Dr. Rafael Matos, AFA Perspectives editorial board member, sat down to chat with Dr. Mea Ashley whose groundbreaking dissertation studied membership denouncement among members of NPHC-affiliated fraternities and sororities. Based on her research, Dr. Ashley provides insights and recommendations to help organizations deal with this phenomenon. The following interview has been transcribed and edited for clarity and readability in print.
Dr. Rafael Matos (RM): Dr. Ashley, such a great pleasure to have you here with us! You know I am a huge fan of you, and everything you do. So what I want to ask is, if you can. Please tell us a little bit about yourself.
Dr. Mea Ashley (MA): Okay, so where to start? I got my professional start in higher education. And I was in higher ed for ten years. I started in alumni and constituency relations in the institutional advancement sector of higher ed. Then I transitioned over to student affairs. And now, I’m doing work at a nonprofit, United Way. So our impact areas are education, health and economic mobility. So I still get to touch a lot of things that impact our college students today. I’m a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and have been for 14 years now. And I enjoy telling my story, the story about my experience as a collegiate member. The mistakes I made to help prevent our college students from making the same mistakes. And of course, that comes through hazing prevention education. And that kind of led me to research and denouncing because I was speaking at my alma mater for their membership intake process program which is required for all prospective Greek students on campus. And it was 2017, and my colleague who hired me, said, ‘Well, I need you to address the denouncing, because that’s becoming a thing.’ And so I said, ‘Okay, I’ll do that.’ And so I, you know, like most Greeks, had dismissed the people that were denouncing. So I never really listened to what they had to say. So, in order to speak on it, I had to listen to it. So I went and I watched some videos and a lot of things they were saying, some of them were making very valid points. And so I was in school for leadership and organizational change, and it had a background in organization development. And so I looked at it from that perspective and was like, if this was a Fortune 500 company this would be a thing, something to freak out about. So that’s what led me to doing my research like, what are the organizations doing about these? And where do we start? How do we address it? And what are the organizations doing about it? And yeah, that’s a little bit about me.
RM: Thank you for sharing what it was that motivated you to pursue this course of research. What were some things you learned in the course of your research?
MA: One thing that I learned that I think was surprising was that, like other demographics of people, people who denounce Black Greek letter organizations are not a monolith. They’re not all the same, they didn’t all have the same experience. They didn’t all have the same story. They didn’t all have the same perspectives. Some of them were very humble, and some of them, I would say, were very extreme. Some of them were saying that they still had close relationships with their former sorority members or fraternity members, and some did want it to break, you know, all ties. And so it was interesting to me to learn that they were a very diverse group, like all other demographics.
RM: You said initially you sort of were like, ‘I’m not gonna pay attention to this’, like many of us. But then you started to take it seriously. Is this something, and you kind of touched on it but I want to ask you directly: What is your belief? Do you think that this is something that’s worthy of the community, the NPHC community in particular, but just fraternity/sorority life in general to freak out about is this something that it’s not that big a deal based on your professional experience.
MA: I would say, freak out about no; pay attention to, yes. And the reason why I say that, because I think there are some solutions to the problem. Something I mentioned in my research [is] the way that organizations can address this rising issue, I think, could curtail some of the denouncements that we’re seeing. And so I think if they would just kind of take a moment, reassess and implement some of those small changes, not even, you know, huge but small changes, I think it can be something that makes a difference in the trend that we see. But if we aren’t paying attention to it, I think it is something that could eventually snowball and continue to grow.
RM: Fair enough. Well, let me ask you this: is there a point, or at what point should we freak out about this? If things continue to go the way that they go, or or will there ever be a point we would freak out about this?
