Welcome to the Holiday edition of the Deke Digest- your online companion to the Deke Quarterly.
Feature Stories:
- Stock Giving Program
- Membership Numbers and Trends
- Historical Chapter Chartering
- Why You Should Volunteer to be a Chapter Advisor
- Movember Recap
- Chapter Consultants recall their first semester on Staff
Plus:
- Deke Potential New Member Referral
- Deke Merchandise for the Holidays
DKE Stock Giving Program
Do you own any appreciated equity assets? Are you looking to ease your tax burden? With the end of the year fast approaching, you can donate them to the Deke Foundation to ensure undergraduates in our community can benefit from friendships, connections, and the leadership skills you treasure from your university years.
We’ve partnered with a free and secure online tool to help you donate appreciated stock to DKE. And this free tool takes only minutes of your time. Gifting Stock enables you to avoid paying federal capital gains tax, and most donors can also claim an income tax deduction for the stock’s full market value (state and local income tax deductions may also be available in some areas). When you give appreciated stocks directly to the Deke Foundation, your gift can be up to 20% larger because you avoid the taxes you’d incur from selling and donating the cash.
This means more money is going to help undergraduate brothers today. Get started today.
Membership Numbers and Trends
After last year’s difficult year numbers wise, Deke is off to a great start this year in terms of active membership. Last fall some chapters chose to go on “covid inactive” status, which meant the chapter had to cease all operations but could avoid paying dues, if for example the campus was completely remote. On top of that many campuses had different forms of restrictions in place for recruitment, including a ban on in-person events, no indoor events or simply capping the events at no more than 4 or 5 people including active members.
As a result of these circumstances DKE had 1488 active members last fall and 341 new members. This year we saw a hearty rebound of brothers returning to active status and spreading the bonds of brotherhood through strong recruitment numbers. As a result, DKE as a whole grew by 31% with our new member size up 113% – well above the industry average of 10% across other (inter)national fraternities. It is safe to say the Bonds of Brotherhood remain tight and an enticing experience to undergraduates.
Here is how the numbers break down:
Fall 20:
- Active Members: 1488
- New Members: 341
Fall 21:
- Active Members: 1665
- New members: 729
Percentage growth:
- Active Members: 11.9%
- New Members: 113.8%
- Total Change: Increase of 31% ← well above the Fraternity HQ avg
Some chapters that are worth highlighting for their New Member class size:
Psi- Alabama: 36
Delta- South Carolina: 33
Sigma Kappa- Michigan State: 26
Chi- Mississippi : 30
Delta Alpha- Auburn: 32
Phi Epsilon- Minnesota: 29 ← Largest class in decades
Phi Chi- Rutgers: 28 ← Largest class in decades
Nu Alpha- Northeastern: 21
- Nu alpha- Northeastern Hosts Gator Roast for recruitment
- Chi- University of Mississippi’s New Member Class
Historical Chapter Chartering
On November 17th, 2021, the Board of Directors approved the charter petitions from EIGHT associate chapters to become full chapters of DKE. Five of the eight are returning chapters, and three are new to DKE.
The five chapters returning from inactive status are:
- Chi at the University of Mississippi
- Delta Chi at Cornell University
- Omega Omega at the University of Arizona
- Delta Tau at Ohio State University
- Delta Alpha at Auburn University
The three chapters receiving their Charters for the first time are:
- Tau Gamma at Texas Tech
- Nu Alpha at Northeastern University
- Alpha Omicron at the University of Colorado at Boulder
Additionally, the Board approved Associate Chapter status to two new groups, one of which is a chapter which had been on inactive status, Kappa Epsilon at the University of Washington, and one of which is at Georgetown University, where Deke has never had a presence.
Executive Director Doug Lanpher recorded a short video to commemorate this historical event, you can click here to view it.
Why You Should Volunteer to be a Chapter Advisor:
Joining a Fraternity is a lifelong commitment. You’ve probably heard the expression “it’s not four years, it’s for life.” If you were lucky enough to come from a chapter with involved alumni, then you know how critical they are in creating maintaining a well functioning chapter. It is no coincidence that alumni engagement is one of the categories of the Lion Trophy.
If you ask a current active member why they joined DKE, they would undoubtedly mention one of the top ranking reasons they would list would be our robust network of alumni (including you!). Unfortunately we have many chapters without an alumni advisor or consistent alumni involment. This isn’t because these chapters are problematic chapters, it’s usually because the alumni tend to move away after graduation, or because a chapter is very young and they don’t have a lot of alumni available to lend their expertise.
Alumni support is essential for a strong chapter to persevere. Undergraduate chapter leadership turnover is inevitable and so the alumni advisors play a huge role in providing continuity.
Is it time consuming? The short answer is no, seeing as you are simply advising the chapter, ideally you would speak on the phone with the chapter officer once every two weeks for a quick check in call. Usually no more than a 1 hour/week time commitment.
So you moved far away from your college campus? Not a problem, one of the positives of the Covid 19 pandemic is that alumni involvement is not geographically limited anymore.
Am I covered by insurance if something goes wrong? YES!!! In the event something does occur and the advisor is acting on behalf of the international to benefit the chapter, and he is following the health and safety standards set by DKE International then he will be covered.
