Theta Chi becomes chartered fraternity
On April 19, Theta Chi became a chartered fraternity at Georgia College.
“(We started) as just eight guys hanging out in my Village apartment to an established chapter with 47 members,” said Theta Chi President and junior mass communication major Joe Longoria. “The whole experience has been pretty ridiculous.”
Theta Chi took different route to becoming an official chartered fraternity than other chapters.
“We became official with the help of a national representative,” Longoria said. “We were kind of unique though because we went to them to get started rather than them come to us.”
According to Longoria, they had an initial group of around 10. Theta Chi nationals sent what is known as an Expansion Coordinator in Spring 2010. By the time the Expansion Coordinator left, they had an interest group of around 20. At the start of Fall 2010, they had six drop for various reasons, but they recruited 11 more over the course of the semester.
This spring they participated in their first formal recruitment and gained 11 more members. At the beginning of April they gave out seven more informal bids, at which point they petitioned the Theta Chi national headquarters for installation. By early April, they had 47 members, which surpassed the number needed to become an official chapter at 45 members.
“(We started) as just eight guys hanging out in my Village apartment to an established chapter with 47 members.”
Joe Longoria, Theta Chi President
“The one main difference between us and other fraternities (on campus) is no one fits a certain mold,” said Theta Chi Vice President and junior rhetoric major Michael McCarthy. “I think that diversity helped us get this done so quickly.”
“Our numbers are a standard to up-and-coming chapters,” Longoria said.
Now that they have the amount needed, they are not worried about just adding more people for the sake of having more members.
“Having large numbers isn’t a big deal,” McCarthy said. “It’s quality over quantity. We just want future recruiting classes to be on par with our recruitment standards.”
Theta Chi Public Relations Chairman and junior accounting major Matt Williams shares the same sentiments.
“We would like to expand our numbers, but we still want to get a good group of guys coming in,” Williams said. “Our motto is to extend a helping hand and we want guys that can do that.”
The brothers at Theta Chi feel like they stray from the pack when it comes to other fraternities on campus.
“Each one of the brothers got here in a different way,” Longoria said. “We are so diverse, so you can’t stereotype us at all.”
They also want people to know they aren’t resistant to non-members.
“We don’t care if we are hanging out and someone brings over people that aren’t initiated.” Longoria said. “I guess the best way to put it is we are open-minded.”
They also want to build a sense of community within the Greek system on campus.
“We just want to strengthen things inter-fraternally and Greek life in general on campus,” Williams said.
Other members echo that same sentiment as well.
“The main thing I want people to know is we want to make campus as more of one Greek organization rather than separate fraternities,” McCarthy said.
Despite the hard work and some of the difficulty faced by the founding members, they wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I joined because they have a lot of guys that I could relate to and become good friends with,” Williams said.
Longoria feels glad that he did go through the whole process of starting up Theta Chi from the ground up along with the help of people like McCarthy and Williams.
“There is no way I would have met most of these people otherwise,” Longoria said.
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