Is it Spring Yet?

Rich Abrahamson/The Coloradoan

Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity member Mitch Lamboeuf flings snow at Erin Ryan, a CSU student, as the pair and others from the fraternity and sorority Pi Beta Phi built a giant snow castle for a Greek Week competition at the 121 E. Lake St. fraternity house Tuesday April 16, 2013.

Merry Christmas From Colorado State SigEps!

This is the first of four videos CSUSigEp has promoting their "Holiday Toy Drive and Light Show."



...and here are links to the others:

• Act Two
• Act Three
• Act Four

Enjoy!

Colorado Frats Trying to Get Even with University

Frats Take On University of Colorado, Again
(as reported by 9News.com)

It's round two of what could become a marathon battle between the University of Colorado and its fraternities, and the Greeks think they will win again.

University administrators cut official ties with fraternities when they refused in 2005 to delay their recruitment of freshmen following the alcohol-poisoning death a year earlier of a fraternity pledge.

Officials said new students need more time to get acclimated with student life before being exposed to the social pressures of fraternity life, and residences should have live-in advisers.

After official ties were cut, fraternities were treated like credit card companies or other vendors who wanted information about students.The Interfraternity Council, which represents 15 Boulder chapters, hired a consultant who bought the mailing lists for $1,800. The result was an increase in new pledges of about 22 percent, the Camera reported.

The university then adopted a new mailing policy which prevents release of names and addresses of students until three weeks after school has started. Ron Stomp, vice chancellor for student affairs, says the goal wasn't to curb pledging but to prevent families from being inundated with mail.

"We'd get complaints from families who said, 'We are getting so much in the mail. Can you do something about it?"' Stump said.

A panel will review requests for the information and can refuse them.Mark Stine, consultant for the fraternities, said they would file an open-records request for the information.

"The university has rules and regulations for students' welfare. We understand that. We do, too. We just want to be treated like everybody else. The only way to make sure that is happening is by checking," he said.

Meanwhile, frat leaders are using a Web site, Facebook.com, to contact new students. The site, which focuses on college members, claims 30 million users.

Phi Kappa Phi member Eric Smith, president of the InterFraternity Council's Rush Committee, said this year's class will be even bigger than last year.Chapters also are holding barbecues and other social events and inviting freshmen. "We've been having to be a little more creative this year," Smith said.

UC Greeks and Police Team Up for Safe Parties

U. Colorado Greeks team with police for safer parties
By Nicole Danna

Which is more unlikely: A University of Colorado fraternity raising money to support its local patrol officers, or the greeks actually getting along with the city police?

If you answered neither, guess again, because in Boulder, Colo., you won't find any bad blood between the fraternities and the officers that patrol the Hill.

Actually, they get along just fine thanks to a liaison project initiated spring of last year by Sergeant Lauri Wegscheider, the captain of the Boulder Police Department's Hill team.

"They're not against us anymore. It seemed as though, in years past, there was a lot of animosity between the greeks and the police, and we wanted to communicate more," said Wegscheider, who began working the Hill beat after a 2006 promotion.

The liaison program, designed to improve relations between the police and the greek community, assigns one of the six Hill officers to each of the university's 10 Pan-Hellenic sororities and 14 fraternities.

Each Hill officer communicates with his or her house through its president, social chair and risk management representative, and works to educate them on issues such as safe party methods, security, noise and emergency procedures.

The Hill officer is also the person the chapters alert when they are planning a party of 50 people or more, said Wegscheider. The officer then conducts a safety check in the house to ensure everything is up to code.

"Rather than breaking up a party, they've taken a proactive role to ensure it happens safely," said CU junior Nicholas Heguy, president of the Delta Chi fraternity.

And with at least one fraternity party every weekend on the Hill, the program has been helpful in keeping things under control, said Wegscheider.

"They want to have parties, and that's fine, but we need to make them safe," said Wegscheider.

For CU Greek Advocate Marc Stine, it's the perfect example of community policing.
"We've come a long way from the Pig Bowl. The [fraternities and police] are working together more than they ever have. It's really amazing," said Stine.

According to Wegscheider, the liaison program has already had a positive improvement on the Hill.

"I do think that the relationships have changed. You still have a handful of people that haven't gotten with the changes yet, but we're all trying to work together, now, and that's been great," said Wegscheider.

But the police aren't the only ones taking the time to make things better.
To give back to those who have given so much, the Delta Chi fraternity has organized an all-greek formal to raise money for the BPD Hill team.

For Heguy, it's the best way to support those who have supported the greeks during the past two years.

The event will take place before Greek Week on Thursday, April 12. Tickets cost $15 per person, said Heguy, who hopes to raise as much as $15,000 during the event.

