Membership Requirements

[Rock Knobbster]

I wanted to float a couple of ideas about membership requirements and get some feedback.

At San Jose State, we have a relatively low number of freshmen and sophomores, with a large number of men transferring from Junior Colleges. My first suggestion is for some type of "affiliate" membership for men attending JCs. They are college students and are freshmen and sophomores. The same GPA requirements would apply.

Recruiting these men would give us an opportunity at younger initiates, who will have a 4-5 year Delta Sig experience. This would also give them incentive to move on to the affiliate university or another school with a Delta Sig chapter. No details on how we would do this yet, I just wanted to know how others felt about the idea--especially undergrads.

The other two ideas involve expansion. We recently had a group of students at SJSU who were interested in starting a colony. They went through a pledge program, but the school declined our expansion request. We would have liked to have initiated them, but were prohibited under current rules. We have a chapter 35 miles away at Hayward, which they could have been initiated into and affiliated with. What do you think of this idea?

Finally, our alumni association is finite because our chapter is closed. We are a chartered association, but cannot initiate new members--only undergraduate chapters can do this. What do you think of allowing alumni chapters to initiate brothers?

These are just a few ideas to help us grow and expand our chapters and membership. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts.

[dspboskey]

I think that you are off on the last statement when you said that only undergraduate brothers can intiate. I am almost possitive that an Alumni chapter can Alumni Initiate anyone who is not an undergraduate (currenlty enrolled in school). Hence Alumni Initations. You may want to check on this, but I am pretty sure that you can grow you alumni base this way.

The JC system is something that I think we should take a long hard look at, esspecially at specified feeder schools. I atteneded a university where we would get about 300-400 students a year from a small JC just 25 miles down the road. Sigma Pi's Alpha chapter is at the JC, and Sigma Pi at our university was the beneficiary on many members that were contining their education. As were many other state schools.

[Rock Knobbster]

Here is the section from the constitution:

}Section B. Classifications of membership
Membership shall be classified as follows:
§l. Undergraduate—Undergraduate members shall be those who are students at the college or
institution at which they have been admitted to an undergraduate chapter or colony of this
Fraternity and those who have transferred from one chapter to another in accordance with Section
C of this Article.
§2. Alumni—Alumni members shall be those who:
[a] either have been graduated from or who are no longer attending the college or institution
where they have been admitted to a membership in an undergraduate chapter or colony;
[b] are governing, administrative, or faculty personnel of a college or institution at which an
undergraduate chapter or colony of this Fraternity is maintained and who are not members of
any other national general college fraternity, and;
[c] are approved by both an undergraduate chapter or colony and the Alumni Corporation Board
of that chapter or colony, because of outstanding character and potential for service and
contributions to the chapter and the Fraternity.
§3. Honorary Members—Honorary members shall be those so designated by the Grand Council.

As you can see, you need BOTH the undergraduate and ACB approval. So, if you have no undergraduate chapter, you can't add members. This is a real problem for dormant groups who want to continue to be a part of the fraternity. Also, you can not attend one school and be initiated by a chapter at another school, so colonization is difficult without National approving a colony first, which means you need at least 15 men with a 2.8 GPA who have agreed to pledge. If you don't make 15, you can't move forward.