MA: I think when the math starts to math. So right now what I learned at one of my Sorority’s conferences is that the amount of people who are denouncing are a very small percentage. But if you are very versed in social media and media culture, what you know is the smallest percentage of people can be the loudest, and it can seem like they are the majority when they’re actually not. So I think when the math begins to reflect what we see on social media, then it’s the time to start to freak out. So right now, we have more members who are probably leaving for other reasons, like dues are too high, or they don’t want to give the time commitment, or all of the, you know, common reasons why people are inactive in our organizations. I think when the numbers of denouncements start to maybe match or surpass those numbers, then we’ll need to start freaking out. I know that for our organization the numbers over time have continued to grow under the people who are in leadership now and have been in leadership. They have talked about how they’ve experienced the increase. So I think they are starting to pay attention to note that, okay, if we don’t do anything, these numbers are gonna continue to grow. So it is something that we need to address, so that they don’t continue to grow. But if what we do to address it does not work, then we’re gonna need to continue to implement new things and create new changes so that we can cut this trend off at the head.
But I think right now, other organizations will have to continue to do the research to see how much of an impact it’s actually making on their organizations. And since I’m not inside those organizations, I’m not privy to that [information]. But, I think when the numbers start to show that there is a decrease in membership or I would say a rapid turnover rate. So if we continue to see people who are just initiated drop more frequently than they usually do, because, of course, their retention rate, I would think, between our undergraduate students and graduation. I would imagine that a trend of decrease in retention because our students are graduating trying to find jobs. So if we’re not doing a lot to bridge that gap from undergraduate to a graduate level membership then that’s the issue for us. But I know a lot of organizations are probably working on that. But if the turnover rate is starting even before they graduate in undergraduate chapters, then that’s something for sure to freak out about.
RM: So you said something that triggered a thought in my head. Because you know, as I do membership for my fraternity, and I see those renouncement requests come. A lot of the times it’s from people that haven’t been active in years. And so you’re talking about the rapid turnover rate and looking at that time span from when they get initiated to the time they make that decision. First question would be, based on your research, the sample size you looked at, where were they in their organizational journey? Were they active, or were they inactive?
MA: So I wasn’t able to determine their active status, as far as were they financially active or not, because I studied YouTube videos and I did not have direct conversation with them. But I was able to pick up on certain cues like things that they said, and so from those cues that I took, most of them were in their organizations for less than ten years. So I was able to get that because I did look at whether they were in the organization for more or less than ten years, or if they were initiated on the undergrad or graduate level. And there were some unknowns in there, because everybody didn’t necessarily say that but that was something that I did look at, and majority of them were in the organization for less than ten years, and what was very interesting to me, one of them was actually a charter member for her undergraduate chapter, and she denounced so that was really interesting to me.
RM: That is very interesting. And I remember from attending your session and looking at your dissertation, that the reasons cited were religious reasons. Were there any other reasons that you picked up on as they talked about why they were giving up their membership.
MA: No, the bulk of them traced back to Christianity. There, there was one person that denounced because they were a Muslim, I believe. And that person because they didn’t meet the criteria for my research, they weren’t even included. I just did see that video. They weren’t included in my sample. But everybody else it was Christianity. So not just religion, but Christianity specifically.
RM: Okay. So I want to shift a little bit to ask you, you talked about the we’re at a point where we should pay attention. We don’t have to freak out, but we could. So, in order to keep us from freaking out you made some recommendations in your dissertation. What are some of those recommendations you probably think would be easier to implement? What are some of those recommendations that you would say right now is probably a good time to look at these as options to mitigate this [issue].
MA: Communicating and clarifying our principles. For a lot of them, they felt like our organizations claim to have and be founded on Christian principles, but we also include Greek customs and traditions, and they see those 2 things conflicting. So it is the organization’s responsibility to communicate and clarify. How is it that we have this dual identity? And that’s okay. Or it should be something that is not conflicting with the Christian faith. So the questions that they have is up to the organization to address and mitigate those fears, concerns, and all of those things, and to communicate what that means, what that looks like. How they will experience their membership as a Christian person, being that there are Greek customs and traditions that are incorporated there – we incorporate both. So communicating and clarifying on the front end, especially during and throughout membership intake. And then also, once we’ve implemented new strategies for those communication processes go back and do an audit to see are people receiving the message that we are actually trying to disseminate? And are they experiencing us the way we say they should be experiencing us? Are we living up to those Christian principles? Are we living up to, including the Greek customs and not the things that contradict Christianity. In one thing, in change practices, in theory, is that you, when you are changing something you have to almost over communicate. So you have one way of doing things. You’re changing, and you’re going in this new direction. So you need to tell people ten times more than you would on a regular basis the new direction, and so that those are the simple things. Communicate and clarify what it means to have this dual identity of Christian principles and Greek customs and traditions in our organizations. That’s one. And then the audit.
