“Bigger is better” is an occasionally destructive mindset plaguing the American people. We imagine that the most popular politicians, rappers, or food chains produce the best content, but that is too far from the truth. 

No one considers McDonald’s the place to get the highest quality hamburger just because it has sold billions of them. 

Fraternities and Growth

Fraternities and sororities, despite their insistence that they adhere only to the highest of standards, often fall victim to the “Bigger is Better” mindset. 

The more we expect of fraternity chapters, and the more campus professionals and the public expect of fraternity/sorority central offices, the more members a chapter needs to be able to complete the leadership checklists and pay for the new programs. [1]

I remember being instructed to convince a chapter with over 100 members that they needed more members. . . it didn’t make sense. For What?

There wasn’t a reason other than we didn’t want them to think that they should stop growing, because growth is automatically good and bigger is automatically better. That mindset didn’t take their goals and ambitions into account, and they rightly questioned our motive. They weren’t in any risk, had a strong recruitment record, a strong local niche, and pulled potential members from consistent channels.

Exponential growth is not necessarily bad, but it is often placed on a pedestal among fraternity folk.  When we encourage a chapter to increase in size, we need to observe if the chapter “grows good,” otherwise we risk being caught off guard when the chapter eventually falls apart.

Things To Keep In Mind If You Are A Recruitment Officer A Fraternity/Sorority Professional, Or An Adviser

I spent 3 of my 4 undergraduate years on our recruitment team, then 6 more years recruiting and overseeing recruitment at my national fraternity. Here are some things our team(s) learned over the course of those 9 years of experience.

1. Have an idea of who you are and what you want to accomplish

The first step to good growth is defining a simple, functional vision for your chapter. Every organization needs to have a direction, and defining the type of things you want your chapter to do will help you sell the experience to the right people.

Chuck might be a good guy, sure, but if Chuck doesn’t like service, and you need him to complete 30 hours every semester, then Chuck should not be in your fraternity. As mentioned in a recent post: A vision trumps trophies when it comes to recruitment. [2] It also makes it easier to let go the people who don’t fit – pity bids are not real bids.

2. Take Note Of What You Have To Work With

You need to align where you want to be with what you have to work with right now. Fraternities (undergraduate chapters and central offices alike) are notorious for BIG PLANS with underwhelming results. Figure out which roles you need filled to accomplish your vision as well as how many of your members are going to be involved in the new member process before you start recruitment. 

You should only have 2-3 times (maximum) the number of new members as there are brothers who can commit to serve as co-educators, big brothers and mentors to the new members (10-20 hrs per week).

Your new members should have an idea of how they would like to participate in the life of the chapter after initiation, and you should spend a considerable amount of time during the new member process helping prepare them to do what they joined to do: contribute.

3. Identify Your Channels

While you are planning for the number of men you can reasonably prepare for membership, your recruitment team should use your vision to determine where you will pull members from. It is foolish to rely only on those men who apply for fraternity rush to fulfill your needs – particularly as college enrollment is set to drop.

If you want to be leadership-oriented, academically-oriented, faith-oriented, etc. – there are probably related clubs that your chapter should meet and collaborate with throughout the year. Position some members as orientation leaders or tour guides – you need members in places where they can refer quality potential members back to the recruitment team.

[For more tactical knowledge on how to make use of these relationships, consider PhiredUp’s resources]

4. 365 Recruitment Is More Inception, Less Smoker Party

When chapters hear “365 Recruitment” there is automatically the impression that “recruitment” needs to happen throughout the year. It does, but you don’t need to plan recruitment events throughout the year. Instead, you need to make sure that all of your events are geared toward recruitment. 

If you are planning a service event, invite some prospective members to help. They’ll get to know your chapter, you’ll get to see if they actually care about what you do, and you have effectively helped them understand what it is like to be a fraternity member. 

Doing this takes a lot of unnecessary work off of your recruitment officer/committee’s plate – their job after “formal recruitment” is simply to help figure out how to make each event something that can involve potential new members or how each event can be marketed to potential members.

