Cross & Crescent

In the two most recent issues of the Cross & Crescent, articles stated that our Fraternity has realized a 40 percent decrease in membership in the last 20 years.

This information caught some of our readers by surprise. After all, if college enrollment is at an all-time high, shouldn’t our chapters be experiencing growth? Unfortunately, there isn’t a direct correlation.

Fraternity membership declining

Many factors may have caused our membership decline. Lambda Chi Alpha, much like many of its peers, has suffered a nearly annual membership decline for the last 20 years.

Several driving forces have led to our decrease in membership, including alternate campus organization opportunities, better institutional housing options, a giant influx in the amount of minority students, and an increase of non-traditional students attending colleges and universities.

Students are no longer rushing to join fraternities. Instead, they are taking advantage of other, more appealing co-curricular options.

What has caused the drop?

According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, only 19.3 percent of incoming freshman expected to perform some sort of community service in 1996. By 2005, that number jumped to 26.3 percent.

Social fraternities have lost sight of the importance of community service and do not promote their efforts to the campus community. Greek lettered organizations like Alpha Phi Omega, a national co-ed community service fraternity, focus primarily on just one of our dozen core values and are recruiting a large number of our potential members as a result.

Another challenge for fraternities is the large number of multi-cultural based student organizations and fraternities that have originated as a result of the increase in minority students.

Between 1996 and 2005, the number of minority students attending colleges and universities increased from 19.6 percent to 25.6 percent. Students have a natural desire to affiliate with those who are similar, so the opportunity to be part of an organization based on one’s culture is appealing.

Umbrella organizations like the National Association of Latino Fraternity Organizations are providing guidance to these cultural based organizations and will continue to gain a greater market share as colleges and universities become more diverse.

Student housing options on college campuses have drastically evolved in the last few decades. Students no longer have to share bathrooms with dozens of other undergraduates, nor do they have to eat hamburgers turned into meatloaf day after day.

Today’s residence halls are state of the art, with apartment style rooms, individual bathrooms, and gourmet meal plans. Sure, the old style dorms still exist on some campuses, but they are being replaced by new structures at an amazing pace.

Additionally, colleges and universities are increasingly requiring undergraduates to live on campus in university owned structures. In 1996, only 59.9 percent of incoming freshman lived on campus; whereas in 2005, 79.3 percent of those students did.

Simply put, students are choosing new state of the art housing facilities over our outdated fraternity homes.

Special interest clubs are also being developed by innovative students across the country, detracting interest from fraternities. If someone doesn’t like any of the current groups on campus, he can simply create his own.

University of California, which houses close to 1,000 clubs and organizations, is a great example of college campuses supporting new organization endeavors. These special interest groups are as specific as the Rubber Band Club or the Peanut Lovers Club.

With so many choices, each with an increasingly narrow focus, students are finding less time or interest in associating themselves with the more broadly focused social organizations.

Specifically, the percentage of freshman wanting to join a social fraternity, sorority, or club has dropped to 9.5 percent. Ten years earlier, nearly 15 percent considered it very likely they would affiliate themselves with a fraternity or sorority.

A final major cause for our Fraternity’s recruitment decline is what student affairs professionals term “the ever-evolving student.”

Year after year, students come from different backgrounds, have different direction, and have very different financial resources available to support their collegiate experience. In 1996, only 39.5 percent of incoming freshmen expected to work part-time while going to school, and that number jumped to 47.2 percent in 2005.

The traditional student of yesterday, whose parents supported his entire undergraduate experience, is becoming more and more extinct as society’s priorities alter. With nearly half of our student body holding part-time jobs and more students becoming involved with co-curricular activities, it is becoming more and more difficult to recruit undergraduate leaders.

What are we doing to combat this trend?

Values-based recruitment is a term that has been tossed around the fraternal community for several years, but what does it really mean? Likewise, fraternities continue to encourage their chapters to recruit year-round, 365 days a year. What does that mean?

Bottom line — recruitment is relationship building. Like any field of work involving interpersonal communication, building relationships is the key to finding success. People join people, not organizations.

We believe building relationships based on values we will deliver better results. The General Fraternity has developed programs to promote the core values on which Lambda Chi Alpha was founded.

The four main pillars in our Fraternity are leadership, scholarship, community service, and a positive social experience. Too often, chapters forget the first three and focus primarily on having a good time.

Sure, students want to have a good time, and they deserve to have fun. However, our groups must live by our Creed and put it in action on a regular basis, especially when they represent the Fraternity.

In 1981, 79.5 percent of male freshmen reported drinking beer “occasionally” or “frequently” — that number dropped to 49 percent in 2005. If our groups continue to recruit through social events while promoting alcohol, the pool of prospective students will continue to get smaller.

Through semiannual consultant visits which each chapter, annual international conferences facilitated by headquarters staff members, and the support of fully-trained alumni mentors; the message of values-based recruitment is delivered on multiple levels.

As we go forth, we anticipate our environmental challenges to continue. By remaining aware and sharing these issues with alumni and undergraduates, we will find ways to adapt, evolve, and combat these trends in our effort to recruit leaders of tomorrow.