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Poster Name:
IFC Exec Alum

Poster Message:
10. Keep Upperclassmen Living in – One of the reasons that IU had a strong Greek system in the 1980s was the campus’ large houses and the live in culture that dominated at IU. Over the last decade or two, IU has been transitioning away from this culture. I firmly believe this shift has been highly detrimental to the Greek system. For IU’s fraternity chapters, they have all grown in recent years. Greek membership has grown as a percentage of IU’s population from ~17% in 2000 to ~24% in 2015. Unfortunately, occupancy in the chapter houses has fallen precipitously. If you are interested in the data on this, there are fraternity surveys that are published every few years by the Center for Fraternity and Sorority Research at IU. You can also get some of the data in the grade reports. In the 1980s when IU Greek life was in one of its stronger periods, fall pledge classes were smaller (ranging between the mid-teens and mid-twenties) but the chapters were nearly 100% live in. This began to change in the late 1990s (pledge classes ~30) and 2000s (pledge classes ~35). By the time I was a senior about a decade ago, though we had a large pledge class only 5 seniors from my class lived in the house. The following year, none did. I will compare this to FIJI that only had a few live out seniors at the time. It isn’t to say there aren’t strong chapters lead by underclassmen. Sometimes that does happen. But like every other aspect of life, you learn as you grow in experience. It is challenging to expect someone to be fully prepared to run a chapter that they have been an active member in for less than a year. All else being equal, senior leadership is more likely to result in a successful chapter. The senior move out problem isn’t just an issue at IU. One of the top chapters at Illinois had the same problem a few years ago. When their seniors moved out, the chapter, which had previously been one of the top houses on that campus, quickly got into a lot of trouble. They weren’t suspended but things were certainly going downhill fast. Their solution was to offer a monetary bonus for members who lived in sophomore through senior year. Basically this amounted to a few thousand dollars to cover spring break. Their alumni board, based on their research, believed that the reduction in risk by having seniors living in the house was worth giving away $40k a year in spring break money. The real problem is that at least for what I saw at IU, when people live out of the house, they aren’t involved in the fraternity. Southern fraternity chapters, which have tended to be more live out based for some time, have tried to correct for this by ensuring live out members are still invested in the house. They have contractual parlor fees charged for every member of the fraternity who lives out of the house over and above their social fees. Live out members still come to the house for dinner.