5. Set Some Objective Pre-Requisites & Stick To Them

As mentioned in a post from last year [3], every potential member should know exactly how much membership will cost, the real requirement of time, the moral expectations of every member, and your chapter’s vision and goals. 

Do not wait until you are in debt to learn that a member cannot pay or commit 10 hours a week to the chapter because you were worried you’d “scare him off” if you told him upfront. Dead weight isn’t sexy. 

6. Shrug Off The Pressure From Above

Your alumni, campus professionals or fraternity/sorority central office will always want you to be bigger. Beyond the revenue and press releases and such it simply makes them feel secure that your chapter won’t shrink into oblivion – but it is important to recognize that growing wildly is not a recipe for stability.

Responsible growth means knowing why you are growing, planning ahead for what to do with your new members when they arrive, and re-assessing your situation when the time comes again to recruit more people. 

Good Growth Doesn’t Need To Be Slow

It might sound like I’m simply warning a chapter from growing too quickly, but it is all a matter of preparation. If you and your new members understand what needs to happen for the chapter to succeed then it is okay to grow quickly.

Just try not to expect that rate of growth to last forever, and try to accept that there will come a point where adding members offers limited benefit to your chapter experience.

I once consulted a chapter that had whittled down to 7 men. We spent some time together determining what type of man they wanted to recruit and which niches had not been filled by the other fraternities at their institution and determined that focusing on leadership positions on campus and attracting international students for cultural diversity would be their key selling points.

Within a year, they grew from 7 men to more than 20 men, then later to more than 30 men (at a school of <1,000 students), but every single potential member they talked to knew that the chapter aimed to serve as a representation for student leaders and broadening one’s cultural connections. 

They succeeded in good growth because they knew what they wanted to be, they knew the type of men they wanted to recruit, and the new members all knew exactly what they were joining and what was expected of them. Simply planning and communicating well helped the chapter be exactly what its leaders set out for it to be.

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That’s it! What are some of your thoughts on “good growth”? Share on social media or in the comments below!

Pennsylvania recently passed new hazing legislation thanks to the tragedy at Penn State and the diligent work of the parents of the hazing victim. The North-American Interfraternity Conference’s coalition with parents of hazing victims seeks to enact more prohibitions like Pennsylvania’s in other states and federally with the Reach Act. 

Still, a quick search of deaths due to hazing will show that the number of deaths due to fraternity hazing have increased since the turn of the century, which coincides with increased state-level prohibition, increased fraternity-level prohibition, and excessive spending on anti-hazing educational programming from experts in the field. [1]

“With this bill it is a crime to force a student or minor to consume food, alcohol or drugs or subject them to physical or mental harm that is all too common on college campuses”

Tom Wolf, Governor of Pennsylvania

Dear Governor Wolf: Was it legal to force a student or minor to consume anything or subject them to physical or mental harm prior to this new criminal law?

Probably not, but when we confuse writing rules and patronizing pacification with leadership we are rewarded with this type of redundant, backward legislation. [2]

Prohibition Makes Desirable Things Happen In The Most Undesirable Ways.

Let us look at some examples:

Alcohol: The clearest example is alcohol prohibition, which resulted in the closure of nearly 200,000 saloons and parlors across the nation with the passage of the 18th Amendment. Alcohol still existed, and was still consumed, only now it was done in secret and the only means to acquire it was through cartels like that of Al Capone – widely regarded as one of if not the most deadly gangsters in American history. (Chi-city baby!)

As a result of prohibition, these cartels began selling harder alcohol. As is noted in this recent piece by Forbes about marijuana prohibition (getting to that), it was much easier to hide a single barrel of whiskey than 8 or so barrels of beer with the same alcohol content. The product got stronger, more dangerous, and the secret activity around it created a deadly environment for those involved in its sale. 

Cigarettes: Many know of Eric Garner, a New York City man who was killed by police at a time when the Black Lives Matter moment was at its news-media coverage peak (it must no longer drive healthy advertising revenue. . .). 

