What Can Mega-Sororities Learn From Mega-Churches?

The last decade has seen unprecedented growth in sorority membership on college campuses. According to the most recent NPC Annual Report, the number of new members joining sorority chapters has nearly doubled in the last ten years, with 80,000 women joining sororities in the 2004-2005 school year, compared to 140,000 in the 2013-2014 school year, a growth of 43 percent. In that same time period, however, only 300 new sorority chapters were added, a growth rate of only 10 percent. The growth in the number of members has far outpaced the growth in the number of new sorority chapters. The result?

MEGA-SORORITIES!!!!

Doing some rudimentary math with the stats provided above would tell us that the average new member class size has jumped from just under 28 new members to just under 44 new members in the last 10 years, which means that chapter size has likely mirrored the growth in new members. Based on the data provided, the current average sorority chapter size nationally is 152 members (including new initiates).

Anecdotally, we know that on many campuses those numbers are much, much higher. My last year at the University of Alabama, quota during formal recruitment was over 90 and the average chapter size was in the neighborhood of 320. I’ve heard that on some campuses, chapters are now pushing 400 members. 400!!! That’s insane!!!

I am not one to pound my chest and implore students to consider what their founders would think, but I can’t help but wonder what our sorority founders would think of chapters with 400 members. When they created these organizations, is that what they had in mind?

What makes these super-sized sororities problematic is our recent finding (read more about it here) that the most altruistic forms of sisterhood – accountability and common purpose – begin declining once a sorority chapter hits 150 members. Much has been written of the “Rule of 150” – otherwise known as Dunbar’s Number. Malcom Gladwell wrote about it in his bestselling book “The Tipping Point.” The basic premise of the Rule of 150 is that once a group reaches 150 members, the social network begins to break down and the group begins to destabilize, because, as humans, we can only maintain a true sense of connection and accountability with around 150 people. To my knowledge, our research is the first to statistically show the rule of 150 actually playing out, which is kind of cool!

Mega-sororities are bad for sisterhood. Our research clearly demonstrates that. Women in chapters over 150 members are less likely to feel a deep sense of connection to the sisterhood, and those chapters struggle to create a true sense of accountability and common purpose among members. Women in these chapters are much more likely to see the sorority as a social outlet or a place to go for support among a small group of sisters, but are less likely than women in smaller chapters to ever “get” the higher levels of sisterhood.

This should concern all of us involved in the “fraternal movement,” because I don’t see the growth trend reversing or even slowing down any time soon. Mega-sororities are here to stay.

If we can’t get rid of Mega-sororities, then we have to come up with a way to make them better. In particular, we have to come with ways to help members of mega-sororities connect with one another in more meaningful ways that allow for higher degrees of personal accountability and create better understanding of the common purpose of the organization.

The first thing we have to acknowledge is that the traditional structure of sorority chapters is poorly suited to fostering sisterhood in mega-sororities. In a chapter of 200+ members, not everyone will have a chance to get truly involved and engaged in the work of the chapter. I can’t tell you how many young women I worked with at Alabama who fell victim to this phenomenon – they were involved student-leaders in high school, came to Alabama expecting to have that same experience, joined a 300-member sorority, and just became a face in the crowd. No meaningful leadership opportunities. No opportunities to shine. No opportunities to connect with others in meaningful ways. Many of them eventually drifted away from the sorority once the “fun” aspect wore off, and tried to find meaningful engagement in other areas of campus life.

The fact is, a traditional chapter structure just does not work in mega-sororities. With only 10 chapter officers, and perhaps another dozen or so committee chairs, there are limited opportunities for meaningful engagement for members of these groups. Chapter meetings, which should be an opportunity for meaningful engagement and dialogue, become a series of announcements about decisions that have already been made by the executive board.  Uninvolved members just become a face in the crowd, rarely connecting with anyone outside of a small group of members in their pledge class, and never feeling truly connected to the majority of chapter members.

I propose that, in looking for alternative structures for those chapters approaching mega-sorority status, we take a few pages from the playbook of another growing entity in our country – megachurches.

A recent study by Baylor University showed that a growing number of Americans now attend congregations with a weekly attendance of over 1,000 people. This research also suggests that people in large congregations attend less frequently, give less financially and experience diminished feelings of belonging relative to people in smaller congregations. In short – megachurches are growing, and they are experiencing many of the same challenges as mega-sororities.

So how have the successful megachurches managed this growth? What are they doing to keep their members plugged in and engaged? How do organizations with thousands of members maintain a sense of connection and belonging among their members?

The answer is pretty simple –instead of making the big Sunday morning service (i.e. chapter meeting) the focus of membership, the successful megachurches make sure that the primary focus is on the activities of small groups.

