes me sadder than to see a chapter that take their cues, mannerisms and base their activities off of what other people on their campus are doing (especially other GLOs) and spend more time trying to be accepted by those other groups as being "legitimate greeks" instead of finding new ways to appeal to the larger student body who would be genuinely interested in leadership, friendship and service.

My big chapter doesn't really care what other groups are doing, they do their own thing. My small chapter frets constantly over what everybody else is doing on campus, and goes out of their way to schedule APO activities around the events of other groups that their members are in. Guess which one has the retention problem?

[AndrewPiChi]

Originally Posted by Senusret I

^^^ Some of what you speak can be proven or disproven by analyzing the data from the Perpetual Inventory. I defer to Randy on that because I'm not good with numbers, but I would love to see if Andrew's hypothesis holds up in the cases of Nu Rho in Section 83, Delta Gamma in Section 59, Chi in Section 1, and Rho Rho in Section 2.

Senusret I I would love to see some statistical information on this. What is Nu Rho or Delta Gamma or Rho Rho respective situations? Just curious I dont know

As I said I could be wrong, its just what I have experienced. I don't believe this to be only AphiO either, I'm sure other social/service greek organizations could be go through the same issues as well.

[Senusret I]

Delta Gamma (Ohio), Chi (UCLA), Rho Rho (one of the UC Schools, I forgot) also have large pledge classes. If you log into the apo website and look under statistics, the perpetual inventory can tell you numbers and retention data (i think) but my puny little mind is unable to analyze it on my own lol

[AndrewPiChi]

Will do, I'll take a look and report back. I fail horribly with statistics however.

Just curious, how many times have they been rechartered? I know all the chapters around us either were 1. dead for 20+ years untill rechartered (Beta/Kappa) 2. Died consistantly 2,3 even 4 times. (Rho sigma for example)

[Quala67]

NP originally chartered in 1961, rechartered in 1978.

Active continuously for the past 30 years.

[naraht]

Originally Posted by AndrewPiChi

Will do, I'll take a look and report back. I fail horribly with statistics however.

Just curious, how many times have they been rechartered? I know all the chapters around us either were 1. dead for 20+ years untill rechartered (Beta/Kappa) 2. Died consistantly 2,3 even 4 times. (Rho sigma for example)

Huh? Where did you get the idea that Kappa has *ever* been inactive? I agree with you on Beta, it was reactivated twice (once in the 1950s and once in the early 1990s).

I don't know if there have been any chapters that have officially been rechartered 3 times (plus the original charter), but I know that both Beta and Theta Chi (George Washington University) have been reactivated twice.

Note, for these purposes, I am *not* counting any lack of activity during World War II, where many chapters had all of their brothers go off to war and some number of these brothers returned to the school and restarted activity in 1945-46 or 1946-47. In this case no official rechartering was ever done. But this isn't even necessary for Kappa.

See http://www.tomstrong.org/kappa/b_date.html for a list of Kappa Alumni and the date that they pledged. Largest gap I see is a little under 2 years back in the 1930s.

[RhoRhoBro]

As a brother from a chapter with a average of 75+ pledges a term over the last 2 years, I can say membership retention is pretty bad with large pledge classes and it is pretty difficult to get to know everyone in your class.

However, of those brothers who decide not to be active, at least they did some service and were taught the the principles that the fraternity was founded upon in their brief time in the fraternity. Whether they carry on that on to the future is entirely up to them but at least they have the tools now.

For those who remain active, the opportunity to bond and to get to know each other is always there, you just have to take advantage of it. If you do the bare minimum number of hours and fellowships, obviously the experience will be different than if do 50+ hours of service, 20 fellowships, become involved in committees and run for office. What you put into it, is what you get out of it.