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CWRU Membership Insight

At CWRU we believe in transparency, which begins with recruitment. Below you can take a little test drive of the Greek experience!

Member Benefits

CWRU Greek Life believes that fraternity and sorority membership is an investment in yourself. We support individual members in owning their responsibility for their personal development journey. With Greek chapters as the vehicle for that growth, chapters reach their goals from the contributions of members in the ways that they find most meaningful.

  • Financial ROI

    • Dues range among fraternities and sororities per semester, here are some of the ways dues money are used:
      • Membership development (all of your educational curriculum, retreats, leadership conferences)
      • Subsidize brotherhood events
      • Marketing
      • Chapter insurance
      • Mental Health resources, leadership position manuals, risk management and recruitment training materials
      • Leadership position manuals
      • Risk management and Recruitment training materials
    • Always communicate hardship or special circumstances (i.e. study aborad, co-op) so that the chapter can offer a payment plan or reduction
    • National and Alumni chapter annual scholarships do exist for memebrs to apply to from across the country
    • Each chapter has a different approach to Meal Plans for live-in and non live-in members
    • Regardless, you, as a PNM need to have clarity on where your money is going. It is your right, as with any other investment in life that you might make. Like a car; you wouldn’t just blindly invest in something that isn't going to meet your needs.

  • Ritual

    • Ritual is the purpose of the chapter. Why the chapter exists, what its members strive to do, and how they do it. Oftentimes this shows up through ceremonies but Ritual is actually in members’ every day as well!
      • Listen carefully to the words of ceremonies, clear your minds before and internalize the meaning! Reflect on the path laid out for you.
      • Ritual is not only ceremonies. Ritual is about your daily decisions reflecting your values, chapter values and the ways they show up in your life. From brushing your teeth to choosing a graduate program.
    • Ritual should not be confused with tradition; many times ritual takes form of celebration and recognition of achievement, guides values-driven recruitment strategies, alumni relationships and involvement

  • Brotherhood and Sisterhood

    • What are the components of true brotherhood and sisterhood?
      • Sense of belonging and connection
      • Compassionate Accountability to your goals and responsibilities and expectations for membership
      • Care for who you are, care for your lived experiences, care and connection around healthy conflict, celebrating achievements, learning from failure together, and encouragement to pursue your dreams
      • Support and guidance for challenges and building resilence
      • Mentorship and coaching
    • Community sibling-hood: Under CWRU’s Greek community
      • Our community vision is to accelerate the community toward a shared purpose. That shared purpose is that each member internalizes and believes in and acts upon the values of the community as a result of their Greek identity.
      • Brotherhood & Sisterhood is also Compassionate Accountability to who you are and want to be, for when you make a mistake or need inspiration to execute your responsibilities and commitments to one another and yourself. In fraternities and sororitues, we call you in, not out, focus on growth but also maintain expectations. At the community level, there is also care and compassionate accountability.

  • Leadership ROI

    • Chair/committee experience develops skills that prepare members for working on high performing teams, leading projects, builds decision making skills, and more
    • Exec board experience develops skills that prepare members for supervising, delegating, project management, writing, professionalism and reading people
    • Public speaking- In small, medium and large groups, On video live or recorded, and in person
    • Greek Community Leadership
      • Greek communities are self-governing, which means we have the privilege to create our own set of standards, operations and for the community and the responsibility to uphold those expectations, for everyone, not just those in our chapter. We get to elect our Greek peers to adjudicate violations of our policies, beliefs and create restoration when harm is done.
      • Members of both fraternities and sororities get to share their voice on these standards, operations and what the priorities of the community should be.
      • IFC/PHC are those elected to help move us towards the vision and shared purpose described earlier.
      • Honor Societies Order of Omega and Lambda Eta Mu exist to specialize in areas that advance our community in particular ways.
      • Citizenship Council and its subcommittees work on advancing civic responsibility (consent, diversity and inclusion, risk prevention and harm reduction).
    • Chapters need members to hold leadership positions
      • engaged membership is the most meaningful way to for individuals to develop their identity as leaders and apply leadership concepts to a dynamic group
      • a few people doing all the work, does not allow for voices to be represented and woven into the fabric of the organizational experience
    • Member Development Participation
    • Participate in Recruitment of future members
    • Contribute to the creation of a vulnerable and trusting environment for productive dialogue
      • Participate in conversations around important and difficult issues, and fun innovative solutions and ideas
    • Create a learning agenda for personal growth and how that will be accomplished through chapter experience/ opportunities
    • Have fun!

