Archives The Emerald Recovered
Making The Fraternity Real for the Alumni
A
mong those urgent problems which confront a fraternity, undoubtedly the most urgent is that of retaining the interest of its members when once they have left college and the active chapter. The majority of alumni appear to feel that the FraterÂnity has quite fulfilled its purpose by ministering to their needs while they are in college; after they graduate their attitude towards it is much the same as that of the butterfly towards the cocoon it has left. Of what use can it be to them outside the university world? How, even if they should wish, can they keep in touch with the other members of their organization? And, we too may well ask, what has been done to bind the alumni closer together? All of us can perceive the advantages to be gained by arousing the interest of the great body of our alumni in Sigma Pi, and in making them feel as much a part of our organization as they did when they were actives. For indeed what constitutes the major portion of a fraternity, the actives or the alumni? A man is an active for but three or four years and an alumnus for perhaps 40 or 50. And yet in both of these periods he is equally a member of Sigma Pi. Fraternities seem now to emphasize the interests of the active members and leave the alumni to shift for themselves in large measure. But since a man is an alumnus for ten times the period that he is an active it would seem that the emphasis should be reversed.
In this series, The Emerald committee finds past articles from the archives that are still relevant in today’s fraternal world. The following article was printed in The Emerald, Volume VIII, Number 3 in October 1921, and was written by Hugh MacKenzie (Cornell 1917).
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It was not until a very recent date that any serious effort was made to solve this truly important problem, and strive to retain for Sigma Pi the whole-hearted allegiance of her alumni. The formation of alumni clubs was the first great step forward, and one that presages much hope for the future. But we must not stop there. It is in only a few of the larger cities, or in those sections of the country where several chapters of Sigma Pi are located near one another, that it is possible to bring together enough men to make such a club successful. And even then can the club be certain it has reached all the [Sigma Pi brothers] in the neighborhood?
Winter 2020
