Welcome to the Summer Edition of the DekeDigest.
Feature Stories:
- Convention- Recap and Merchandise
- Oral History Project
- Final Chapter Sizes
- Community Services and Philanthropy wrap up
- Summer Recruitment
- Stock Giving
Plus:
- All your DKE gear for summer
Convention Recap
DKE’s 178th Convention in Charlotte was a great success! We would like to thank all of those who attended. It was a wonderful experience, we are sure everyone will cherish it for years to come. We set a record with over 150 attendees in total. We had 52 chapters represented, including all 7 Canadian chapters. There were 46 alumni present, and 108 active Brothers. The Delta Chapter from South Carolina was the most represented with 11 Brothers present at one point or another over the weekend.
Everyone had a wonderful weekend, learning about how to better their chapter and DKE as an overall Fraternity. Brothers spent time learning from staff, industry experts as well as each other. Dekes young and old also gathered for the opening reception and the closing banquet and listened attentively to the keynote speakers. The Opening reception featured Dave Phillips– Beta’65 who talked about his time at the DKE house and as an ambassador for the United States. The closing banquet featured James Blue– Zeta’91, who spoke about his career in television and journalism and the idea of just saying “yes” to life and all its opportunities. After Brother Blue’s speech numerous awards were also announced which include: The Lion Trophy for best overall chapter, Delta Award for most improved chapter, Henderson Award most outstanding alumnus, Napolitano Award for the most outstanding chapter president, Blaisdell Award for the most outstanding active DKE member, as well as the 5 Byran Scholars. The award recipients as well as convention will be covered more in depth in the next Deke Quarterly!
Finally, we wanted to remind you that it is your last chance to place your orders for your 2022 Convention Products. You can do so by clicking here. Orders for Convention items can be placed through Sunday 6/26. Items will ship to you in about 2 weeks after your order is placed. If you have any questions about your order or future orders please contact Ethan or Vicki at 423-968-5646 or sales@keenpromotions.com
We also want to thank all of our ForeverDeke Annual Fund Donors who made it possible for all these undergraduates to attend. For the first time in more than 30 years, more than half of the chapter delegates had some portion of their attendance funded by your generous donations!
Oral History Project
In the Fall of 2021 you likely received some pieces in the mail asking you to update your contact information. This may have even been followed up with an email asking you to do the same by calling an 800 number. The idea was to get brothers to update their contact information with the hopes that they would participate in an oral history of Delta Kappa Epsilon, and it was overwhelmingly successful in terms of participation. For those that participated and purchased books you should be receiving your copy in the Fall of 2022.
In the meantime though we wanted to share a couple of brothers’ stories as a preview.
Hugh Moncrieff- Delta Phi-Alberta’ 88
My family has deep roots in Deke. My great-grandfather, PJ Montague, was the highest-ranking Deke in World War II. His grandson, my dad, was a Deke in the Alpha Tau Chapter of 1947. My great-grandfather’s brother, Ray Montague, and his sons were Dekes in the Alpha Phi Chapter. I am a Deke in the Delta Phi Chapter of 1988. All told, we have a long history with Deke, and it has been great to be associated with them. I spent time with George Bush and told him we were brothers; later that day he was giving a speech, and he mentioned that his brother was in the crowd and called out my name. Suffice to say, the people I was with were baffled!
Percival John (PJ) Montague
Richard Rumble – Iota- Centre’13
Deke didn’t exist when I was a freshman. We had to get 25 people together to recolonize. Deke had a strong alumni presence and I didn’t care for any of the other fraternities on campus. I remember one time that Doug Lanpher was on campus. Three of us met in the basement of one of the dorms. I was one of the three people there. He said that he knew that we would be successful because we said, ‘This is our plan.’ We had a team dynamic from the get-go. The Iota Chapter comes from that experience. It was absolutely wonderful. We didn’t have a house for the first three years. One year we only had seven pledges. We went from not existing to being the number one fraternity on campus philanthropically by my senior year. We hit the ground running and became something. Dekes seem to be disproportionally successful. They have more private businesses than anyone else. My pledge class and the years behind me get together at least once a year. I was supposed to be going to a wedding for my big brother in the fraternity. The funeral of one of my pledge brothers who passed away was on the same day as the wedding. I was short on cash and I had no way to get there. I called up another fraternity brother who flew a lot. He gave me all of his SkyMiles. I had to go to three different airports, but I made it to the funeral and I made it to the afterparty the same night.
If you are interested in purchasing a copy of Deke’s Oral History Project, you are welcome to do so by contacting Craig Dick at craig@dke.org. Unfortunately at this time we can no longer take any new submissions.
Final Chapter Sizes
As the school year has wrapped up at almost all but a couple of schools we wanted to highlight the largest Deke Chapters at the end of the 2021-2022 Academic year
- Psi- University of Alabama with 155
- Delta – University of South Carolina with 144
- Sigma Kappa- Michigan State University with 109
- Delta Tau- Ohio State with 103
- Phi Chi- Rutgers University with 87
- Psi Delta- Wake Forest University with 85
- Beta- University of North Carolina with 76
- Eta- University of Virginia with 76
- Phi Epsilon- University of Minnesota with 76
- Delta Alpha- Auburn University with 58
- Our Average chapter size is now 42 men strong
It wasn’t long ago (at most 4 years ago), when we only had one chapter with over 100 men, now we have 4 chapters with over 100 men. Our average chapter size has also steadily increased over that time from 37 to 42.
Philanthropy And Community Service Recap
This has been a great year for DKE and its involvement in bettering its community. In some years prior we had one or two standout chapters when it came to community service and philanthropy however this year it was truly a strong effort by many chapters. DKE came in 3rd for all fraternities in terms of dollars raised for Movember, with our Delta- South Carolina chapter leading the way by raising over $23,000 for them. Otherwise around the DKE Nation we had the Psi- Alabama Chapter complete a whopping 2,194 hours of community service. The Rho- Lafayette chapter raised $28,494 this year in various philanthropic events and volunteered for another 957 hours. We also had our Phi Alpha- UBC chapter, with their signature Stick it to Cancer Ball Hockey Tournament which raised $50,000 CAD (39,750USD).
Summer Recruitment- Get a head start to the year
Just because school is out doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be keeping an eye open for potential new members. While your chapter or school may have restrictions as to when you can offer a young man a bid, that does not mean you cannot recruit them outside of this period and wait to offer them a bid during the appropriate time period.
Some brothers will head home for the summer, and there they will likely run into or meet other young men that will be attending the same school in the fall. This is the perfect opportunity to talk to them about fraternity.
Large summer recruitment events are great, eg: an alumnus allowing the chapter to use his lake house for a recruitment event. However smaller one on one get-togethers can be just as effective. Another point to keep in mind is that recruitment budgets come in multiple sizes. Studies have shown more money spent does not always equal more new members.
As Alumni, one great way alumni associations and advisors can really help the chapter leading up to the main recruitment periods of the year is by sending out a mailing to all alumni of the chapter to see if they have any referrals for new members. This could be anything from a son, nephew, the neighbor’s son, or even a young man you know from the community. Things you should ask for when you ask for a referral include: first and last name, hometown, phone number, and email. First and last name, and hometown are probably the most important because undergraduate members of the chapter can usually figure out a way to contact the potential new members based off of those two pieces of information alone.
If you have any more questions regarding summer recruitment or recruitment in general feel free to reach out to our chapter services team including Trey Robb- trey@dke.org or Morgan McElroy- morgan@dke.org.
Interested in Donating Stock?
Did You Know… Donating Appreciated Stock Helps Avoid Taxation?
If you have stock that has appreciated over the years, you can avoid paying capital gains tax by donating that stock to the Deke Foundation. Not only is it deductible for you, but you won’t have to pay for years of appreciated value.
And the Foundation benefits from the full value of your appreciated stock. Sounds like a win-win to us.
A stock donation can go a long way in providing countless undergraduates with the leadership skills, and the operational resources they need, to excel in today’s fraternal environment. We hope you will take this opportunity to make the most out of your resources and make a big impact on the young men in our community. Using this secure online tool, you can learn more and make this contribution in minutes, so get started today.