The research shows that there are multiple benefits to small group-based churches. As one of the Baylor researchers noted, “Any type of small group will benefit a church, whether it's a Sunday school, a service group or a basketball league, because of the belonging and commitment they foster.” Small groups foster a deeper sense of belonging, higher levels of commitment, higher levels of personal accountability and, perhaps most importantly, increased levels of trust among members. The result of all this? Higher levels of participation, increased levels of financial support for the church, and members who report more depth in their spiritual journey.

Nationally, a handful of sororities have toyed with some programming designed around small groups, but none of these initiatives seem to have gained much traction. There’s a reason for this – small groups can’t just be seen as another of many programmatic offerings for already over-programmed sorority members. As the Baylor study notes, "Small groups are the center of the church -- not just one of many programs.”  In the churches that do this right, small groups are at the center of everything.

Instead of adding small groups on as an optional program, small groups need to become the center of chapter life in mega-sororities.  Instead of weekly chapter meetings, bi-weekly small group meetings (one to discuss chapter business, and another focused around sisterhood). The entire chapter should meet monthly or on an as-needed basis.  The leadership structure of the chapter should center around these small groups. Each group should have a leader, a social/sisterhood chair, a treasurer (with their own budget), a standards board, a scholastics chair, a community service/philanthropy chair, along with the appropriate committees. Each small group should be empowered to plan its own events, meet on its own schedule, and spend its own resources.

The move to a small-group chapter model will not be without its challenges, and the model I have described above still leaves us with many questions that need to be answered. Questions like:

Along what lines should the small groups be organized? There are literally thousands of ways you could go with this one. Fixed groups to which new members are assigned during their first semester of membership and remain in the entire time? Open groups based on interest that people can join and leave as their interests change? Groups organized around organizational values? Groups organized around hobbies and interests? Groups organized around different service initiatives or different academic interests? Randomly assigned groups with no real rhyme or reason? Any or all of these could work, and we would need to do some research in order to figure out what seems to work best.

How big should the small groups be? The research here appears to be inconclusive, and this would vary depending on the structure (i.e. fixed, closed groups or open, interest-based groups). More research would need to be done to determine an “ideal” small group size.

What “overall” chapter offices would still be needed? Again, I’m not sure about the answer to this one. To be certain, a chapter president would still be a necessity. Chapters would probably still need a social chair, a treasurer, and the full bevy of recruitment officers. Beyond that, we would just need to experiment to see what is best handled among small groups, and what needs to have a chapter-wide focus.

How inclusive/exclusive would these small groups be? The research on this topic is murky. According to the Baylor study, “a risk for small groups is crossing the line from intimacy to cliquishness. By constantly adding new members, you can't go very deep, because it takes time to build relationships and trust. But a closed group, while it's good for intimacy, lends itself to being inward-focused.” The right balance would be necessary in order to promote sisterhood across these small groups, providing opportunities for interaction outside of the small group, while still placing a sense of intimacy within the small group setting. The Baylor study suggests this can occur by regularly forming new groups, or by limiting the time period for which groups meet. For example, groups might exist for one year and then be expected to split or reconfigure themselves in some other way every year.

Conclusion

As I read the research on small groups in megachurches, I was struck by the similarity between how members or churches describe their experience, and the language that students have used to describe brotherhood and sisterhood during our research in this area. Church members spoke of belonging, commitment, vulnerability, accountability and trust in the same ways that fraternity and sorority members discuss the brotherhood and sisterhood in their chapters. I think we can learn a great deal from megachurches, both in terms of how they keep people connected, and in how they inspire members to live out their values.

I am excited to know that a few national sorority headquarters are beginning to tackle the issue of mega-sororities, investigating new models and researching how the experience in those organizations can be improved. I think this work will go a long way in helping align our members’ experiences with the stated purpose and values of our organizations, even in chapters with 400 members. I challenge every sorority to begin investigating ways to make membership in these chapters something that can still be values-based and create real feelings of accountability, belonging and shared purpose, because mega-sororities are here to stay.

Sisterhood and the Standards Process

A few months ago, I posted about my research with Josh Schutts and Sarah Cohen related to how sorority women define and think about sisterhood, and how chapter size impacts sisterhood. If you haven’t had a chance to read it, be sure to check it out here – It will give you some valuable context for this post.

As we are discovering, women think about sisterhood as a developmental process – women join the chapter often thinking about the superficial and primarily social notions of sisterhood (i.e. sisterhood based on shared social experiences), but gradually evolve beyond those surface-level notions of sisterhood into more transcendent ways of thinking about it (i.e. sisterhood based on accountability and sisterhood based on common purpose).

One woman described this process as “the transcendence from a sisterhood of selfishness to a sisterhood of selflessness.” The idea behind this phrase is that, at first, women think about sisterhood by asking “how am I receiving sisterhood from others,” but gradually evolve to think about it by asking “how am I contributing sisterhood to others.”

As we have discussed this idea with women, we have asked a lot of questions about how this process of transcendence happens. What are the right ingredients to create a chapter experience where more women are able to transcend to higher levels of sisterhood?