And then anything else in addition to that, I think organizations need to ensure that they are paying close attention to change management research and what it says about how top down change does not work. Case in point, the NPHC got together and I think in 1990 decided they wanted to ban hazing. They said it is not working for us, we need to change, we are going to ban hazing. I don’t think they were all on the same page about how each organization would do it. But we just know we’re all gonna ban hazing. Each organization came up with their own process. How they wanted to make the changes from the top, we’re banning hazing. Ten years after that [Dr.] Walter Kimbrough did the research to see how did that change play out? And hazing was still very much alive and well, because those at the bottom who were responsible for implementing the change did not buy into it. They did not see the reason for changing the status quo and they did not do the work to implement the change. So change research says you have to be inclusive of everybody. People buy into what they help create. So if the organizations are going to be successful in any change that they make, you have to include the people that are on the ground that are going to be implementing it, and that includes people who are not financially active, people who speak against Black Greek letter organizations. And I’m not saying they need to have a say, but you at least need to listen to their voices. And that’s the reason why I did this research – what are they saying? Okay, we need to hear that we need to know that, so that we incorporate that into our strategy for change, so that we can improve. I also need to include for our undergraduate chapter these host institutions, because they play a large role in the success of our undergraduate chapters. So anything beyond the 2 things that I suggested, whatever the organizations come up with, they’re going to need to be strategic in paying attention to what the research says when it talks about change from the top down does not work, and you have to be inclusive of all levels. So from the national President to a chapter member who has no title to someone who is not financially active, everybody needs to be brought to the table to have a voice in whatever change is going to be made.
RM: I mean we went from freaking out to the hot button controversial truth over here. She is speaking into existence. She took me to church right now. Oh, I am loving it! So you went through all this. You looked at all this. Based on what you saw. So you looked at Youtube videos of fraternity members and sorority members of the NPHC who were publicly renouncing their membership. As you looked at the videos you caught similarities amongst them. Did you notice any differences, or what differences did you see between the fraternity members and the sorority members, or what other key differences you may have seen or things that just jumped out at you in terms of what you observed from all the different videos?
MA: The only thing that I would say was a difference that I noticed – I didn’t notice any difference in the things that they said, let me start there. It was basically unanimous across the board. Maybe I could go back and look at the data a little bit more to drill down to see if there were differences. The only thing that did stand out to me was in gathering the data there were way more videos of sorority members than there were fraternity members. So I wanted to do three rounds of groups. So I studied a round of transcripts and saw what I got from there, and then I did another round, and then I did another round, and the goal was to get equal representation. But by the time I got to the third round it was more sororities than fraternities, because that is what was available to me to pull from. I’m not surprised by that, because that matches data from the Black church. When we talk about the demographics of male versus female, the Black Church is filled more with female members in their congregation. And female members tend to be more religiously expressive. So I think that was the only difference that I saw, but it is not something that was surprising.
RM: I’m curious to know what is next for you in terms of this topic. Are you gonna continue to pursue it? Or what, what or what are some other areas related to this, that you think we should really start to look at, based on what you learn.
