Talk:Chi Tau

Longer lasting chapter

The following talks about the situation at Wake Forest, where the Delta chapter stayed as a local with the same pin until at least 1939! https://archive.org/details/howler1939wake/page/124?q=%22Chi+tau%22+%22Trinity%22 Naraht (talk) 14:14, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

We now know of the outcome of seven of its nine chapters. I couldn't find copies of the yearbooks for Columbia or the University of California for the period of 1924 to 1930, which would be the most likely source of information on what became of those chapters or members. Therefore I was unable to trace what came of those two chapters. Jax MN (talk) 20:26, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

History from the Wake Forest Chapter's chartering into Sigma Phi Epsilon

See https://archive.org/details/sigmaphiepsilonj375sigm/page/168

Great article. I note that it says their Alpha chapter fizzled out in 1924. Thinking about the dissension reported by Baird's, it appears to me that without a solid Alpha chapter to act as a lodestar, or beacon that kept the fraternity unified, those forces pulling it apart must have included a desire during the Roaring 20's to align with a more venerable national, one with a more potent legacy. Chi Tau just seems to have started too late; maybe the Great Depression wasn't even needed to put the last nail in the coffin. During the late 1920s, peer chapters on these traditional, big-Greek schools which competed with early Chi Tau chapters must have been engaging in building projects to the dismay of struggling Chi Tau, from their 'national' perspective.

As a fraternal adviser, it is clear to me that fraternities, like all institutions, need to have an endgame strategy to understand how to wrap up their affairs should the occasion require it. Could a mature group of Chi Tau leaders have boldly embarked on merger talks in the mid-20s that would have had all their chapters merge into a bigger national? It would have kept 'Chi Tau' as a memory far better than what happened here, where a couple of Wikipedia editors stumbled upon a dusty bit of history of an organization that fizzled out into oblivion a hundred years ago. I think it would have been far better to have gone the way of the Rainbow Fraternity, merging into Delta Tau Delta, or Phi Sigma Epsilon, merging into Phi Sigma Kappa. Both became cherished and remembered parts of their larger surviving fraternities.Jax MN (talk) 18:26, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I agree with you, but nothing about what you've just written belong in the article.Naraht (talk) 11:38, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Yep. It's why I noted it here on the Talk page, and not on the article itself. Did any 'editorial' content like this creep in to the main article? If so, not my intent. Thanks! Jax MN (talk) 16:46, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Some it does, I've noticed that other of your created articles tend to have information that is more textbook oriented than encyclopedia in that regards.Naraht (talk) 19:25, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Mmmmm. I'll monitor this. Some Wikipedia articles are so... bland. Painfully dry. Within bounds, I prefer slightly more vigor in prose even here, as it offers more clarity than what is often the case in the driest and therefore less useful of texts. I'm not talking about overt drama, nor peacock words. Just clarity that suits the lesson taught by the subject. Here, we could offer simply that Chi Tau failed. But offering that this was abrupt hints that there is a further story here, which for some would be an interesting place to embark on additional research. Jax MN (talk) 20:37, 13 June 2019 (UTC)