As one of the largest Greek communities in the nation, Purdue is home to 12 cooperative houses and more than 80 fraternities and sororities, many of which have a long history on campus. Now, in the face of challenging headlines nationally, a group of alumni, students, and administrators is coming together to make sure the university’s fraternities and sororities set a national example for success.
For reasons both personal and professional, Greek life means a great deal to Nicki Meneley (HHS’00).
A member of Alpha Chi Omega during her undergraduate days, Meneley worked for five years after graduation as a traveling consultant and marketing and events coordinator for the sorority’s national office. She returned to her alma mater in 2005, spending five years with the Purdue Alumni Association before joining the National Panhellenic Conference as its executive director. She held that role until this past August, when she left to become CEO of the national Fraternity Executives Association.
“I came from a rural Indiana town, and for me, the fraternity and sorority community was a great opportunity to get plugged in,” Meneley says. “I gained so much from my Purdue sorority experience — all the great friends I made, and professionally, it’s led to a lifelong career. I want other students to be able to have those same opportunities.”
There is perhaps no better way to sum up the motivation of everyone involved in Purdue’s Fraternity and Sorority Life Advisory Council. At a time when a single high-profile incident can tarnish the reputation of a campus-wide system, and when universities across the country are taking steps to minimize the status and influence of Greek life, the council is a tangible sign that alumni and administrators at Purdue are taking the opposite approach: ensuring that one of the largest fraternity and sorority communities is strategically working together for the long-term success of the system. It’s a goal that all agree can’t happen without the university’s support.
Striving To Be A National Leader
Formed in April 2014, the council was conceived as a “proactive” step by Greg Sinise (M’73, MS’74), a turnaround exec, longtime Alpha Sigma Phi corporation board president, and current Delta Sigma Phi chapter advisor. Mindful of perception issues surrounding Greek life nationwide, and aware of the expertise and emotional investment shared by many of his fellow alumni, Sinise proposed the council with a simple pitch: “Why don’t we put Purdue in a leadership position on this?” It was a question worth asking, and the early answers have been encouraging.
Sinise connected early on with Brandon Cutler, associate dean of students and director of Fraternity, Sorority, and Cooperative Life, to map out the proposed goals and motivations for the new advisory council. As laid out in its charter, the council’s stated goals include keeping alumni informed of the challenges facing the Greek system, weighing in on university policies that impact Greek life, and having a say in what initiatives were included in the Fraternity and Sorority Community Strategic Plan released in 2014. Cutler, who’s been at Purdue since 2013, says the one frustration he’s noticed among some Greek alumni since arriving is that “people who wanted to be helpful and involved didn’t know who to talk to or where to give input. The time and resources to engage our community weren’t as invested as they are now.”
At the heart of that investment lies the advisory council, which (at press time) included 11 members, a number Sinise hopes to see expand to as many as 20. He says he’s already been surprised — and inspired — by the council’s enthusiasm. “At first, we thought we’d only meet twice a year, because you’re very hesitant about demands on people’s time,” Sinise says. “But this group has gotten so wired, they’re actually pushing me for more time. They’re working between meetings. It’s the best and brightest, people who understand Purdue, and who understand the Greek system nationally. And it’s a very, very energized group.”
It’s the best and brightest, people who understand Purdue, and who understand the Greek system nationally. And it’s a very, very energized group.
That enthusiasm is matched by expertise. “It is so unique to have such a wealth of expertise,” says Cutler. “Many of the council members are involved with their sorority or fraternity at a local or national level and are at the top of their field in their professional or volunteer roles. It is an enviable position.” In addition to Sinise and Meneley, the council’s membership includes alums like Pris Gerde (LA’72), former international president of Kappa Gamma Gamma; Mary Lincoln Campbell (HHS’75), house president for Kappa Alpha Theta; and Patrick Jessee (LA’06), executive director and CEO of Delta Sigma Phi. “The pitch,” says Meneley, “was that there are so many people who have graduated from Purdue who are actively engaged at the national level in the fraternity and sorority industry, and it would be great to get those minds around the table, take our knowledge and skills, and apply that to the Purdue community.”
Greek Success, By The Numbers
Cutler says that early returns from the council’s work confirm that “for the most part, we’re all on the same page.” In particular, he says the council and university leadership came to quick agreement on the top five priorities for the Greek community: academic success and graduation rates; positive engagement and social responsibility; the safe, long-term physical sustainability of Greek housing; sustainable membership numbers in individual organizations; and involved, invested alumni.
