advice for chapter survival

2. Know the rules of the game and treat police and IU admins with respect. Develop relationships before you need them. It would be advisable to consult with an attorney to know when you must allow IUPD\excise police\IFC\IU staff into the chapter house. There may also be limits to where the chapter president can admit police. Chapter leaders need to know these things as well as IFC rules and regulations and the Student Code of Rights and Responsibilities. You also need to know your national fraternity’s rules. You can disagree with police and administrators without being disagreeable. You can refuse admission by simply saying you do not consent to warrantless searches of the property. All IU fraternity houses are on private property, even those on Jordan.

For better or worse, punishments tend to be very arbitrary when it comes to fraternities. Develop the needed relationships with your national office and the IU administration before you are in trouble. That way, if a rule is broken, your punishment will fall on the more lenient side of the spectrum. This was the case for Pi Kappa Phi in 2003 when they had a pledge show up with alcohol poising following dad’s night. As they had been the national Pi Kappa Phi chapter of the year the previous year, their nationals only suspended them for a year. I don’t believe anyone had to move out or was removed from the fraternity unlike what is typical for most IU suspensions.

Again perception matters. This is another area where FIJI has simply done a better job than the other chapters at IU. At least when I was at IU, they were one of the most involved fraternities on campus.

3. Do not allow the pledges to drink liquor - Simply put, Dad’s\Mom’s nights are the most dangerous activities undertaken in the IU Greek system so limit them to beer only. The old IU tradition of having pledges chug hard liquor is a serious problem. Historically, most chapters have been good about having dry pledgeships except for those nights. Practically every year, someone in the Greek system gets alcohol poisoning during this activity. Sometimes this gets traced back to the chapter and sometimes it doesn’t. Over the last 25 years, Alpha Tau Omega, Alpha Sigma Phi, Kappa Sigma, Pi Kappa Phi, Acacia, Pi Kappa Alpha, Sigma Pi, Delta Tau Delta, and Lambda Chi Alpha and the sororities Kappa Kappa Gamma and Delta Zeta have all had serious alcohol poisoning incidents following Dad’s or Mom’s night. In all these cases, the individuals had BACs north of 0.3. In every case, the new members were lucky to have survived. And these are just the times where a public news story was written about the incident. I would guess the actual number of instances is double what I listed.

Regardless of the actual facts and circumstances it will always be considered hazing if a pledge is injured drinking alcohol. Just to reiterate, the university, the media and the law will treat it as hazing no matter what anyone says or what actually happened. The officers of the fraternity may be held legally responsible for any injuries.

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.

this guy must be fun at parties

Good stuff. Hopefully some will take it to heart.

But interesting about the law of unintended consequences. Going after the kegs seems like it led to a lot of problems. We see this at the high school level as well. The flavored liquors just add to it.

Thank you for taking the time to share this and for caring about the system. Hopefully those who also care about their chapters will take it to heart.

thank you

Bump

Bumping this because in light of what has been going on in the past few weeks, maybe some need to read this guys advice again. Take it to heart friends.

So, someone clearly wasn't listening! F this. Wake up people!