One of the things that continues to come up in our conversations is the importance of the chapter standards process. Specifically, women who have a positive experience with the standards process are more likely to transcend to higher levels of sisterhood, whereas women who have negative experiences with the standards process are more likely to remain stuck in the less evolved levels of sisterhood.

At the risk over over-simplification, I’m going to boil all of the ways I have heard the sorority standards process described down into two models. Model 1 is the “You have embarrassed us” model, and Model 2 is the “We are concerned about you” model. 

Model 1 – You Have Embarrassed Us

In this model, women are “called into standards” when they screw up in a way that brings shame or humiliation to the sorority: your drunken, raised platform dancers, fraternity house shackers, 1.4 GPA, out of control at that Sigma Chi date party type of standards process. The general tenor of these standards meetings is “hey – you have embarrassed the sorority with your behavior. Don’t do that again, or there will be Hell to pay.” The main concern established at these meetings is that the reputation of the sorority is paramount – anything that could possibly bring the chapter into disrepute is a sin that must be swiftly and sternly addressed.

Model 2 – We Are Concerned About You

In this model, women are “called into standards” for many of the same reasons as in the previous model. In fact, the difference between the two models lies not in the issues addressed, but in the manner in which they are addressed. In Model 2, instead of focusing on the sorority’s reputation, the conversation revolves around real and expressed concern for the individual member involved. Instead of “you have embarrassed us,” the conversation becomes about “we are concerned about you – can we have a conversation about why you have been drinking so much/engaging in risky sexual activity/doing so poorly in school?”

What do these two standards models have to do with sisterhood? As it turns out, a great deal.

Model 1 reinforces a simple message  - the reputation of the sorority is the most important thing. And guess which version of sisterhood is subsequently reinforced by this message? The very surface level notion of sisterhood – that sisterhood with is based on the social experience. Women who think about sisterhood in this way care very deeply about the social status of the organization, and this type of standards process only reinforces those attitudes. It says “We keep our sisters in line because anyone doing something bad could cause harm to our reputation, which could damage our social status on campus.” And if you have a standards process like this in your chapter, then it is highly unlikely that very many of your members are transcending to higher levels of sisterhood. Instead, they are constantly bombarded with messages reinforcing the importance of the social aspects of sisterhood.

On the other hand, Model 2 reinforces a very different message – that as a group of women we have sworn an obligation to look out for one another, to hold one another accountable, and to work together to make one another better. And this message directly aligns with the type of sisterhood that women should be striving to build in their chapters – a sisterhood based on accountability and the striving together for a common purpose.  And women who experience a standards process like this are much more likely to transcend to those higher levels of sisterhood. The message communicated here is “we look out for one another, we care about your development as a person and as a woman, we have standards rooted in our values, and we really want the best for you as a sister.”

So what do you do with this information? Here are a few ideas:

Take a look at your chapter’s standards process. Which of these two models does it more closely resemble? If the answer is Model 1, then you have some work to do.

If you’re a Model 1 chapter, spend some time thinking about how and why your standards process got to that place. A crotchety old advisor who loves to lecture chapter members on chastity and appropriate behavior through her lens of womanhood that hasn’t changed since the Nixon administration? A chapter culture that places too much emphasis on the chapter’s position in the social hierarchy on campus? Understanding why your process is what it is can help you fix it, so spend some time diagnosing the issue.

Retrain your standards board. Again, keep in mind that you’ll be addressing a lot of the same issues if you are a Model 2 standards board, but you’ll be approaching those issues in a different manner. Coach your standards board members on asking questions that come less from a place of judgment and more from a place of care and concern.

Take a look at the composition of your standards board. Is it a bunch of goody-two-shoes? That may not be the best thing, especially if you want them to have credibility in the eyes of members who are more likely to like to be there for the good time. Have a broad representation of different types of women on your standards committee, keeping in mind that their job is not to be above reproach, but to help their sisters take care of themselves an make better decisions.

Spending some time thinking about your chapter’s standards process can go a long way in helping members of your chapter become better sisters, and the result will be a sisterhood where women understand the importance of looking out for one another, holding one another accountable, and the commitment to making one another, and the organization, better.

Regression to the Mean and the Single Most Important Thing We Can Do to Fix Fraternity Communities

There is a phenomenon that is observed in statistics known as regression to the mean.  In research, if a data point is an extreme outlier on its first measurement, it will tend to be closer to the average on its second and subsequent measures. This is one of the most universal laws in all of statistics.

Regression to the mean doesn’t just happen in statistics. In happens in real life.

It is the single biggest challenge facing fraternity communities on college campuses today.

It’s a familiar story – a fraternity finally screws up badly enough for its national headquarters and/or the host university to close the chapter, with all of the usual weeping and gnashing of teeth. After a hiatus of a few years, the fraternity comes back to the campus and recolonizes that chapter.

