Fraternal Grade Inflation

Men and women, we have a problem, and that problem is academics.

I know, I know, many of you are thinking “Wait…he says academics is a problem? But our GPA’s are higher than the all-male/all-female averages. We can’t possibly have a problem!” Yes, they are. But how did your GPA’s get that high? Is it because your study hall/study table academic plan is top-notch and ahead of its time? (Hint: it’s not.) Nope. I’ve seen this at my university and several others; I’ve figured out fraternity/sorority grades, and it’s not pretty.

You see, we engage in grade inflation. How can that be…we don’t control the grading of our professors, there’s no curving in the fraternity/sorority system? Oh, but there is. What do we do whenever we look at a potential new member? We check out his/her grades. Now, I’ll give you a bone here: that is what our founders had in mind when they were penning our first rituals. They wanted their organizations to have the highest academic minds in the university. This is fair; fraternities and sororities are supposed to attract the most intellectual collegians. The problem we have is after we have pinned these highly-sought-after new members.

Does your chapter initiate everyone it pins? My guess is no. And much of the time it is because they “don’t make grades”. We have a GPA requirement to wait in line to get in (pledging/associate member process), we have a GPA requirement to get in the door (initiation), and we have a GPA requirement to stay in the building (retain good member standing)! Why don’t your new members “make grades”? I would posit that it is not entirely their fault; much of the blame can also lie on the chapter. How much time do you make them spend on activities versus academics? Even more so, you teach them how to be a good Alpha, Beta, Gamma, etc. but do you ever teach them how to be a good student? Not very frequently, so at the end of this new member process, you have students with poor GPA’s. What do you do? Well, it’s obvious you can’t initiate them; they would drag down the integrity and academic standing of the chapter. So, let’s hold them over, or cut them altogether. That will keep our grades high and our membership elite. Nevermind the fact that fraternities and sororities are also supposed to help further education. We skipped that portion in our rituals and creeds. Looking at just a few, I see in Beta Theta Pi – “devotion to the cultivation of intellect”, not the acceptance of men who already have intellect; there is still a learning process. In Delta Chi – “assist in the acquisition of a sound education”, note the assistance and acquisition; it’s not already there. We fail in our mission by cutting those men and women who don’t make the grade. And what happens to them? We throw them back out into the university pond, to struggle for themselves, when we as fraternities and sororities should be assisting them!

So, now, we have initiated these men and women who make the cut for us. We’re sure they won’t embarrass us. Oops, they will, and they do. So, do we help them? Sometimes we do. I’ve seen two different paths a fraternity or sorority can take in this area. The first is to offering tutoring, academic assistance, those glorious study halls/tables (they don’t work!). I love it when I see an organization that does this because they are continuing their founding tradition of helping others achieve academic excellence. It’s one thing to achieve in high school; it’s a totally different can of worms to achieve in college. The second option is the one about which I’m more concerned. We cut them. Well, we don’t cut them; because we allow them to keep their pin, and maybe even keep paying dues to us. But, we remove them from our roster, because heaven forbid we allow people to see that we have a poor student that we’re helping in our membership.

Summing it all up, we’ve got two formulas for academic success in fraternities and sororities:

1) Sign high GPA’s + initiate(high GPA’s – low GPA’s) + retain as members (high GPA’s – low GPA’s) = high chapter GPA!
2) Sign high GPA’s + initiate(all GPA’s + extra assistance to strugglers) + retain as members (all GPA’s + extra assistance to strugglers) = medium/high chapter GPA + living your values!

A pretty brief, simplistic series of formulas, but mimics what chapters can choose to do on a yearly basis. My encouragement to you, stop looking to keep your reputation, but improve your reputation, through aid, not cutting; through brotherly/sisterly care, not isolation.