Garner was killed while under arrest because he was suspected of selling single cigarettes on the street without tax stamps. A pack of 20 cigarettes faces a $5.85 combined state/local tax in New York City. Whether you like or dislike cigarettes or a person’s decision to smoke them, one can be assume that there are more pressing criminal activities demanding NYPD’s attention. 

Marijuana: Returning to the Forbes article – we see noted there that Marijuana, a substance which has not resulted in a single death in the known history of the world, has become more dangerous due to prohibition. 

In addition to the illegal trade and violence surrounding illegal trade of the drug, laws which penalize someone with marijuana for the amount they possess in grams encourages consumers to seek marijuana with higher THC content (the stuff that gets you “high”) often at the expense of the plant’s CBD content (the stuff used to treat epilepsy and which neutralizes the neurosis-causing effects of long-term THC use).

Dealers benefit from more potent stuff because it means there is less for them to transport in general and with each transaction. Containers with marijuana are labeled in states where it is legalized with the anticipated effects and THC content. Which brings us to . . .

Opioids: Incarceration of illegal users of opioids is expensive, does nothing to address addiction, and results in those same addicted abusers returning to prison for repeat violations. We could save lives and money if our focus was, like alcohol, on rehabilitative services. 

“Prohibition does not eliminate desire, but makes it happen in the most dangerous and undesirable way.”

Congressman Ron Paul

Our uneasiness in dealing with fear and addiction drive our desire to banish and blame those things which lend themselves to abuse. It is an interesting phenomenon to watch fraternities position themselves as stewards of mental health while continuing to support policies criminalizing those who exhibit poor mental health.

Discriminating Between Dangerous Hazing & Legitimate Rites of Passage

Perhaps those students and alumni who desire a rite of passage are not criminals. Could we help chapters move away from forced consumption, physical abuse and mental abuse and toward a more rewarding, relevant challenge if conversations about hazing could be had without disclaimers and “amnesty” rules?

Students seem to find a way around each new rule meant to combat hazing: 

• Shortening the new member period has resulted in the hazing of new initiates or seniors.
• Deferred recruitment just means that lawless, alcohol-induced, expensive underground recruitment occurs throughout the fall term.
• Blanket zero-tolerance policies applied to a broad definition of “hazing” results in more potent, less detectable, and deadlier hazing activity. 

The proof is in the numbers, more students have died to hazing this decade than at any time in history. No laws, lectures, or “standards of excellence” programs have made any measurable impact. It is obvious to anyone who can read or who has dealt with addiction: Criminalization is not a solution, but it is the cornerstone of every modern fraternity/university press release.

Anything that gives the impression of “earning” initiation is deemed hazing and immediately shamed and banned. Just say “scavenger hunt” to an ambitious fraternity/sorority professional and watch their face – it will look as if they just heard about 9/11.

We close chapters and imagine that they will be permanently “better” when they are re-established – but the risk management issues persist because nothing has changed behind the scenes.

I wonder. . . would too many people lose their authority, their relevance, or their career if the hazing problem were truly solved? Is that why so many work together to promote costly ideas known to fail?

I doubt it is anything so consciously evil – maybe it is just an issue of pride and the cultish reality tunnel of the fraternity/sorority professional network that chokes out any person with a different idea to address the hazing issue.

Real Hazing Reform

In addition to the three suggestions I have for the NIC’s coalition to end dangerous hazing (link – reform insurance, end checklist leadership, report the stats), perhaps it is time we consider developing real, post-adolescent rites of passage as an essential element of a lifelong fraternity experience. 

Broad, unrefined prohibition is an unworkable answer considered respectable only among those who fetishize authority and power – people who have no place in leading a values-driven fraternity experience.

Dog and Pony Show Laws like Pennsylvania’s, which merely bundle already illegal things together with a different context and title, will do nothing to stop deaths due to hazing. They may actually make it worse.