TKE NIC Decision Follow Up
Fraters-
I hope by now you have seen the statement released yesterday that TKE resigned its membership in the North-American Interfraternity Conference, effective immediately. This has sparked additional questions/concerns that we felt needed to be addressed to simplify what this decision means to you. I have outlined those questions and answers below. If you have additional questions, please reach out to our Headquarters Office at 1-317-872-6533. We are all excited to see the success that you will create throughout TKE Nation this spring!
How does this affect our membership in our IFC?
This should NOT change our membership in the IFC. According to the NIC website, non-NIC member fraternities are encouraged “to be granted full membership status in IFC, provided they agree to meet the IFC Standards of Membership that are rooted in the NIC Standards.” Tau Kappa Epsilon will continue to meet or exceed NIC standards. We encourage you to continue to be a part of the local IFC, pay local IFC dues, comply with local IFC policies, and to become a leader within it to champion Greek Life as a whole. We still have risk guidelines in place and expectations of our membership.
Today, many IFC's are led by universities/colleges now rather than the NIC as they have been in the past. Kappa Sigma and Phi Delta Theta haven't been a part of the NIC since 2002 and Lambda Chi Alpha left in 2015. They continue to be part of the leadership of IFC's across the U.S. and Canada. We wish the NIC well. We have a chance to lead even more now and I know we will all answer that call.
What about campus partnerships?
We have an expectation to not only continue but enhance our partnerships across campuses throughout the U.S. and Canada. There are amazing people on these campuses that want to see Greek Life thrive and play a role in the development of our membership. We have been energized by the improved relationships created over the past two years and have no intention of that progress slowing.
Is this going to lower fees for TKE?
The savings gained from this decision is $1.50 per man. This money and frankly more has been invested back into resources for all of our members. I hope you have all looked and utilized the new tke.org website. This has been a venture of over a year that included hiring an additional web developer to build this tool. This was a much larger investment than the NIC fee. I am confident everyone understands the intense work of building a website from scratch. Our team had to work through 2,000 pages individually to rebuild this correctly.
We have many more projects coming down the pike to put tools and resources in the hands of our collegiates, alumni, and volunteers to make recruitment and officer leadership an easier process. The CAC is working to do more in recruitment and philanthropy to benefit our fraternity. Our leadership team, which includes the Grand Council, is committed to putting a better product on the field to give us more ammunition to be dominant on every campus.
This just seems about money. Isn’t that true?
There is no doubt that receiving value is an important trait that we believe is important in every relationship. All of us each day look at investments of time and dollars and make choices. Those choices analyze short and long term success. This decision was not solely based on value though. TKE has not been a welcome participant in the leadership of the NIC for decades. Our lack of involvement was the sum of many factors, not just from the NIC, but from our organization as well. We own our shortcomings, but there continue to be internal discussions and forums even under NIC 2.0 that our organization is not a welcomed participant in. We don’t believe any member should be ostracized from these dialogues.
Why did we wait until now to leave NIC 2.0?
We wanted to analyze the decision before we made the call best for us. The NIC leadership asked TKE to wait before resigning our membership at the House of Delegates meeting in December 2015. The leadership asked to present at our Grand Council Meeting this past weekend in Memphis before finalizing our decision. We believed allowing the opportunity of the NIC 2.0 leadership to present to our Grand Council as they requested was the right thing to do rather than leaving 40 days ago. We are grateful that the NIC 2.0 leadership made the sacrifice of traveling to Memphis, TN to present to our leadership team.
What is our relationship with NIC 2.0?
We wish the members of NIC 2.0 nothing but success. There are amazing leaders in our industry that are part of this group. They are passionate about the success of every member of the Greek World. We are confident NIC CEO Jud Horras will work tirelessly to move fraternities forward.
How will this affect future expansion efforts?
We will have to build even stronger bridges with our Greek Life partners and universities. The strides that have been made over the past two years to close 20 groups that didn’t meet TKE standards shows our commitment to build a better organization. We know all campuses want strong fraternal partners who are willing to support their members and hold them to account when they fall short of expectations. We have seen many campuses this year that are excited to partner with TKE to aid in building a larger thriving Greek community. We must honor that confidence they have in us to build a better product that all colleges/universities would be proud to have on their campus.
Will we ever come back to the NIC 2.0?
It is possible. Tau Kappa Epsilon resigned membership in the 1970’s and returned to membership in the organization down the road. Our leadership team will continue to assess on a regular basis if we will be equal partners moving forward and if there is value in being a part of this organization.
Yours in the Bond,
Donald E. Aldrich
Chief Executive Officer
Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity