This is a part of the Strategic Plan 2025 series, zooming in on each of the pillars of the plan and going into further detail on their importance. For the full Strategic Plan click here.
Strategic Plan Pillar: Accelerate Growth of Undergraduate Membership.
Associate members at Miami University, a staff-led expansion in 2021.
Why grow? Accelerating our growth expands the reach of our mission and brotherhood. Phi Kappa Tau’s presence grows broader, allowing us to achieve our mission of impacting the world. From a practical perspective, growth is important because it enables us to unlock efficiency and scale—which allows us to provide more value to our chapters and members. Growth provides the resources for us to achieve our mission and provides the fraternity with more stability and permanence over the long run.
Growth will also increase our base of engaged alumni down the road. Since most of our members join as collegiate undergraduates and that is typically the time in which members are most active with the organization, investing in growing our undergraduate membership will not only make our current chapters more successful, but provide long-term benefits to the fraternity.
How? The goals for 2025 are clear in the pillar. In the year 2025 Phi Kappa Tau aims to have a steady base of 5000 undergraduate members, maintain 100 active and associate chapters, and align with modern trends in recruitment to better support today’s undergraduate.
Achieving 5000 undergraduate members will come from a combination of recruiting a higher volume of undergraduate members, while also retaining active members through graduation. In the coming months and years, a heightened emphasis on recruitment training will be developed, paired with a deep dive into the value of the fraternity to enhance retention.
Being at 100 campuses will certainly aid in strengthening the base of 5000 undergraduate members. The Executive Offices has a plan to increase recruitment staff—targeting more campuses simultaneously. It will involve a combination of returning to campuses with an alumni base, as well as expanding to new areas of the country to create stronger footholds for future growth. This, of course, also comes with an increased focus on ensuring the retention of current chapters.
Finally, the higher education environment is changing, and Phi Tau should be well-aligned to the college campus and students of the future. We are seeing more diversity on campuses and in fraternities, including many more first-generation college students. Leaning models are evolving, including remote and hybrid learning and community colleges increasingly offering bachelor's degrees. Overall, student enrollment is forecasted to drop over the coming decade. We are creating a task force to evaluate these and other trends, then will adopt recommendations on how Phi Kappa Tau needs to change to best position ourselves going forward.
What can you do? As an undergraduate member, the simplest way is to focus on growing your chapter size and improving your recruitment efforts with a focus on member retention. Be on the lookout for upcoming programming that is specifically geared towards recruitment training. If you’ve got friends who go to campuses where Phi Tau is not established, consider reaching out to them about starting an interest group. If you are an alumnus, consider volunteering for a chapter’s board of governors as a recruitment advisor, or just provide guidance as an older brother.
If you have suggestions on how we can best support chapters in recruitment and growth, please contact communications@phikappatau.org.