Greek community unveils expansion timeline

Because of its relatively small size and large potential, Pitt’s Greek community has attracted the interest of four national fraternities. And the University’s Interfraternity Council is in full support of their becoming a part of Greek life at Pitt.

After meeting with representatives from six national fraternity organizations, Pitt IFC has established a timeline of colonization for four different Greek organizations, including Beta Theta Pi, Delta Sigma Phi, Alpha Tau Omega and Phi Gamma Delta.

According to the Pitt Fraternity and Sorority Life Policies and Procedures Manual, a colony is “a student organization in the final stage prior to being installed as a chartered chapter of a fraternal organization.”

IFC President Zach Patton said the prospective fraternities will gain colony status over the next four years, with BTP joining first next fall, DSP in fall 2014, ATO in spring 2016 and PGD in spring 2017.

Before they received consideration for colonization, Patton said representatives from the national fraternities gave presentations that included statistics regarding academics, the local alumni base and alumni contributions.

Bobby Grangier, ATO’s director of expansion, said Pitt was an attractive location for expansion because the fraternity is returning to Carnegie Mellon University next fall, and he hoped to establish a greater presence in Pittsburgh. He also said that representatives from Pitt reached out to ATO’s national fraternity and communicated that Pitt had a large number of male students with high grade point averages who weren’t currently affiliated with a fraternity.

“There was a lot of interest from multiple organizations in general,” Grangier said.

Phil Erford, BTP’s director of expansion, largely echoed Grangier’s sentiments in an email, touting Pitt’s strong academic reputation.

“We found the Pitt campus attractive because we believe that there are many students here who are interested in embracing Beta’s core values of mutual assistance, intellectual growth, trust, responsible conduct and integrity,” he said.

Nik Koulogeorge, DSP’s assistant director of fraternity growth, said the fraternity used to have a chapter on Pitt’s campus — which he said was one of DSP’s first — as well as a large alumni base in Pittsburgh. He added that “the message Pitt offers” in terms of innovation and forward thinking aligns with that of DSP.

Brett Pytel, PGD’s director of expansion, said that, like DSP, his fraternity enjoyed a long history on campus. He said the PGD’s flagship chapter was first formed at the University when it was still the Pittsburgh Academy. It existed on campus until 1863, when membership began to decline because of the U.S. Civil War.

In 1916, Pitt students expressed interest in having PGD return to campus. It remained an active fraternity until 1998. Because of its long history, Pytel said, there’s a large and enthusiastic alumni base remaining in the city. He also said that Pitt’s Greek Life administration is firmly established, which gave the national fraternity confidence that a chapter could flourish on campus.

After meeting with the representatives, IFC members consulted with Pitt Greek Life Adviser Dustin Page, the expansion committee and the group’s general counsel to establish timelines for colonization.

Page said in an email that for the respective fraternities, he considers factors such as the alumni support within the city, whether their national policies align with Pitt’s policies, colonization procedures and standards, national and international strength, success rate at similar institutions, national and international support and assistance, and the values and goals of the organization.

He also said that the reputation of the four new fraternities precedes them.

“All four organizations also have strong success rates with colonies at similar institutions, where they have positively contributed to the Greek Community. We are positive that all four of the inter/national organizations

will help build the community in a positive direction,” Page said.

Patton said each of the organizations can begin dialogue regarding colonization one to two semesters before its invitation date. He said this entails having a representative from the national fraternity live near Pitt’s campus and establish connections with student groups such as Student Government Board and Pitt Pathfinders.

He added that this method of Greek community expansion could attract students who would not typically choose to join fraternities.

“This way, we’re taking students that maybe didn’t want to go Greek, and now they’re going to be solicited by these recruiters,” Patton said.

This top-down approach to colonization differs from other Greek organizations, Patton said. He cited the process that led to the establishment of Pi Kappa Phi, which became a chartered fraternity in the spring semester of last year.

PKP began as an interest group two years ago after the organization’s former president, Sean Zajdel, a senior nursing major, transferred to Pitt from Albright College. Zajdel was a member of PKP at Albright, and, after transferring to Pitt, he and a group of Pitt students began the push to establish the fraternity on campus.

The aggressive expansion of Pitt’s Greek community is part of a broad set of initiatives Patton has pursued as president of IFC. Patton said he’s focused on improving campuswide perception of the Greek community through a new public relations campaign.

He said one of the initiatives he hopes to highlight through the campaign is IFC’s improved GPA requirement for fraternity members. Current rules forbid first-semester freshmen from joining fraternities since they don’t have a recorded GPA, but Patton said these rules are largely ignored. He hopes to improve the enforcement of this rule by allowing first-semester freshmen to participate in recruitment events, but not to become initiated until their second semester, when they have a recorded GPA.

Patton said the new push by IFC to enforce GPA requirements is part of a newfound effort to increase participation and diversity within the Pitt Greek community.

“Our hope is that people who wouldn’t normally be willing to go Greek might be willing to do so,” he said.