COVID and its affect on GLO extension
 

I am wondering how COVID-19 will have an impact on the immediate and longer-term plans for GLO extensions.

COVID lock downs (etc) have caused many people (and their parents) to lose jobs. Tighter family or personal budgets will affect the affordability of a sorority or fraternity. Members who do have means may struggle with justifying the cost of a GLO when attending classes online from home. They can't have any of the traditional meetings, social activities or chapter experiences. For these practical reasons, I foresee membership levels to go down overall.

Also, a tangential thought....we've seen reports of an increase of members who are leaving their organizations because they have come to believe that GLOs are elitist/racist/etc. I don't know how widespread that is - there have been a handful of resignations of entire chapters - but there have been some members giving voice their exits.

These issues will affect a national office's bottom line and, given that new chapters probably cost money to support, I expect that extensions may slow down significantly. Is anyone aware of their GLO having plans to pause or slow down on extension until they can get a better picture on how things will pan out?

Once there's a vaccine, I expect things will get back to normal. In my city, we're at 5% unemployment after everything that's happened. There will probably be a short term hit in recruitment and retention.

Some colleges are taking a bigger hit from COVID than others, but I'm guessing other than the ripple effects from the classes in 2020 and or Spring 2021 being smaller, we won't see significant changes between 2019 and 2022. I expect GLO extensions will be delayed by a year, but this will be considered a blip...

Covid also affects the ability of some universities to make money while keeping campus buildings functioning despite online/remote learning and teaching. Some colleges are thus cancelling majors/minors/Masters offerings, to the dismay of students and alumni alike.

In a few states, schools of higher education are considering mergers/closures.

This will all ultimately affect greek life as it currently exists.

I'm a department chair at a large state university, and I also lead our house corp. board. Enrollment wasn't down much for fall (a little over 2%), but it's down about 10% for winter. I think we're seeing more "opt out" or reduced schedules for winter, with more intent to sit this out or take fewer classes until things return to more traditional instruction. We have a large number of older members who have indicated they'll be attending part-time in the winter (which is a loop hole for going alum early and not having to pay chapter dues or parlor fees, and with the lack of "can't miss" in-person events, isn't much of a sacrifice) and we have NEVER seen this before. PNM numbers and quota were also down this fall, with no chapters on our campus at the 2019 total levels or even close.

Universities are looking at belt tightening in the short and long term, as COVID is riding on the heels of declining high school graduation numbers. I think we're looking at compounding factors that will lead to reduced quota and total and belt tightening for many GLOs, chapters, and facilities, and I think it's going to be impacting us for some time.

I'd really like to see some strategic planning on how we're going to manage all this at the NPC and NIC level, because the impact is real. My guess is that we're not going to see many campuses who are interested in opening for expansion, because the current chapters are going to need every PNM they can get to sustain operations at current levels. If you have a facility, it's especially critical.