Can a dry chapter make it?

chuckster · #1 09-11-2006, 03:45 AM

I am curious to see what others opinions are on a dry chapter......

I have been a part of ATO for 3 years now. I joined because of one of my friends older brothers. Anyways, we were started back up a few years back and were forced to be dry. This puts us at a huge disadvantage when rush rolls around. We can't EVER have events at our house. This kills our social aspect, which is about 90% of what incoming freshmen are looking for. The other houses easily rush twice as many as we do with half the effort. We have consulted, talked, and spent hours trying to find ways around this, but in the end the dry aspect just seems to hurt us with recruitment.

What do other ato's think about this???

Kevin · #2 01-22-2008, 02:12 AM

It depends on how you approach recruitment. If you have the right people in your house, alcohol and partying won't be top priority.

If you continue to try and compete with 'wet' houses on their own terms, you're probably not going to do too well.

SoCalGirl · #3 01-22-2008, 02:17 AM

Did someone else post then delete or are you, Kevin, on the bumping dead threads train?

Kevin · #4 01-22-2008, 12:20 PM

I didn't look at the date, but it was only about halfway down the page. This forum apparently doesn't get a lot of traffic.

This is a topic being discussed among a lot of fraternities as more and more of us seem to be gravitating to the substance free housing standard.

ADPirate · #5 02-22-2011, 02:49 AM

ATO at Baylor is, first of all, not allowed to have a "house". None of the Greek organizations are here. Second, Baylor is a dry campus. There is absolutely NO alcohol at any event. Greek events are monitored by exec and I don't know about the fraternities but the sororities are made to take a breathalyzer test before public functions such as All-University Sing. Even though all of this goes on, ATO is a popular fraternity here and our Greek organizations can definitely compete with schools who don't have a dry policy. So yes, dry chapters can make it.

carnation · #6 02-22-2011, 07:56 AM

Why on earth would a university want you to take a breathalyzer test before a singing show?

ASTalumna06 · #7 02-22-2011, 09:30 AM

Question #2: Why is she responding to a thread that was started almost 5 years ago?

ComradesTrue · #8 02-22-2011, 09:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ADPirate

ATO at Baylor is, first of all, not allowed to have a "house". None of the Greek organizations are here. Second, Baylor is a dry campus. There is absolutely NO alcohol at any event. Greek events are monitored by exec and I don't know about the fraternities but the sororities are made to take a breathalyzer test before public functions such as All-University Sing. Even though all of this goes on, ATO is a popular fraternity here and our Greek organizations can definitely compete with schools who don't have a dry policy. So yes, dry chapters can make it.

You go to Baylor. Great school, and I have many friends who are alumni. But c'mon. You absolutely can NOT generalize culture at Baylor with that of the rest of the world. We're not talking apples and oranges here. We're talking roast beef and oranges.

Quote:

Originally Posted by carnation

Why on earth would a university want you to take a breathalyzer test before a singing show?

See my above comment. It's BAYLOR. They only allowed dancing in the last 10-15 years.

carnation · #9 02-22-2011, 10:04 AM

I'm trying to picture drunk singers falling off the risers. LOL.

dnall · #10 02-24-2011, 03:14 PM

More like drunk audience.

In any case, and understanding this is an old thread, it is problematic depending on location. I know ATO's policy is any chapter started or rechartered after 1993 has to have substance free facilities.

On some campuses, like Baylor, that is not a problem because giant house parties are not the competitive standard.

Other places, like Bama, parties in the basement are the competitive standard and it significantly and permanently hurts the chapter in many ways.

Nationals made a compromise decision on this years ago. They decided it was more to our advantage as an organization to give up that competitive advantage on certain campuses than to endure the massive risks that come with it.

The situation sucks (more some places than others), but we don't have much to say about it. So, all you can do is make the best of the situation. You can be creative and come up with ways to have a very strong social calender. It's going to be dramatically more expensive, which means you're not going to out-do some orgs, but you can stay in the mix with a lot of extra money and work.

So, yes, a chapter with a substance free house can make it anywhere, but I feel your pain.

knight_shadow · #11 02-24-2011, 03:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dnall

So, yes, a chapter with a substance free house can make it anywhere, but I feel your pain.

Yep. I think people just need to learn to think outside of the box. If you can't drink in the house, use a local establishment. My alma mater allowed campus facilities to be rented out for alcoholic functions, as long as paperwork was turned in. That's another option.

33girl · #12 02-24-2011, 04:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dnall

More like drunk audience.

In any case, and understanding this is an old thread, it is problematic depending on location. I know ATO's policy is any chapter started or rechartered after 1993 has to have substance free facilities.

On some campuses, like Baylor, that is not a problem because giant house parties are not the competitive standard.

Other places, like Bama, parties in the basement are the competitive standard and it significantly and permanently hurts the chapter in many ways.

Nationals made a compromise decision on this years ago. They decided it was more to our advantage as an organization to give up that competitive advantage on certain campuses than to endure the massive risks that come with it.

The situation sucks (more some places than others), but we don't have much to say about it. So, all you can do is make the best of the situation. You can be creative and come up with ways to have a very strong social calender. It's going to be dramatically more expensive, which means you're not going to out-do some orgs, but you can stay in the mix with a lot of extra money and work.

So, yes, a chapter with a substance free house can make it anywhere, but I feel your pain.

Can your chapters get waivers for good performance (i.e. high chapter GPA, campus involvement etc) or doesn't ATO do that? Also, are older chapters grandfathered in as far as being allowed to have alchohol? Just curious.

dnall · #13 02-25-2011, 08:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 33girl

Can your chapters get waivers for good performance (i.e. high chapter GPA, campus involvement etc) or doesn't ATO do that? Also, are older chapters grandfathered in as far as being allowed to have alchohol? Just curious.

No waivers, no exceptions, and it's forever. Chapters that have kept their charters since before 93 are still allowed to have alcohol in their house (and there's a lot of them). If they get suspended for five minutes though, it's done.

There's other fraternities out there, phi delt comes to mind, that all their properties nationwide are required to be substance free. Granted that's flagrantly violated all over the place, but they find a way to make it work.

Honestly, with all risk mgmt policies, there's stuff that's legitimate and stuff that's in there because we got sued one too many times. We don't try all that hard to enforce the latter, but if a chapter violates one of them in an incident, then they'll be in trouble and have no insurance coverage. It's just passing the buck, for better or worse.