What if I don’t know how to advise a modern fraternity chapter? DKE has you covered with a training program which will give you guidance as to how you can be an effective adviser.If you interested in giving back to your fraternity by donating your time to be an advisor, please contact Craig Dick at Craig@dke.org
My chapter is inactive/ or already has an alumni advisory board? No problem, there are plenty of great chapters that would love an alumni advisor from any chapter to provide them some guidance. In fact here is what George Otey, Rho Lambda’73 has to say about volunteering as alumni advisor for another chapter
“When I joined Deke I became connected with more than my Chapter brothers, I joined an international fraternity with kindred interests based on a bond of transcendent friendship as exemplified in John Clair Minot’s poem “Brothers in DKE.” When presented with the opportunity to act as a Chapter Adviser at Oklahoma State University, I was excited about the prospect of being able to support the Chapter’s uniqueness while providing advice and direction based on life experiences. Advising a Chapter, which was not my own, also helped the Chapter understand my original Chapter better when connecting relationships between them. Being a Chapter Adviser for a Chapter other than mine has become a cherished memory through the development of new and lasting friendship with a younger set of brothers and has made me more appreciative of the relationships I have with my Chapter.”
Movember Recap
Now that November is over, and many Dekes’ upper lips are feeling naked once again, we’d like to reflect on Dekes overall performance during Movember. In the month of November, our Chapters were able to successfully fundraise a whopping $36,565, which is $15,000 more than 2020! This made Deke the third-highest fundraising Fraternity this year for Movember behind only Sigma Nu and Lambda Chi!
A huge thank you and congratulations to each of our Chapters but below we have a few of our highest participating teams.
- South Carolina- $23,031
- Centre- $5,348
- Toronto- $2,490
- Pennsylvania- $1,352
- Washington- $1,077
- Tennessee- $1,035
We want to especially highlight our group at South Carolina, they had the second-highest total raised out of any individual Fraternity Chapter in the country! Big snaps to all our chapters and brothers that participated in Movember. Three years ago DKE HQ partnered with Movember to make it our official philanthropic endeavour and each year we do better than the previous year.
Chapter Consultants Recall their First Semester on Staff:
Logan Nantais:
This semester I had the chance to visit the Universities of Arizona, Missouri, Illinois-Urbana Champaign, Minnesota, Victoria and British Columbia, as well as Simon Fraser University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Cornell, and shorter/initiation visits at Texas Tech and Washington State University. I really enjoyed all of the schools and brothers I was able to meet throughout my travels, one thing that stood out however was the house tour I received at Cornell. If you have not had the chance to visit the Cornell DKE house I would definitely recommend it, the vast array of DKE artifacts and history they have there was incredible, including trees and a fireplace dedicated by Roosevelt himself. While I enjoyed all of the places I got to visit, there certainly were some bumps in the road, from sitting for 5 hours in a St. Louis bus station, to falling asleep on a plane and waking up in a different city than I was supposed to land in. This semester’s travel has certainly had a learning curve. But I am excited to continue this work, and meet more brothers and visit more chapters in the coming spring.
Morgan McElroy:
My first semester as a chapter consultant has come to an end. Through the last few months I have visited 14 chapters, and conducted 7 initiations, many of which were in cities and regions completely new to me. I’ve met members from across the U.S., and many even coming from around the world. It has been so interesting getting to know all the different guys and see how each chapter is run. My favorite part of all of it has been seeing how unique internal chapter operations can be to match individual campus and community climates, yet how they all run with the same values and ideals at their core.
To date, I’ve visited: Omega Omega- U of Arizona, Tau Gamma- Texas Tech, Gamma Iota- Gannon, Phi Gamma- Syracuse, Tau- Hamilton, Eta- U of Virginia, Zeta Gamma- Hampden Sydney, Iota- Centre, Sigma Kappa- Michigan State, Omicron- Michigan, Lambda- Kenyon, Beta- U of North Carolina, Psi Delta- Wake Forest, and Epsilon Rho- Duke. Each of these chapters has their individual strengths and each excels in different areas of operation, oftentimes I felt like I was learning as much from them as I was teaching them. From the philanthropic successes of Iota, to the new member education at Zeta Gamma, to proactive leadership and DEI at Phi Gamma, each chapter has a strength to express. However, from what I’ve seen, every chapter excels in brotherhood; it is the glue that holds them together, and their most prominent and visible selling point during rush.
As one of my chapter presidents once told me while I was in undergrad: DKE “has always been composed of members singularly diverse and congenial. Differing in origin and aspiration; kindred in heart and spirit.” Though it was true in my time in undergrad, it has been amazing to see just how overarching of a statement this was to all chapters throughout our bonds. I’m looking forward to continuing my travels next semester where I will visit: Alpha Tau, Alpha Phi, Tau Alpha (excited to go to Canada!), Sigma Tau, Zeta Chi, Phi Sigma, Sigma Xi, Nu Zeta, Phi Mu, Phi Chi, Rho, and Delta Kappa.
Recruitment Referrals?
Do you know anyone that will be attending school in the spring on a campus with a DKE Chapter that has yet to join a fraternity? Click here to refer them to Dustin Stewart, our Assistant Director of Chapter Services. Please include their name, the institution they are attending, and some way to contact them.
Delta Alpha- Auburn’s Fall New Member class post initiation