MA: So for me, yes, I’ll continue to pursue it. It will either be a book or a documentary, and it will include the other side of the story. So we have people well, other sides – let me say plural – because you have Greek members who are Christian, who are clergy members. You know, each organization has officers that are tasked with being chaplains. So they do a lot of preaching, and all this in our organizations. So getting their side of the story. Looking at what they think about the research and how they make meaning of the things that people are saying, when they hold up the Bible versus the rituals, and say, these two contradict. So what are the Greek members who are Christians who are very much committed to the organizations have to say about this. There is another group of people who have denounced and changed their minds, and have wanted to come back to the organizations that we need to hear from. Yes.
RM: There is such a group?
MA: There is such a group. I can’t tell you how big it is. I don’t know, it might be very small, but there are. For our sorority. There are people who, our leaders say, have wanted to come back, and they can’t find them anywhere in the system, and they do more research and find out, “Oh, you’re not in the system, because a long time ago you denounced and I’m so sorry you can no longer, you can’t come back”. And I know personally someone who denounced but did not go through the process officially with their organization, changed their mind and went back to their organization. And since I’ve been presenting people have told me, “Yes, I left, and I didn’t go through the official process. I left, I denounced, I, you know, did all the things personally. But I just went through my own journey, and then I came to a different realization. And now I am back, you know, financially active. physically active member.”
RM: I definitely want to hear from that group. In my experience that is one group I haven’t encountered. That would be a 1st for me as a director of membership to get a call from a member who says, “You know, I denounced, gave up my membership, but I want to come back. That would be a very interesting conversation to be had.
MA: Yeah, yeah, it would. So that, that is, that’s in the works. And it’s high time I pick it back up and the process for whether a documentary or book is, is in the works right now.
RM: I’ll continue to wish you some blessings cause this is really needed work, and I really sincerely mean it. As we close out, are there any parting words that you would say to us in the industry? And I would say, not just D9, because I think that this can affect us all. And I know that our research, your research rather focus on D9. But I mean, this is applicable to anyone. So that’s what I really like about this [research].
MA: Right.
RM: Especially using our community. You know, most research is is based on, you know. White identities and then they take that and apply to everyone else. So I really like the fact that our community is being center in this research, but that the findings can be applied to anybody else as well. So that’s something else I really appreciate about the research you’re doing here. So any closing thoughts. And for those of us in the industry to to consider. If, as we think about, how do we address this topic within our organizations.
MA: Yes, I’m glad you mentioned that or brought that up because I did want to note I just spoke at James Madison University, where they have the Intercultural Greek council that includes the NPHC, NALFO and NAPA. I mentioned, if you think that this is not something that you should listen to because you’re not in the NPHC, don’t think that way, because this could very well be your organization next. I said that and after the presentation, the advisor who hired me is a member of Lambda Theta Alpha, a Latino sorority, and she told me, “We just had somebody to denounce so I’m glad you said that.” And so yes, this is something that could potentially not just be an NPHC issue. Just like hazing, it is an issue that is not just a fraternity and sorority issue. And so people denouncing their sororities and fraternities, it most definitely could be something that could be on the rise for other organizations. And I would say it is better to get ahead of the issue than to follow it. So be proactive and take advantage of the research that I’ve done, and the suggestions that I’m making for changes. Because hopefully, if your organization has not experienced this if you go ahead and make those changes now, it never will.
RM: Well, Dr. Ashley, as always, I am so honored to have been sitting under your tree and catching some of the good fruit of knowledge that you’ve been dropping. Thank you so much for taking time out of your very busy schedule to be here with us, and to share this knowledge with our perspective readers. And so thank you.
MA: Yes, no problem anytime, and I’ll definitely keep you posted on that documentary.
About the Author
Dr. Mea Ashley serves as the Corporate Relationship Director for United Way of the Capital Area. and has built her professional foundation on ten years of higher education administration at two of Mississippi’s public universities. Ashley holds doctorate and master’s degrees in Leadership and Change from Antioch University, and a master’s degree from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree from Jackson State University, both in journalism. Her research interests include organizational alignment, and her dissertation analyzes religion in Black Greek-letter organizations. Mea is a 2010 Spring initiate of the Delta Pi chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and is currently a member-at-large.