Most of the time, the national headquarters does a great job recruiting the right guys for the right reasons into the newly recolonized group. They are the “maybe joiners” or “never joiners” we love to talk about – those guys not interested in the stereotypical fraternity experience, but who are interested in a value-added experience that helps enrich their college experience in a meaningful way. And so it goes for a few years – the chapter is high performing, recruiting other good guys interested in joining for the right reasons. Maybe they have the best grades on campus. They may even win a few national awards.

But you know how this story ends.

After a few years, after all of the founding members have graduated and the notion of offering an experience that is “different” becomes less salient in the minds of current members, the inevitable happens.

Regression to the mean.

The chapter members start looking around, comparing themselves to other groups on campus who have a more prominent position in the social hierarchy. As they look around, they begin to ask themselves “Hey – how can we be more like those groups? How can we increase our social capital? How can we stop being the dorky fraternity and be more like the cool groups?” And, over time, they become less of an outlier and begin looking more and more like the other fraternities on campus. 

They become, for lack of a better term, average.

This is not the result of some phenomenon unique to the college fraternity. Rather, it is the result of a widely observed statistical law. We can’t change it. Regression to the mean is inevitable.

The only way to offset the effects of regression to the mean is to elevate the mean.

In other words, we have to redefine what it means to be an “average fraternity” on a campus. The average fraternity needs to be much higher performing that today’s average fraternity. If we are able to elevate the mean, then the results of regression to the mean will be less disastrous than they currently are on a majority of college campuses.

But how do we do that? How do we artificially and positively adjust the mean on a particular campus?

Here is my idea:

Every year, the executive directors of all of the fraternities and sororities should get together and hold a secret ballot vote.  The question put to them should be “what is the campus that gives you the most headaches.” Each executive director gets one vote. An independent arbiter would tally the votes and announce the 10 campuses who received the highest number of votes. Whether or not other campuses can volunteer as tribute is a matter I am open to discussing.

Those 10 campuses would then get their worlds rocked.

If a campus makes the “Top 10” list, the campus administration would be notified and representatives from the national groups would make a trip to that campus to work on a plan of action on that campus.  Each group represented on that campus would volunteer to undertake an exhaustive membership review, getting rid of every single bad apple in the barrel. They would institute models of shared governance. They would mandate alcohol free housing. Guys only there for the party? Gone. Guys only interested in drinking and hazing pledges? Gone. Guys who underperform academically and don’t give a darn for community service? Gone. You get the idea.

In exchange for this cleanse, every campus selected should agree to increase its staffing and support of the fraternity/sorority advising office. Commit resources to hiring additional staff – seasoned staff with the ability to align the fraternity/sorority program with the goals and mission of the host institution. Commit to recruiting, training and providing support to additional chapter advisors. Invest in meaningful educational programming. Spend serious time and resources building an infrastructure capable of sustaining a thriving and successful Greek community.

Will this approach fix all of our problems? Of course not. 18-22 year old college students are always going to be 18-22 year old college students. They will continue to experiment with boundaries and make mistakes. And we can all be there to help them learn and grow from those mistakes.

But if this type of system were actually implemented, imagine the impact it could have. In a period of five years, 50 campus fraternity communities would be completely transformed. It would institute a “new normal” of what it means to be in a fraternity on those campuses.  And as new groups come to campus and “regress to the mean,” the mean to which they are regressing will be shifted upward in a significant and meaningful way. 

We can’t stop regression to the mean, but we can change the mean to which organizations regress. And doing so may be our best chance at fixing our broken fraternity system.

Text of FSPAC Email to Congressional Visit Participants

The following is the text of an email message sent from Jen Kilian from the North American Interfraternity Conference to students selected to participate in the 2015 Fraternity and Sorority Congressional Visits.

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Congratulations! You have been selected to participate as a student lobbyist for the upcoming 2015 Fraternity and Sorority Congressional Visits. Your sorority or fraternity will sponsor your participation in this event, which will take place April 26th –April 30th in Washington, DC.

While in Washington, you will participate in a day and a half of training sessions on Monday, April 27th and Tuesday, April 28th leading up to our day of meetings on Capitol Hill with Members of Congress and their staff on Wednesday, April 29th. The Fraternity and Sorority Political Action Committee (FSPAC) will also host a dinner on Wednesday night where we expect numerous Members of Congress to be in attendance.  It is possible/likely your national organization may be paying for you to attend that fundraising dinner.

You MUST be able to arrive in Washington, DC on Sunday, April 26th (training begins on the morning of April 27) and depart Thursday, April 30th.  Failure to meet this requirement disqualifies you from participating. We need to know as soon as possible whether or not you can attend so we can choose another student in your place if you are unavailable. Please send an email confirming your participation or declining your participation by Friday, January 23.  The confirmation/decline email should be sent to Samantha Martin at samantha.martin@squirepb.com.

