Spring 2008 Chapter Newsletter

Lamplighter 2007

Thanks to some very generous alumni, the 2007 Lamplighter Campaign raised $2623.

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High Point Hosts Spring Leadership Conference

Above: Grand High Alpha, Ted Grossnickle, speaks to coference attendees

Grand High Alpha Speaks to Alumni

During the Mid Atlantic Spring Leadership Conference on High Point University's campus, LXA alumni had a chance to hear from the Grand High Alpha, Ted Grossnickle. He spoke of the issues facing Lambda Chi Alpha and all national fraternities and LXA's plan to deal with those issues.

Nationally, greek organizations have experienced declines in membership over the last decade. However, the men's organization are seeing a greater decline in membership than the women's groups. To compat the problem, LXA wanted to find out why this trend was occuring. There were 3 areas the Grand High Zeta discovered that attributed to the sororities' success, which are being implemented to help revive the membership of Lambda Chi Alpha.

Grossnickle explained "LXA is a three legged stool" - one leg is membership, another leg is fiscal responsibility and the third leg is active LXA Alumni. These 3 legs are essential in keeping the local chapters and national organization thriving. The Grand High Alpha feels that LXA has taken important steps towards these goals and plans to continue sharing their vision with local alumni and chapters to further their purpose.

Some of the points discussed were...

* As part of increaing membership, the fraternity will reassess the term "Rush" and consider using "Recruitment" instead. It is felt that rush is a temporary action and recruitment denotes an ongoing operation.

* That Lambda Chi Alpha needs to better promote our anti- hazing policies and Associate Membership program.

* Fiscally, this year LXA is predicting a positive bottom line, versus a loss of $90,000 last year and a loss of $1.3 Million the year before. .The National Fraternity is now under much better fiscal stability.

* National Headquarters is working much more like a team now than ever before with the goal of strong finances and better programming in mind

* The most important piece to keeping the fraternity strong is the key role alumni play with the collegiate chapters. Without active Alumni many chapters struggle and continue to do so.

* It was also found that the best LXA Chapters are those who have Alumni active within the chapter. National wants to tap into getting LXA Alumni more involved and active with local chapters.

* It was found that sororities were successful because they have active alumni organizations that are supporting their local chapters.

It appears that LXA has turned the corner and we are beginning to see an upward movement in membership. Presently, LXA has over 200,000 Alumni, we are active at 200 chapters and are expanding. Some national fraternities may cease to exist if this drop in membership continues. LXA is strong and will survive while other fraternities will merge with other stronger fraternities in order to continue.

There are also big plans underway for the 100th anniversary of LXA in 2009. Further details regarding specifics will be communicated at a later time.

Please remember as an Iota Phi alumni that your chapter is not excluded from the national trends. The chapter needs to increase membership, gain financial stability and recruit active alumni for support. If you are interested in helping, please contact any of the board members.