Suffice it to say, the last of those seems well accounted for, but by many metrics, the rest are in pretty good shape. Take academics. Based on statistics from the 2015 spring semester, the more than 5,800 students in the Greek system posted a collective 3.02 GPA, compared to a collective 2.94 among the undergraduate community as a whole. That above-average record was in keeping with four-year graduation rates for the freshman class that entered in 2010: the combined Greek and cooperative rate was 61 percent, while the university-wide rate was 49 percent. As for positive engagement and social responsibility, the more than 33,000 community service hours and more than $300,000 in philanthropic donations from the fraternity, sorority, and cooperative community in the spring semester would seem to speak for themselves.
The quality and safety of physical housing — Cutler says 63 of the university’s 95 organizations under the fraternity, sorority, and cooperative umbrella live in independently owned houses — and the maintenance of healthy membership numbers are naturally intertwined, and alumni involvement is integral to both. In all those areas, Purdue’s long-standing tradition of having a large and engaged Greek community bodes well: recent rates show 20 percent or more of the undergraduate population belongs to such an organization. All of the above point to a foundation for a thriving Greek culture that is vital to student life; what none of it can do is fully negate the impact of the occasional but unavoidable negative headlines that can taint an entire community.
Accountability, From The Ground Up
The university and the alumni advisory council are well aware of that hard truth, and also know that the impetus to address it lies with the current student population. It’s a responsibility the students take seriously. Matt Gebbie, a brother at Zeta Beta Tau whose year-long term as Interfraternity Council president ends in December, points proudly to initiatives instituted by the IFC earlier this year; they’re meant not as public-relations moves, but as tangible measures to encourage a positive Greek impact on the university and West Lafayette communities. The first bans hard alcohol from fraternity property and chapter events; the second addresses community service, academics, and philanthropy, setting penalties for failing to reach house-wide GPA standards, or even failing to report required minimum hours of service or philanthropic work. It’s accountability, and it comes from the students themselves.
“The alcohol policy is something we needed to act on for the safety of our community,” Gebbie says. “The rest was something we pushed when we came into office — the need to raise the GPA standard, the community service standard, the philanthropy standard. It just goes back to our founding principles. We need to actually live up to what we were founded on.”
If they continue to, it would be hard to argue against the largely positive impact Greeks can have on campus life. And yet, on a national level, that’s just the argument many are making. In recent years, articles and editorials in prominent publications like The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News have called for abolishing fraternities, and every story of racist behavior, sexual assault, or abuse or even death from hazing is treated as part of an irrefutable trend, proof that such organizations inherently do more harm than good. A number of smaller liberal arts schools have essentially removed Greek life from campus, and individual chapters at colleges nationwide have been shut down after serious or repeated violations. In many ways, the trends for the Greek system’s long-term survival aren’t promising.
A Foundation For The Future
Still, there’s evidence to suggest that fraternities and sororities won’t — and shouldn’t — be going anywhere. In 2014, while Meneley was its executive director, the National Panhellenic Council partnered on a Gallup-Purdue.
There’s evidence to suggest that fraternities and sororities won’t — and shouldn’t — be going anywhere.
Index study of 30,000 college graduates entitled “Fraternities and Sororities: Understanding Life Outcomes.” Its findings confirmed what many Greeks would tell you they already knew: that fraternity and sorority members were more likely to be employed full-time; more likely to feel strongly attached to their alma mater; and more likely to say they were “thriving” physically, financially, and socially than their non-Greek peers. It’s complex data — for example, the fact that students in fraternities and sororities were much less likely to have taken out student loans likely contributed to their relative financial well-being after college — but the findings certainly support Greek life’s overall impact. On that, alumni and the administration seem to agree. “We believe the fraternity and sorority experience is one that benefits our students greatly, and the Gallup-Purdue Index really clarified that for us,” says Cutler. “It’s a big part of the living and learning environment that makes Purdue what it is.”
Optimizing that living and learning environment — really, the entire college experience — is an integral part of President Mitch Daniels’s Purdue Moves agenda, and one in which Greek life can play a prominent role. There are still challenges, like finding space for more students to live on campus while protecting the fraternity and sorority houses that have stood for decades. But with students taking responsibility for their membership and setting the academic and philanthropic pace for their peers; a dedicated group of alumni offering guidance and support; and an administration committed to listening, it’s hard to imagine Purdue without a vibrant, positive Greek presence.
Says Meneley, “I’d love to see us utilizing all the resources we have here, and I’d love to see Purdue be on the cutting edge of fraternity and sorority life in the nation. When you come at something with such a passion and a desire to see it grow, I think you’ll have a very positive outcome.”