As a participant, you will be asked to engage in various activities in preparation for your time in DC, such as garnering support for legislation that impacts student housing and college affordability by getting letters of support from your university leaders and working with your student government organizations. In addition, you also may be asked to advocate on several Title IX and campus sexual assault legislative priorities outlined below. It is imperative that you read the legislative priorities below.  If you do not feel comfortable lobbying on these issues or cannot support the positions being taken, you should not participate in this event.   If you are not comfortable with the positions and issues discussed below or have any questions about the priorities, please email Kevin O’Neill at kevin.oneill@squirepb.com as soon as possible.

Furthermore, you will need to spend at least several hours prior to the visits preparing and reading over materials provided for you on the issues that you will lobby on once in Washington.  We are likely to have a training webinar in February/March that you will be expected to participate in live or on tape.   The time commitment for these efforts is minimal but vital to your success. Once you have registered, you will receive additional information on these activities.

In order to confirm your participation you must register via this link by 5:00pm on Friday, January 30th: 2015 Capital Hill Student Registration<https://nicindy.wufoo.com/forms/z1q7wsxf1tej8yw/>

*Please note: You should not attempt to register until you hear from your contact representative from your organization. They will provide you guidance on payment and reserving your hotel room.

Once again, congratulations and we look forward to seeing you in April!

Jen Kilian
jen@nicindy.org

In addition to efforts to pass the Collegiate Housing and Infrastructure Act, students and alumni participating in the Greek Hill visits will be lobbying on the unified position fraternities and sororities have adapted on Title IX issues.  A summary of those issues and positions is outlined below.


1.       Preservation of single-sex exemption and protection of Title IX rights by challenging any mandate aimed at requiring social fraternities and sororities to become co-ed.

2.       Ensure federal laws and regulations are supportive of and response to the following:

a.       Development of reliable, extant data on the level of occurrence of sexual assault on American college and university campuses;

b.      Education and prevention programs focused on healthy relationships, dispelling rape myths, how to report occurrences of sexual assault and bystander intervention training;

c.       Appropriate institutional care, support and guidance for any student who believes he or she has been the victim of sexual assault;

d.      Respect for the constitutional and human rights to due process owed to every student;

e.      Handling by the criminal justice system of the serious crime of sexual assault that occurs on campus and/or involves students.

f.        Deferral of any campus judicial proceeding until completion of criminal adjudication (investigation and trial).

g.       In order to provide justice to all parties involved in campus judicial proceedings for alleged sexual assault

  i.      The roles of counselor to the alleged victim, investigator, prosecutor, judge, jury and appealing body must be split into distinct positions

 ii.      The rights to counsel, to confront witnesses and the accuser in an appropriate manner that is safe for all parties, to have timely access to charges and all evidence, the prohibition of hearsay and protection from double jeopardy are fundamental.

  iii.      A standard of evidence determined by the institution.

3.       Prevention of alumnae/alumni volunteers from becoming unduly burdened by the imposition of significant new legal requirements in order to serve as a volunteer.

4.       Constrain the inappropriate use of system-wide suspensions.

Why Oklahoma Happened

Over the last few years, while teaching student development theory to graduate students, I have developed a list of edicts that my students now (affectionately?) refer to simply as Gentry’s Laws.  They deal less with theory and more with the application of theory – how do we turn theories into practical and useful strategies in our daily work with students? At last count, I think there are nine laws. Perhaps I should add another just to round it out to a nice even number. Maybe some other day…

Here is Gentry’s First Law:

Any program or activity is only as good as its ability to get students from different backgrounds interacting with one another.

The impetus for Gentry’s First Law comes from a host of student development theories (Kohlberg, Perry, Helms, etc.) which suggest that development (moral, intellectual, personal identity, etc.) occurs when students are exposed to differences (different people, different ideas, different cultures, etc.) and are forced to reconsider their previously held, and less developed, notions of the world and themselves. Pretty simple, really. If we know that exposing students to differences leads to growth along a multitude of developmental fronts, then it makes sense that we should be creating those opportunities as often as possible - not just because of some watered down, half-hearted attempt at “diversity,” but because we want to develop all of our students in a variety of ways.

The recent nonsense with the SAE chapter at the University of Oklahoma has been an all-to-real reminder to me of something I have long felt; the basic setup and structure of fraternities and sororities works in direct opposition to Gentry’s First Law.  I will now demonstrate what I mean by asking one simple question:

Do you think those students would have sang that song had there been a single person of color on that bus?

Of course not. And the fact that, in a bus of 100 people heading to what I assume is a formal, there were 100 white faces and not a single brown one demonstrates what I think is one of the greatest challenges affecting fraternities and sororities nationally – the stark and overwhelming lack of racial, ethnic and socio-economic diversity.

