CFEAsk: Identifying Members
Lambda Chi Alpha frequently identifies its members in print by writing out the person’s name, followed by a school name, followed by an abbreviated year, like so: Bill Smith (Elon ’94). In most cases, the school name is the member’s school of initiation and graduation, and the year is the year the member graduated.
“Bill Smith (Elon ’94)” means “Member Bill Smith, an initiate of Elon University, graduated from Elon University in 1994.”
This works great for most members, but causes problems for transfer students who affiliate with another chapter, transfer students who attend a school that doesn’t have a chapter, honorary members, members who never graduated at all, and members who have earned more than one degree and more than one institution.
Question: If Bill Smith was initiated in 1990 at Elon University with an expected 1994 graduation date, transferred to Duke University in 1992, became an active participant of the chapter, and graduated from Duke in 1995, how should we identify him in print?
1. Bill Smith (Elon ’90): by initiation school and year
2. Bill Smith (Elon ’92): by initiation school and year of transfer
3. Bill Smith (Elon ’94): by initiation school and expected graduation year
4. Bill Smith (Duke ’95): by graduation school and year
5. Some other combination
Ideally, the solution should work for members and non-members. What does your organization do?
Side note: I created the smart quotes using these shortcuts.
August 9th, 2005 at 12:13 pm
Bill Smith (Duke ‘95)
August 9th, 2005 at 12:47 pm
Pi Beta Phi identififies members by the name of the chapter (not school) with which they initiated (Jane Smith, Alabama Alpha) so that chapter should never change, kind of like a birth certificate, even if she affiliated with another chapter later on. I say “should” because we have made exceptions.
August 9th, 2005 at 2:07 pm
Alpha Chi Omega identifies members by First Maiden Last name, chapter name and then school.
Beth Walker Grant, Gamma Mu Ball State
August 10th, 2005 at 12:54 pm
KA would say Bill Smith (Chapter ‘90). School would not be mentioned in most cases.
August 10th, 2005 at 10:38 pm
Since Triangle does not use any greek designations, our chapters are called out by a three or four-letter abbreviation. A member is designated by his chapter and year of initiation. For instance, David William Slack cin94 (not capitalized and no space between school and year) means that he was initiated at the Cincinnati Chapter of Traingle Fraternity in 1994. We have recently approved the use of a full year (1994) for those members that will begin to overlap. Our founding was in 1907 and members initiated in 2007 will use the full year. Designations include names like ‘ill’ for the University of Illinois, ‘pur’ for Purdue University, ‘ar’ for The Illinois Institute of Technology (formerly Armour University) and ‘ucla’ for the University of California; Los Angeles.
August 11th, 2005 at 1:02 pm
Alpha Tau Omega identifies its members in print by using the individual’s initiation year and the school of initiation. So, it would be…
Bill Smith, Elion ‘02,
August 16th, 2005 at 9:55 am
We use parenthetical notation with the graduation year at SAE, such as Nick Ziegler (Loyola-Chicago ‘03). The school’s name is listed in lieu of the chapter designation, since the average member would not be familiar with ‘Illinois Alpha-Omega,’ but would know ‘Loyola-Chicago.’ However, only alumni are given years, since the time of graduation may change for undergraduates. In that case, the current student is identified by context, such as ‘undergraduate brother Jim Jones (Miami).’ Transfer students are listed with the graduating chapter.
In our other publications, such as the pledge manual, we use the entire year to differentiate between the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, such as Billy Levere (Northwestern 1898).
September 17th, 2005 at 2:50 pm
Acacia uses the same convention as Alpha Tau Omega: Name, School, Year Intiated, eg: Barry Baxter, Texas ‘77
January 7th, 2006 at 7:14 am
Bill Smith (Duke ‘95)