Annual Report on the
State of the Fraternity

This report reviews the major activities of the Fraternity and provides an opportunity to see where progress has been made and where challenges remain.

Membership

Recruitment efforts have yielded wonderful results and have helped to turn the tide on the trend on decreasing membership that has hindered the Fraternity for the past decade.  This past year, initiations reported by chapters increased 20%.  This increase provides further proof that chapter operations are improving and that the Fraternity’s Leadership Initiative is making a difference.

 
Scholarship

The NIC (North-American Interfraternity Conference) is the umbrella organization for men’s college social fraternities.  Earlier this decade, the NIC established scholarship standards for member organizations.  For the first time, men’s fraternities now mutually agree to hold their chapters accountable to maintaining a minimum academic standing.  The established minimum chapter is a 2.5 on a 4.0 grade scale.   Theta Xi has revised its governing documents to reflect this minimum standard and included the standard as a centerpiece of the chapter accreditation program (see Accreditation article in this e-UNICORN).

Progress to meet this standard has been challenging, but is increasing overall:

 
Accreditation Program

The Grand Lodge and Headquarters Staff are extremely pleased with the results of this year’s accreditation program.  Over 75% of our chapters have achieved accredited status, an increase of greater than 200% over year one (2005-06) when only 25% of chapters achieved accredited status.

A more complete Accreditation article is included in this e-UNICORN, but in summary, the program over a short three year period, has significantly raised the bar of chapter operations across the Fraternity.   Our chapter officers and all chapter members are to be commended for their efforts to bring about this outstanding level of achievement.

Publications and Communications

There is no doubt this area of operations has presented the Fraternity with the most challenges in recent years.  The primary method of communicating with alumni has traditionally been The UNICORN of THETA XI Fraternity, our national magazine. 

It is distressing to report that in the 2007-08 year only one issue was published and mailed.  The reasons for this are several and include the lack of a full-time editor, increasing publication costs and ever increasing mailing costs.  As time passes, the circulation for the magazine has increased to almost 30,000 alumni who are qualified as Life Members to receive the magazine.  The cost to produce and mail an issue now exceeds $20,000 per issue, not including the staff time to write and proof the copy.

Staring with this e-UNICORN issue, the Fraternity will continue to meet its obligation to maintain communication with alumni, but take advantage of the newer and more cost effective technologies available today.

Other communication tools have helped maintain contact with members and include: 

• 800 inbound toll-free telephone service
• Theta Xi’s Web site (www.thetaxi.org)
• The new Theta Xi News website (http://6294news.thetaxi.org/)
• UPDATE e-newsletter to all undergraduate members and key alumni volunteers
• Periodic email blasts to alumni announcing national events such as Founders Day activities and Anniversary Convention plans.

Finances

Theta Xi demonstrated balanced operations for the 2007-08 year and annually files the required tax returns with the IRS and State of Missouri to maintain its tax-exempt status.

The Fraternity’s financial statements for the 2007-08 fiscal year reported $1,015,324 in revenues compared to $940,137 in expenses.  The excess of approximately $75,000 is primarily due to successful expansion efforts, increased chapter initiations and increasing chapter membership.

Expansion

The 2007-08 year was an excellent expansion year for the Fraternity.   The Georgia Southern Colony was chartered with 25 members as Gamma Phi Chapter as the year closed in April, 2008.  The Fraternity also re-established and returned the formerly dormant Alpha Zeta Chapter at UCLA chapter to chartered status in May, 2008 with 42 members.  In addition, efforts to re-establish Beta Zeta Chapter at Auburn were successful as the 17 initial members were recruited into the colony during the year.

As a result, Theta Xi ended the 2007-08 year with 50 chapters and 4 colonies.

Our remaining colonies continued to grow and include Chi Colony at Ohio State, Alpha Omicron Colony at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette and ASU Colony at Arizona State.  We are proud to report that during the current 2008-009 year Chi Chapter re-chartered in March 2009 and Alpha Omicron Chapter re-chartered in April 2009.

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