How to go about change?

[MikeBFiji]

I'm wondering how your chapter has gone about changing traditions that may not be in the best interest of the chapter?

I come from a pretty good chapter. We're always among the top two in grades, have a good rapport with the univeristy, win the Greek Excellence Award year after year and try to be involved in other groups on campus. However, sometimes I feel we could still clean up. Our IFC brought Dave Stollman of Campus Speak to talk about recruitment. One of the issue he keyed in on was cleaning up the greek community. One way to do this is by monitoring the shirts your chapter prints. They should be clean and reflect the positive aspects of your fraternity, even the shirts from formals and socials like our famous FIJI Isle/Islander/Grass Skirt. Sure I love to read funny shirts but I'm pushing for shirts I can where in front of parents or to work. The older guys argue "If the person can't take a joke then we wouldn't want them anyway" or "The person probably doesn't know one organization from another and everyone else is doing it so why change"

Another tradition at Ball State, and not just the greek community, is getting up at 5am on homecoming and drinking pretty much till 5am the day after. I have a great time partying and feel it is reward for working hard through the week, but how can I get others to see that these activities reflect poorly on us as a chapter and as a greek community. This year we're going to try to have a brunch for older graduates not from our chapter b/c these are the men that helped get our chapter established 7 years ago and most of the current members don't know these graduates. When I told two of my brothers about this they replied, "I know I won't be there b/c I will be drinking by then"

I am mainly gaining resistence from the older guys. Most of the guys from this past fall pledge class understand this reasoning.