"The [Hill police] officers have been one group that have been very supportive, not just disciplinary," said Heguy Thursday. "They work with us on education and show us how we can be safer, rather than just pushing us away, as others have done. So we wanted to help them out as much we could, because they are the only ones that have stuck by us [in the past few years].

"The fraternities are no longer recognized by the university after the alcohol-poisoning death of a freshman pledge in 2004.

Since that time, the fraternities have been at odds with the university, which asked them to defer fall rush to spring recruitment instead. The fraternities declined, and as a result, relations between the two entities have been strained.

Heguy said he would like to see the event's funds go towards new alcohol education equipment that would aid the Hill officers in their instructional rounds on the Hill.

"But whether it goes back into the Greek community or not, this is for them," said Heguy. "It's really to give back to those who have helped us."

FROM THE COLORADO DAILY PRESS

Credit where credit's due

If someone had told us five years ago we would some day write an editorial praising fraternities in Boulder for their maturity, common sense and dedication to their community, we would have laughed out loud. After all, the reputation of some of the fraternities - and by association the entire Greek system - has been marred by everything from loud parties to alcohol-related deaths. For a while there it seemed like the fraternity houses on the Hill had been replaced by Al Qaida training camps.

Times have changed. And the most impressive part of the whole transformation of CU's fraternities from soccer hooligans to respectable young men is they did it on their own, without the help or persuasion of the CU administration. Good for the fraternities, we say, for recognizing their own shortcomings and addressing them before it was too late.

Then, to top it all off, the CU Interfraternity Council's (IFC) executive board announced last month plans for a “Social Moratorium,” a two-week hiatus in partying to aid Boulder's 15 fraternity chapters in an ongoing assessment of their risk management policies.

During the moratorium, which ends today, chapters were prohibited from holding any social events in their houses that involve the use of alcohol, giving them an opportunity to improve their safety and risk management procedures with a particular emphasis on holding safe, controlled social events.

Typically, a university or national fraternity imposes such restrictions on partying only after something terrible happens. But reactionary tactics yield almost no benefits for fraternities or the public. What they do create is more hostility between the university and the frats who have grown tired of being blamed for every little thing that happens to drunken partiers in Boulder.

That attitude reached a fever pitch after CU freshman pledge Lynn “Gordie” Bailey was found dead in the Chi Psi fraternity house on the Hill in September 2004 after a night of initiation that included the consumption of mass quantities of alcohol.

Shortly thereafter, the University demanded that CU fraternities and sororities abandon fall rush. The sororities bowed to the university, but the fraternities refused. In retaliation, the university dissociated itself from all fraternities.

The move to stand up to the university was a smart one. No one, save the family, mourned the death of Bailey more than his fraternity brothers. Punishing the fraternity involved and its members was appropriate, but meddling in the affairs of other fraternities was not.

The unfounded bias against fraternities became even more evident a few months after Bailey's death when another student, 21-year-old Bryan Merritt, was found dead in his dorm room. Even before the facts of the case were clear, fingers were pointed at a fraternity that hosted a party the night before Merritt was found. He had attended the party, but by all accounts was not drunk. Despite the efforts of the fraternity - which checked IDs and had police on hand to administer breathalyzer tests - they were blamed for the death. They were later cleared of any wrongdoing.

The moratorium enacted in February represents a new approach for the Greek community. CU Greek Advocated Marc Stine said, since October, the IFC noticed a trend towards noisier parties. Fraternity-police liaisons, he said, expressed concern about the problem, and the IFC took action. They held a risk management meeting which included fraternity presidents, social chairs, house managers, risk managers, and new member education chairs, who heard presentations from the Boulder Police and Fire Departments, national fraternity legal counsel, specialists in fraternity operations, and IFC officers.

This proactive approach to problem-solving received praise from some university officials as well as police and fire representatives. Boulder's Fire Safety Educator Sherry Kenyon went so far as to call the decision “mature.”Again, not a word we thought we'd ever be using to describe a Boulder fraternity.

The efforts of the IFC to control fraternities and to take the safety and reputation of its members into its own hands has been nothing short of astonishing. It's the kind of thing that used to be expected of Greek organizations.

We think the university should take its lumps, admit the fraternities have done a great job of self-policing, and allow them back on campus.

After all, Boulder fraternities are acting more and more like adults these days. It's time the CU administration did the same.

Marc D. Stine, LLC Greek Advocate @ CU-Boulder 303.841.0132 phn/fax 303.995.1646 cellular mstine@usa.net www.CUGreekAdvocate.com
“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance or conscientious stupidity.”
Marc Stine www.CUGreekAdvocate.com