And when I say diversity, I don’t mean diversity for diversity’s sake. I mean diversity that will lead to conversations and understanding of difference - conversations that will lead to the growth and development of our students.  Of course students have the right to freely associate, and of course we know it is human nature to select a group of people who look like you and act like you when choosing groups with which to associate.  But acknowledging only those facts belies a very important truth - college really should be different. College should be a place where we are challenged to leave the safety of the nest, to break out of our comfort zones, and to experience new things and new ideas. This is how growth happens.

Here is my guess about the students in that video: they grew up in all-white gated communities, went to nearly all-white private or suburban public schools, grew up attending an all-white church and then showed up at the door of the University of Oklahoma. And guess what we immediately did with them? Put them in an all-white fraternity. You saw the result of that choice on the video you watched. The students in that video are only partially to blame. Society is to blame. Higher education is to blame. Fraternity is to blame. We all are to blame. Because we failed them.

Student affairs professionals love to talk about (although they frequently and flagrantly misuse) Sanford’s theory of challenge and support. Here is how you diagnose culture using Sanford: the students in that video had way too much support and not nearly enough challenge. We allowed them to go on thinking that what they were doing was OK, put them in a palatial mansion surrounded by a few hundred like-minded individuals, and wrongly assumed that we could tweet enough about diversity and social justice for them to get the message. Lots of support, not nearly enough challenge.

Fraternities and sororities that resemble Augusta National more than they resemble collegiate living-learning communities are a problem. They are a big problem. And we all need to start doing our part to undue the systems that have allowed the country club experience to be the norm and not the exception, particularly on our larger and more affluent campuses. We are not doing anyone any favors by creating these environments. Students who will one day have to work and interact in an increasingly diverse and global marketplace have no idea how to interact with people who are different from them, and we have long supported and upheld the structures that perpetuate that ignorance. We do a disservice to our students and to our society when we allow students to live in a world where everyone they surround themselves with on a daily basis looks, thinks and behaves just like them.

National fraternity and sorority headquarters – begin insisting on diversity in your organizations.  Make sure your expansion efforts are reflective of the racial diversity of the campuses who graciously host you. Insist that your chapters are inclusive. Insist that your chapters co-sponsor programs with student groups outside of the norm and engage in meaningful service learning experiences that will expand their horizons and understanding of the world in which we live. If you have chapters (and all of you do) that look and act like country clubs, begin asking difficult questions of those groups. Insist that your members are meeting and having significant interactions with people who are different with them. Make an effort to have diversity on your staff and on your board. Lead by example.

Campus-based professionals – if ever there was a case for deferred or delayed recruitment, then this is it. Stop taking students from their all-white neighborhoods and immediately sticking them in all-white fraternities and sororities before they ever set foot inside a classroom. Intentionally create opportunities for fraternity and sorority new members to interact with diverse others during their freshman year and beyond. Create meaningful service-learning opportunities that expose your students to the realities of race, poverty, hunger, homelessness and the social institutions and governmental policies that contribute to those issues. Stop talking about diversity and start demonstrating it.

Like so many other things in the “fraternity movement,” the status quo is failing to adequately address the needs of our students and their development. We have to change, or the intolerable behavior will continue. It is easy to throw the students from that video under the bus they were riding in, but before we do that, we need to take a long, hard look in the mirror and examine the policies, practices and institutional fixtures that helped allow that behavior to occur. We are part of the problem, and we have to do better.

How Big Is Too Big?

For as long as I have worked with sororities, questions regarding ideal chapter size and “how big is too big” have been hotly debated in many circles.  There seems to be a general consensus that the 300 woman “super-chapters” are far too large, but there is no clear agreement on where the line should be drawn separating “just big enough” from “too big.”

First, we need to determine the criteria upon which the “ideal size” should be determined. We have a lot of criteria from which to choose: student satisfaction, retention, risk management infractions, academic achievement and chapter operations, just to name a few. One could make the case for using any combination of these criteria in an effort to determine the “ideal” sorority size.

Based on the research that Josh Schutts, Sarah Cohen and myself have conducted over the last year, I would suggest that the criteria upon which this decision should be based can be simplified down to a single variable: how women in a chapter think about sisterhood.

Last year at the AFA Annual Meeting, Josh and I presented our research related to brotherhood to a standing room audience. The session went great, and we had tons of questions and received a great deal of positive feedback. After the session, representatives of two different NPC sororities asked us if we would be interested in replicating our study and looking at how women in sororities define and conceptualize sisterhood. We have engaged in that work for the last year, presenting our findings at AFA this past December (check out our slides here).

Women think about sisterhood in five distinct ways. I will briefly summarize them here.

Sisterhood Based on Shared Social Experiences: Described as “surface level sisterhood,” this is a sisterhood that revolves around doing fun things together and always having someone to do something with. Women who think of sisterhood in this way see themselves as the recipients of sisterhood whenever they are doing something fun with their sisters. This type of sisterhood is greatly tied up in the emphasis one places on the social standing of their group, and women who joined their particular chapter primarily because of its place in the social hierarchy are more likely to think of sisterhood along these lines.

