Today, Delta Sigma Pi has more than 265,000 members and approximately 6,000 members are being initiated each year. See the article from November 8, 2016 to see our growth since our Founding.
In his memories recorded in the Centennial DELTASIG, Past Executive Director Mike Mazur recalls some of the changes he made at the national headquarters to better aid the growing Fraternity. His biggest goal was to computerize Central Office operations. “Actually, the operating procedures were quite sound but it was obvious that some of them were in place since the days of Gig Wright.”
He goes on to explain, “Delta Sigma Pi was initiating about 2,500 members a year in the early ’80s and there were over 100,000 member records. When a new member was to be added to the records, the staff either wrote or typed the name and other data about that member at least seven times. The member record, the preparation of a membership card and the preparation of a membership certificate were separate processes."
"For a number of years prior to my arrival, the Fraternity had been using an outside database management firm. A “coding sheet” for each new member or member record change was prepared by hand and submitted to the company. On an annual basis, the outside firm provided a master printout of the database in various sorts. Between those annual printouts, the staff manually noted changes or additions. To obtain the address of a member, one had to find the name on the alphabetized 1/4” by 5” “Cardex” strips mounted on five large turning racks. That provided a chapter and membership number which could then be used to find the member record in the annual printout. It was quite a chore to look up a few names!”
During the fall of 1981, the Board of Directors approved a proposal for a computerized membership, Chapter Efficiency Index (CEI) and accounting system costing about $90,000. This was the second largest capital expenditure by the Fraternity after the Central Office building.
Even after purchasing new software, CEI did not move completely to a web-based program until 2001. In 2009, CEI become the Chapter Management Program and three years after that, the Fraternity membership database, Patriot, was upgraded and the Hub, which houses CMP and more, was launched. This was just 15 years after the introduction of Delta Sigma Pi’s first website.
As the world around us changes, Delta Sigma Pi continues to evolve. Although technology has been a large part of that change over the last 35 years (20 years ago, the Central Office didn’t even have email and now, collectively, the staff receives more than 1 million annually!), many other changes propel us to make the Fraternity better and stronger. Without change, we would still be an all-male Fraternity without economic majors. The biggest question now—how do we continue to evolve?