So The Story Goes

For every fraternity which leaves campus, there is a gaping hole in the Greek system which a Band-Aid alone can't patch up. The next move is finding a replacement who is willing to colonize/install a local chapter until it reaches the national's requirements (& with that, all the rigmarole associated with starting a fraternity).

As anyone fully knows by now, fraternities in any Greek system don't appear overnight; founding, say, Pi Kappa Alpha or Kappa Sigma takes time. It takes patience. It takes discipline. It takes energy, 110% commitment.

Really, it takes all of the above.

To be perfectly honest, founding a fraternity/colonizing one is hard work for everyone involved. It's not something which can be done via a weaving of magic wands or incantations; this isn't what the founders of Sigma Chi or Fiji had in mind when they began their existence as bonafide fraternities in earnest. It takes much effort, much time, much convincing others that you want to make a difference not only within the Greek system but on campus.

And in a Greek system where the number of fraternities is decreasing, a lot of fraternal organizations either will a) voice their misgivings about wanting to start things up at State U or b) weigh the options, ask "What can we do?" & finally decide to get things up & running. In a situation of this magnitude, either it's one way or the other & to get the Greek community back on the up & up most HQs should take the latter approach into consideration.

But like I said earlier, these things take time. And patience is a virtue which any fraternal organization needs to have to keep operations running smoothly with the local/colony chapter who seeks to become this house or that.

None of this will ever come easy. Please believe me: it's a job to make a local/colony chapter into a full-fledged fraternity but it's worth every minute spent toiling away to get to the top.