Sisterhood Based on Encouragement and Support: Women who think of sisterhood in this way give and receive sisterhood through demonstrations of support.  “Sisters are always there for you” and “My sisters encourage me when I’m feeling down” are the most salient notions for women who see sisterhood in this way.

Sisterhood Based on Belonging:  This schema of sisterhood involves a sense of connection that goes beyond friendship. Women who think of sisterhood in this way describe their sorority sisters as “family” and their sorority as their “home away from home.” The connection is based on a sense of shared values and a feeling of being appreciated and accepted despite one’s flaws.

Sisterhood Based on Accountability: When operating in this schema, women understand that sisterhood is best demonstrated when sisters make one another better women by holding one another to high standards based upon shared expectations.

Sisterhood Based on Common Purpose: The highest notion of sisterhood, women operating in this schema understand the “bigger picture” and describe sisterhood as something transcending the individual and even the chapter. They describe sisterhood as a connection, rooted in the ritual, to all sisters past and present, and the nobility of working towards a common goal together.

Unlike men, who describe brotherhood in a vary static way (i.e. a chapter has a defined culture of brotherhood that does not change much at the individual level over time), women describe sisterhood almost as a developmental process. Women come into the sorority expecting and experiencing the social aspects of sisterhood and, over time, grow and understand the more evolved ideals of sisterhood.

One woman described this as the “the transcendence from a sisterhood of selfishness to a sisterhood of selflessness.” You might graphically depict this idea in a simple diagram:

Based on our research so far, it appears that there are factors that both contribute to and inhibit this transcendence at the chapter level. Having a chapter house, holding an office, and having a positive experience with the standards process all appear to have positive influences on this transcendence to higher levels of sisterhood.

Chapter size, it would appear, has a negative effect.

Josh, our statistical guru, subjected our data to a process called ROC Curve Analysis (more on that here if you’re interested). We were interested in seeing if chapter size had any perceivable impact on any of the five different schema of sisterhood. The ROC Curve can be used to measure inflection points, or a given point at which a set of data shifts in some noticeable direction.

When we conducted the analysis, what we found was that there was, in fact, an inflection point related to chapter size that significantly predicted decreases in the last two schema (Accountability and Common Purpose). In other words, at a certain chapter size, we can predict that individual scores on both the Accountability and Common Purpose schema will begin to decline, and the further beyond that number the size of the chapter grows, the more noticeable the decline.  As it turns out, the number was exactly the same for both the Accountability and Common Purpose Schema.

That number?  150.

When a sorority becomes larger than 150 members, it becomes much more difficult for members to transcend from selfish levels of sisterhood into the more evolved, selfless levels of sisterhood. In those chapters, most women remain stuck in a place where they see their sisters as a source of fun, encouragement and support, remaining largely oblivious to the more advanced notions of Accountability and Common Purpose. That is not to say that chapters over 150 cannot achieve a place where most members transcend to higher levels of sisterhood, but the data do suggest that as a chapter grows beyond 150, that task becomes increasingly more difficult.

These findings, once published, will almost certainly have implications for practice in our industry. What implications will this have on expansion policies? Recruitment rules? Housing? Knowing that having chapters larger than 150 is not ideal, how should campuses respond? How should national organizations respond?

I do not propose that I have the answers to any of these questions, but I am very much looking forward to the conversation.

Five Tips for Better Hazing Investigations

As the semester winds into gear, so do the fraternity and sorority new member processes on many campuses. We often find ourselves in full-blown investigation mode this time of year, trying to work through information gleaned from anonymous tips and parent phone calls to determine what is really going on in our chapters.

Hazing investigations are difficult. They are often filled with lies, half-truths, and misinformation. Cutting through the veil of silence and secrecy can often be difficult, but it is not impossible. It requires knowledgeable, skilled investigators who understand the unique nuances of hazing and the variety of ways that student groups will collude and obfuscate in order to hide the truth.

In a previous post, I have argued that campuses should use their trained Title IX investigators to also investigate hazing cases. This would allow campuses to respond quickly to hazing allegations and build up a team of knowledgeable, trained investigators.  If you haven’t read it, be sure to check it out.

Beyond the advice contained in that article, here are five other tips for conducting better hazing investigations.

1. Move quickly – In a hazing investigation, time is of the essence. Once a chapter is put on notice that an allegation has been received and an investigation is forthcoming, it does not take long for them to “get their story straight.” Once a report is received, an investigation should begin in less than 24 hours. Ideally, this includes giving the chapter as little lead time as possible before arranging to conduct interviews with the new members. The less time they have to work on the story, the easier it will be for you to get to the bottom of the allegation.

