At Phi Tau coeducational fraternity, membership dues are a thing of the past, making it the first Greek organization to eliminate dues.
Beginning this term, Phi Tau members — who were already obligated only to pay the dues they felt they could pay — will pay no-dues whatsoever, Phi Tau treasurer Alex Weinstein ’16 said. House expenses will be covered entirely by the rent fees that residents pay.
“So much of who we are is inclusivity,” Weinstein said. “Wherever you come from, whatever your background is, whatever your interests are, you have a place at Phi Tau... Hopefully we can say very loudly and very clearly, ‘There is no obstacle, no matter what’s going on financially for you, to joining Phi Tau.’”
Phi Tau already had low dues compared to other houses. According to the Greek Letter Organizations and Societies office, average dues for men in Fall 2014 were $342. Women’s dues averaged $308. Until abolishing dues, Phi Tau charged $150 per term, although paying this was optional, Weinstein said. A “significant amount” of Phi Tau’s members had utilized the reduced dues policy in the past, Weinstein said.
“This is another step [Phi Tau] has taken to break down those barriers to entry into the Greek system and the social spaces of Dartmouth,” Gender-Inclusive Greek Council president Veri di Suvero ’16 said.
Di Suvero said she was not sure if other GIGC members would follow Phi Tau’s lead. Alpha Theta coeducational fraternity is currently reviewing its finances and considering adopting a similar no-dues policy, Alpha Theta president Noah Cramer ’16 said.
“We want to be as financially inclusive as possible,” he said. “We’re very proud of our pay-what-you-can policy, with members able to request a dues reduction of any amount without reason and have that granted no questions asked.”
Prior to abolishing dues, Phi Tau received around $2,000 per term from dues, Weinstein said. This represented a small portion of Phi Tau’s revenue, most of which is derived from the rent the house receives from its members and the boarders who live in the building. Phi Tau, which owns its own house, brings in between $30,000 and $40,000 per term from rent, Weinstein said.
“For the last several years, the vast majority of our operations, our funding, our anything came from our rent because we own the building,” Weinstein said. “The amount that came from dues kept getting smaller and smaller proportionally as the College kept raising our rent, and we realized [dues were] not incredibly necessary to the function of the house.”
Although dues were optional even before this term, many potential members did not realize how seriously the policy was taken or still felt pressured to pay dues, Phi Tau president Justin Halloran ’16 said.
“The culture in the house was very much, ‘Don’t worry about it,’ but because of the culture on campus, people felt that, ‘If I’m not paying my dues but other people are, I’m not doing my part,’ and that’s not the impression we wanted people to have,” he said.
Currently, Phi Tau is one of the smallest Greek houses on campus with fewer than 20 members, Halloran said. The house hopes that the new policy will help it to recruit new members this fall, and Weinstein said numerous members of the Class of 2018 have expressed interest in joining Phi Tau.
Phi Tau will not cut any of its major social events, including the termly Milque and Cookies event or the weekly ice cream socials that the house hosts, Weinstein said. Minor cost-cutting measures and budget controls for other social events will be put in place. The house has previously spent several hundred dollars per term to provide soda for its members, a practice that will now cease.
Halloran noted that Phi Tau has lower social costs than many Greek houses since it does not charge members additional dues for apparel or formals. These differences could make it harder for other houses to switch to a no-dues policy, he said. Additionally, Phi Tau can only remain solvent without dues since it owns its physical house, whereas the Panhellenic Council sororities and two fraternities — Chi Heorot and Alpha Chi Alpha fraternities — do not, he said.
“I think that some other houses may look at this as an incentive to say, ‘Oh, we could strengthen our financial aid policies,’” Halloran said. “I think Phi Tau is a little bit unique in a few ways, one of those being that a lot of people who join Phi Tau weren’t necessarily thinking of joining a Greek house.”
The larger endowments of some fraternities may allow them to institute a no-dues policy, Weinstein said. Phi Tau has savings and investment accounts that are growing, but it does not have the same financial resources as some larger Greek houses.
Part of the impetus for the no-dues policy came from College President Phil Hanlon’s “Moving Dartmouth Forward” policy initiative, Halloran said. Since the College will begin to create alternative social spaces via the new residential housing system, Phi Tau felt the need to make itself more attractive for potential new members, he said.
While Phi Tau’s alumni had previously objected to a no-dues policy when the idea was raised in past years, they supported the motion this year, he said.
The only potential concern Phi Tau has with its new policy is if it receives an incredibly large increase in members, Weinstein said — an increase of over 100 in a single term could be prohibitive for the house. Halloran said, however, the house’s potential expansion would be limited by current members’ opinions on the house’s ideal size and community, not by financial concerns.
