School work is often the last thing on a fraternity member's mind because there are many opportunities to do other things during the typical week, Ben Mong, a former Zeta Beta Tau brother, said.
So many distractions can reflect poorly on a fraternities' academic standing, he said.
"A majority of the groups are struggling to maintain a solid grade point average," Lynda Wiley, director of student organizations and activities, said.
If fraternity chapters continue the trend of low grade point averages, the university has to consider whether that group is good for the campus with the possibility of suspension, she said.
Academic performance was one area of fraternity standards the Fraternity Advisory Committee examined last year. Created in September 2003 by Douglas McConkey, vice president for student affairs and enrollment management, the FAC looked at the state of campus fraternities and made recommendations to improve them.
The specific concerns were scholarship, finances and chapter management, according to the committee's final report. The Fall 2004 semester was the first semester fraternities implemented many of the committee's recommendations in conjunction the of Office of Student Organizations and Activities.
Fraternities have consistently failed to meet the standards found in the Greek Excellence Document, according to the FAC final report. The GED, published in 1993, was created to help fraternities and sororities become successful organizations.
The academic problem is centered on new member GPAs, which are consistently lower than initiated members and ultimately bring the fraternity average down, according to the report.
"When you go to a fraternity, you always have something to do during the week, and a lot of people when they first join don't know how to budget their time," Mong said.
The major change was creating a fixed GPA requirement for the fraternities to reach. A fraternity's academic standing depended on the average GPA of all the men enrolled at Ball State, a number that fluctuates from semester to semester, Wiley and McConkey said. The fraternity's average GPA had to equal the all men's average.
The all-fraternity average GPA fell below the all-men's average GPA 14 semesters out of 20 semesters from Fall 1993 to Spring 2003.
"Fraternity members wanted a fixed GPA [because] the all men's average moves," McConkey said.
It becomes difficult for members to aim for a certain goal when that goal is constantly changing, he said. The all-men's average has ranged from 2.503 to 2.760.
Many committee members wanted to set a fixed GPA requirement of 3.0 but eventually made the recommendation of 2.6 because it's closer to the all men's average, McConkey said. He wants to see what happens with the set point at 2.6 and then readdress the issue.
The fixed 2.6 minimum GPA was put into place last semester, Wiley said. They have also started tutoring programs to help fraternity brothers who find themselves struggling to maintain a good GPA, she said. The programs mostly target freshman but are intended to increase the overall fraternity averages.
Other recommendations include providing a list of freshman fraternity members who receive mid-term deficiencies to the Office of Student Organizations and Activities. The office can then meet with those students and provide them with resources to perform better academically.
All fraternities on campus want their members to have good grades and try to help the brothers but that and tutoring programs are not always enough, Mong said. The individual brothers have to take the initiative.
"It's really just a personal choice," he said. "You can't make someone do something they don't want to do."
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