2. Guarantee anonymity, and find “The One” – In every hazing investigation I have ever conducted, I have always found one person who wants to talk to me. Find this person. The best way to get that student to open up is to guarantee their anonymity. Investigators should compile and present investigation notes in a way that does not disclose the identity of the individuals who provide them with information. The best model for this is to have an adjudication process by which a hazing investigation report can be presented in a student conduct hearing without disclosing the identities of the individuals involved. If you are able to guarantee anonymity in your investigation, then “the one” is much more likely to tell you his or her story.

3. Keep your cards close to your chest – When you are doing a hazing investigation, you need to be prepared to be lied to. Don’t get mad or upset about this – the new members you are investigating stand to lose a great deal by helping you, and are likely under tremendous pressure. You should expect to be lied to in an investigation. But here’s the best little secret I can share with you – most of the time, the new members you are talking to do not know what they should be lying about and what they can share with you openly. For this reason, I always like to play it close to the chest with the first 6-8 new members that I interview.

So, in my interviews, I always start with very broad questions that do not disclose the specific nature of what I am looking for. This means, instead of jumping straight into questions about the allegations you have received, ask general questions about their experience as a new member (i.e. tell me about the new member process; tell me what your schedule of activities as a new member looks like; etc.). When you do this, a magical thing happens – you find crazy inconsistencies in even the most basic details about their experience. I was recently doing an investigation for a school in Oklahoma. I began by asking them very basic questions about their new member process. Of the first six new members that I interviewed, half indicated that they were required to learn and memorize certain material from their new member book, while the other half denied that they were required to learn anything. Once you are able to develop a pattern of inconsistencies, you can focus your investigation on those consistencies simply by pointing them out and asking “why would anyone feel the need to lie about this?”

4. Expose the breach – In an investigation that I recently conducted for another campus, there were allegations of lineups and being blindfolded in a local river. As the call came from a parent and included detailed, specific information, we were fairly certain the allegations were true.  My strategy in the investigation involved starting with broad general questions, as described above, before finally asking each participant “so, tell me what happens at the river.” The first six guys I talked to, not surprisingly, had no idea what I was talking about. One even went so far as to ask “what river?”  But then good ol’ lucky number seven, who must have missed the memo about not talking about the river, informed me of some bonfires that had taken place out at the river. He was quick to tell me that nothing bad happened there (LIES!!!), but that they had just hung out and done “brotherhood stuff” (I LOVE brotherhood stuff!!!).  I asked him if all of the new members were at these bonfires, and he stated that they were (Finally!!! A Breach!!! Now, let’s pack it with dynamite and blow it to pieces!!!). So, investigators, when you find yourself in this situation, here is the perfect next question for you:

“So, the last six guys I have talked to have denied ever having been to the river. Now you have told me that there have been bonfires at the river and your entire pledge class was in attendance. Why do you think the other six guys I have talked to have felt the need to lie about what happened at the river?”

Swing away. Hammer this point home. Once you expose the major breach in the investigation, get laser focused on it. Eventually, you’ll find “the one” (see Step 2) who will open up and tell you everything you need to know.

5. Let chapter officers know what they stand to lose – I always like meeting with chapter officers at the very end of my investigation. At this point, I usually have enough information from the investigation to put them in the hot seat. 

I begin these meetings by giving them a full run-down of everything that my investigation has uncovered. I go into full detail, giving as many specifics as possible (except for the names of the new members who provided the information, of course). By doing this, I am able to let them know that I know exactly what is going on, and to help them understand that lying to me at this point would be useless.

After I review my report with them, I give them my “power move.” It goes a little something like this:

“Here is the one thing my report does not yet say – whether or not you were cooperative in this investigation. Did you assist in helping me corroborate this information, or did you lie and attempt to cover up what happened? Because at the end of our conversation, it will say one of those two things.  Here’s the deal – you are probably done as a chapter officer. My guess is that you will be removed from office once your headquarters receives my report. You may even be placed on alumni status. But, if I am able to note in my report that you were cooperative and assisted in my investigation, then there is a good chance that you will still be a (insert fraternity/sorority/organization name here) when this process is complete.”

After hearing that spiel, nine times out of ten, they sing like a canary. Now, you should not promise that you know what will happen to them – guaranteeing anything about their membership in the organization would be misleading and inappropriate. But by painting a clear picture of what they stand to gain by helping you, and what they stand to lose by lying to you, they are very likely to give you the information you need. Some of the most helpful information I have received in investigations has come from chapter officers in this manner.

Hazing investigations are difficult. They require trained, knowledgeable and experienced people who know what they are doing. Some of the most rewarding work I am able to do in my consulting work is to conduct external investigations for campuses, and to provide training for campuses on how to conduct thorough and effective hazing investigations. Certainly, there is a lot more to a good investigation than what I have listed out here, but by following these five steps, you will be moving your investigative prowess in the right direction.