Membership Numbers are Positive

From the October issue of the Delt Monthly, we bring you a report on membership numbers from DTD CEO, Jack Kreman:

“To my brothers,

We begin the heart of the fall term and it indeed looks different than any other fall in the Fraternity over the last 70 years. While we have faced enormous challenges I remain impressed by the ability of our chapter presidents, chapter advisors, house corporations, staff and Arch Chapter to rally to the cause. This pandemic will not spell the end of Delta Tau Delta. Rather, I believe it will make us more focused. It will make us stronger. I am looking forward to the day when we can come together and celebrate our will to be bigger than a pandemic.

The big question on everyone’s mind, “how do the numbers look” is beginning to come into focus. I am pleased to say membership numbers are strong. Before I dive into them it is important to note the challenges we have already overcome. First, we lost our chapter at Florida State nearly one year ago to the scourge of hazing. The chapter and its more than 100 members are no longer represented on our rosters. We also lost Clemson and its 60 members to the same sins (though their situation is awaiting appeal). In addition, we have seen significant losses at Vanderbilt, American and Duke due to many members deciding to quit the organization via their response to the abolish Greek life movement. While tragic from a mission perspective, these losses also impact membership numbers.

In spite of all this, our membership numbers are positive. Following the first round of chapter roster reports (which includes about 85% of chapters) chapters reported 4,573 active members. Since August 1, chapters have also reported 428 spring 2020 new members as initiated, bringing the total number of active members to 5,001 as of October 7. Fraternity chapters reported 5,189 during the same period last year. Also encouraging are the 465 spring 2020 new members who have yet to be initiated. We expect a large number of those men to be initiated by the October 10 deadline. Despite the pandemic, abolish Greek life movements and all the other pressures, the membership between last year and this year looks to be steady and might even post a slight gain. That, my brothers, would be a true “man bites dog” story. Who would guess our membership might come through this fall bigger and stronger?

There does remain one place of caution. Due to significant concern and restrictions on fall recruitment, we are seeing slower than normal reports of fall 2020 new members and smaller classes overall. This is a concern only if our men don’t rally and add to their ranks this fall and in the spring. I believe the spring semester will be more open than the fall and we will have to add to our ranks. Today’s freshman are tomorrow’s leaders. We have time to make up the gap and the time to do it is now.

Thanks to each and every one of you for doing your part to keep the Fraternity strong. This has been the type of experience that tries our mettle and I am proud to report, our mettle is strong. It is a good day to be a Delt.

Fraternally,

Jack Kreman, Chief Executive Officer”