Lower grade point averages seem to have become a university trend, with a significant number of greek chapters and residence hall floors coming in below the also-dropping average university GPA.

The university average GPA for last fall was 2.83, down from last spring’s average of 2.86.

Fall 2004 grade reports showed greek chapter GPAs for more than one-third of fraternities and more than one-fourth of sororities have fallen under the university average. The greek average also fell by one hundredth of a point, according to the Office of Greek Affairs.

Scholarship chairmen and chairwomen for several fraternities and sororities met last week to find ways to improve GPAs for the spring semester. Twenty-one of 29 fraternities attended the meeting — a number Samuel DeGree, vice president of scholarship for the Interfraternity Council, said was a good showing.

Collegiate Panhellenic Council Vice President of Scholarship Lynn Klein and DeGree met with the chairmen and chairwomen to discuss the changes needed to increase GPAs.

DeGree said his major goals for this year are to provide incentives for motivation and make all resources available.

“One great advantage of living in the greek community is all these other chapters you can communicate with and discuss what they do for programming — what works, what doesn’t,”

DeGree said. “One of the big issues with IFC is it’s supposed to be a community getting together and pulling resources together.”

The semester report from the Office of Greek Affairs showed Delta Upsilon fraternity, 117 Ash Ave., was one of the lowest ranked in grades.

Seth Mulder, freshman in agronomy, said he is going to change that.

As scholarship chairman for the fraternity, he is working on a new plan to help the fraternity achieve academic success.

Mulder said he hopes to resurrect Delta Upsilon’s scholarship program by continuing study tables and collecting syllabi from all members so he has a record of test dates.

His plan includes checking in with fraternity members before their tests and following up to make sure everyone is attending class.

“They will feel the effects if they don’t show up,” Mulder said. “I’d assume that paying enough as we do for tuition, that would be motivation enough.”

Charles Erickson, graduate staff for disability resources at the Academic Success Center, said fraternities and sororities could be a place where students can study.

“I really think that chapter houses can be conducive to studying, but the house has to say, ‘Yes, we are going to have study time. Yes, it’s going to be absolutely quiet, and yes, it’s going to be from this hour to this hour,’ and make it so,” Erickson said.

He said students have to analyze what is causing poor GPAs.

DeGree said he realizes it’s difficult to do anything beyond providing incentives.

Communication, cooperation and sharing of ideas will be the key to getting the fraternities back on track, he said. But DeGree said it is an individual chapter commitment to want better grades.

“We can make everything available to them, but it is really up to them to take advantage of it.”

Not all houses on campus are struggling.

Last semester, Delta Tau Delta fraternity’s GPA was a 3.15, ranking them second place among all fraternities — a 0.17 increase from their spring semester GPA.

Joe Black, former scholarship chairman for Delta Tau Delta, said accountability was important to their success.

“We really do try to get on each other about grades,” he said. “It’s kind of like a dorm floor; what we do a lot is we try to keep each other off of video games.”

Fraternity members said wasting time, video games and laziness account for most of the problems with grades.

Fraternities usually invite a speaker from the Academic Success Center once a semester to talk about study habits and time management

They also hold study tables at a local church and give scholarships for men who make the dean’s list.

Lower grades are a university trend.

Along with the all-university average, the residence hall GPA total is down from 2.86 to 2.81— leaving 77 residence hall houses under than the university average, according to statistics released by the Department of Residence.

Academic Resource Coordinator Neal Johnson said the residence halls do a lot of programming and have individual meetings with students who are looking for help.

“We put a lot of responsibility within the students,” he said.

As a coordinator in Martin Hall — a Fresh Start residence hall — Johnson said the residence halls programming is very similar to the greek community.

“We have incentive programs to encourage them,” he said.

Like many chapters in the greek community, Johnson said he also brought the Academic Success Center to talk to his students about time management. He has also invited others to speak about the resources Iowa State has to offer.

“They are students here first. We like to promote that through the residence hall system,” he said.