  • Growth Mindset & Care and Accountability Expectations

    • By being a member you get to be a part of meaningful societal movements, and learn for yourself! To then take with you to your jobs, friendships, partnerships, business ventures, med school, and your communities.Greeks learn how to be assertive, how to give caring and clear feedback, and participate in healthy conflict resolution
    • You get the opportunity to learn about your identity, how parts of it intersect and the same for others. We hope to teach respect and validity for truths that are different from our own.
    • In this community, we often talk about how “Greek Life hits different at CWRU”.
      • That is true in that we prioritize personal growth. That is what all of us are seeking in one form or another from CWRU Greek Life.
      • It is also true that our community has not done all we can to be anti-racist, members and non members who have not obtained consent and made inappropriate jokes, caused harm to others mentally or physically.
      • IFC, PHC, and the University have policies for hazing, assault, misconduct and inappropriate substance use (alcohol and drugs, these things are also the law y'all).
        • We need everyone to realize, own, and do their part in reporting violations of these policies; when someone is making decision against our values
    • What is different is that we want to be a part of the change. You as a member, will be joining evolving organizations.
      • When you join a fraternity you get to be a part of making these changes, while transforming who you want to be and helping others transform themselves by participating in community accountability.
      • We are able to give access to our members to experts to develop racial literacy, to learn about how to define and obtain consent, how to have healthy conflict and hold someone or a group accountable, how to show care for yourself and others.
    • In the Fall this community created a Greek Life Action Plan which includes four main priorities: 1) learning how to define and give consent, 2) how to intervene in mentally and physically unsafe situations, 3) to learn how to be actively anti-racist, and 4) be advocates for physical and emotional wellness. IN order to do these things, to change this culture, we need to change behaviors, to give ourselves the knowledge to know how to change behaviors, and the SKILLS to do so.Care Expectations
    • CARE
    • Maintain holistic approach to scholarship and practice academic integrity
    • Intrinsically behave in ways that positively represents the organization
      • this means that there is now an additional lens on each decision member's make
    • Intervene to the level of comfort when observing unsafe or harmful behavior
      • we believe that it is our responsibility to do or say something when someone is not following the expectations for members (chapter or community-wide)
    • Understand that almost no action or decision occurs in a vacuum when a member of fraternity or sorority
    • Active Bystander

  • Alumni Mentorship and Networking Relationships

    • Every chapter has a network of brothers and sisters that spans across the world, thousands of alumni who all share your values!
      • What do you get from that?
        • Diverse Mentorship (relationships and wisdom shared with generations of members with so much life to share)
        • Understanding different generations and experience interacting with folks who are or grew alongside those that might be your future supervisors
        • This relationship development is so much more than “hey, you’re a Delt, I’m a Delt, can you get me a job.” These networks are practice for meeting new people in new places, who are different from you. Learn from them, interview them, ask for connections later; they’ll likely naturally come when you describe your passions and future dreams. Alumni want to help!

  • Time ROI

    • Think of fraternity and sorority membership as an investment in yourself. Your personal growth. Your self awareness. Your resiliency.
    • New member education helps you clarify your values, solidify, them and juxtapose them with the fraternity and other members. Not for comparison but for a brotherhood of values.
    • It takes time and reflection to really grow. In a fraternity, some of the regular commitments of time look like this:
    • In a fraternity, some of the regular commitments of time look like this:
    • New Member education- time to learn the ins and outs of the organization
    • Weekly to monthly chapters- Time to learn how the organization is evolving and how your contributions are valued, and ways you can continue to benefit.

  • Academic ROI

    • Our organizations were founded as secret literary societies to talk about academia, books, new professional paths, and social issues of the time. Academics are a foundational pillar of our whole existence!
    • Academics look like:
      • Time spent sharing your knowledge with the chapter, maybe a project you are proud of.
      • Mentoring others through major, tough professor and finding their passion to contribute to the world.
      • How you are using the knowledge and access to knowledge that you have with the world! Share it! Teach! Share the practices you learn to evaluate the world around you so that it can be better.
      • Collaboration with like-majored brothers, almost always brothers who have already gone through your curriculum
    • Maintain holistic approach to scholarship and practice academic integrity
    • Greek members are retained at CWRU and graduate from CWRU at a rate significantly greater than non-affiliated students. We don't say this tp brag, we say it to give you confidence that your academics are a priority and remain a priority while a member. The support and resources are bountiful.
    • Higher academic standard for being a Greek- our organizations have GPA maintenance requirements in order to participate in some of the activities of the chapters, in order to help refocus members in case of a rough semester.

  • New Member Weekly Time Commitment

    • 1 hour- Chapter Meeting
    • 1 hour - New Member Education
    • 1 hour - relationship building with mentors (bigs)
    • 30 min - committee participation, leadership tasks

  • Initiated Member Weekly Time Commitment

    • 1-2 hour- Chapter Meeting
    • 1 hour - Member Development
    • 1 hour -  variable events: dialogues, philanthropy, service, meetings
    • 1-2 hours- committee participation, leadership tasks, planning

  • Chapter Leader Weekly Time Commitment

    • 1-2 hour - Chapter Meeting
    • 1 hour - Executive Board Meeting
    • 1 hour - Member Development
    • 1 hour -  variable events: dialogues, philanthropy, service, meetings
    • 1-2 hours- committee participation, leadership tasks, planning
    • (President)  1 hour - Meeting with GLO/chapter advisor/other advisors