UT frats start implementing changes as result of butt-chugging incident

From the Article:

“The need was there, obviously, to try to work toward a change in the culture, but that was the one event that brought attention to it more than any other,” said Kelly Williams, chapter adviser for Sigma Phi Epsilon.“There’s been a concerted effort, especially here in the last several months, to work with the university to implement the recommendations in the task force, but also to impact the culture among the students at the university.

“It’s the actions of a few individuals that ultimately not only reflected negatively on the (Pi Kappa Alpha) fraternity, but also the greek system and the university as a whole,” he added.

UT frats start implementing changes as result of butt-chugging incident » Knoxville News Sentinel:

SigEp Student dies Friday of natural causes

The IL Nu Chapter (Eastern Illinois University) is in our thoughts and prayers today. A fine young man with what looked to be a great future has passed away without any warning or obvious reason. .
Student dies Friday of natural causes
By Samantha McDaniel and Tim Deters/Student Governance Editor and Managing Editor

Nick Allen

Eastern student Nick Allen was found dead Friday in the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity house, 2103 12th St.

Allen, who was a sophomore pre-business management major, was found at the foot of his bed and pronounced dead at 11:53 a.m. Friday, Coles County Coroner Ed Schniers said.

The cause of death has not been determined but was not suspicious, Schniers said.

Schniers said Allen had a history of epilepsy.

While it is unknown whether epilepsy was a contributing factor to Allen’s death, Schniers said it is the most likely cause of death at this time.

A toxicology report has been ordered and will take six to eight weeks to return results.

Allen was vice president of membership development for Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, vice president for public relations of the Interfraternity Council, a student senator and chairman of the University Enhancement Committee, and recently organized the annual Safety Walk to identify and address areas of safety concern on and off campus. Allen also served as Billy the Panther for the 2012-13 season.

Derek Collinsworth, the president of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, was a close friend of Allen and said he had a strong, respectable character.

“He was a very hard-working individual and always put others before himself,” Collinsworth said.

The death of Allen has hit many Sig Eps hard, Collinsworth said, but the outpouring of support from the Greek and Eastern communities as a whole has been reassuring and comforting.

Student Senate Speaker Mitch Gurick said Allen was a strong voice across multiple organizations in the campus community.

KU's IFC Charged with Hazing Abuse

KU’s fraternity governing body is accused of hazing

Staff and wire reports

An organization charged with leadership and governance of fraternities at the University of Kansas has been accused of hazing — a ritual that has plagued fraternities across the country.

The university says it will sanction the Interfraternity Council after finding that members of the council’s executive board paddled others during a leadership transition ceremony in November.

A report by university officials says members took turns hitting each other with paddles. The report also indicates it wasn’t the first time such paddling took place. The report says similar events happened during the 2009 ceremony.

The school’s report says current anti-hazing programs “do not seem to be having an effect.”

The university’s vice provost for student success is contemplating what kind of sanctions to issue.

Such penalties could include probation and forcing the council to institute more extensive anti-hazing educational programs.

Members of the Interfraternity Council could not be reached for comment. The council’s website has a copy of the university’s anti-hazing policy and the Kansas statute that forbids hazing.

University spokeswoman Jill Jess said the campus has taken concrete steps to confront hazing, including the formation of an anti-hazing task force and the hiring of a full-time conduct officer.

“The awareness that hazing is unacceptable is the first step toward changing the culture that has allowed it to persist,” she said. “The fact that people are coming forward when hazing is suspected is a positive move toward ending this practice altogether.”

Another high-profile hazing incident allegedly took place in September when Matt Fritzie, a freshman from Stilwell, suffered serious head, back and neck injuries after he apparently jumped into a makeshift pool during a party at the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity in Lawrence.

Fritzie, 18, was flown by helicopter to the University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City, Kan. In October, the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity was placed on two years of probation after the chapter was found in violation of hazing policies, officials said. But the investigation was not able to substantiate that the hazing resulted in physical injuries, the university said.

The Star’s Dawn Bormann and The Associated Press contributed to this report

Yale Fraternities Consider Forming IFC

After ‘Yale Sluts,’ fraternities consider forming council
Zachary Abrahamson
Staff Reporter

Facing charges of misogyny and insensitivity leveled against them by the Women’s Center, among others, following the circulation last month of the “We Love Yale Sluts” photo, several leaders of Yale’s fraternities have begun discussion of an “inter-fraternity council” — a student-led body of representatives from Yale’s fraternities that would serve as a liaison between Greeks and University administrators.

Although talk of the body’s creation remains informal for the time being, ideas on the table call for a tool that will facilitate communication among Greeks and between Greeks and administrators. Assistant Dean of Student Affairs Edgar Letriz, who lobbied for the formation of such a body a decade ago, said he would support its founding today as well.

No consensus on the proposal exists among Yale’s fraternities, but leaders interviewed concerned with fraternities’ image on campus said they are open to the idea as a means of dispelling what they call a long-standing “misperception” regarding the role of fraternities on campus.

And Alpha Delta Phi President Kevin Discepolo ’09 said he is on board with the idea of an IFC, adding that the body could serve to repair relations between Greek organizations on campus and the University.

On the night of Jan. 20, members of the Yale Women’s Center discovered on Facebook and circulated by e-mail a photograph of Zeta Psi pledges in front of the Center, holding a sign reading “We Love Yale Sluts.” The e-mail subject line read “This Time We Sue,” and the body of the message claimed that the supposed act of sexual harassment called for legal action.

An attempt to create a similar group led by Letriz in 1998 — the last time such the University seriously considered such a proposal — sputtered to a halt after proposals put forward by administrators and fraternity leaders received a tepid response from campus Greek organizations.

This time, final say on the details of any IFC — or even whether to create one at all — will belong to fraternity members, without whose participation an IFC could not succeed. It appears unlikely at this point that any body created out of the current conversations would have the power to discipline its members for violations of a hypothetical University-wide risk management policy that IFCs at other schools have been known to draw up, fraternity leaders and Letriz said.

Letriz — an alumnus of the Union College chapter of the Kappa Sigma fraternity and the member of the administration who is most experienced with fraternity relations — said the University’s approach to an IFC has always been “softer” than at other schools.

“At most institutions, an IFC is often a self-governing disciplinary body — we did not want that kind of IFC,” Letriz said, referring to the discussions in 1998. “We wanted a collective of representatives from fraternities who could come together to discuss collaboration on programming, ways to increase visibility on campus and how to create a more welcoming campus environment.”

At other schools IFCs wield more power — Cornell University’s IFC can fine chapters for violating IFC-drafted risk management policies and at Dartmouth College, the IFC sets a rush schedule which must be followed by Greek organizations.

But Letriz said that at Yale, the University’s extant disciplinary system — in the form of the Executive Committee — already holds the authority to discipline students who violate any rules of conduct an IFC could suggest or codify. Forcing fraternities to register with the Yale College Dean’s Office would not change that, he said.

“A fraternity’s registration [as an undergraduate organization] does not allow us to enact disciplinary action any more so than we can to begin with,” Letriz explained. “This notion that, if groups were to register, the University would have greater control, is a gross misconception.”
Although only five University fraternities — Alpha Epsilon Pi, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Gamma Phi Delta, Lambda Upsilon Lambda and Sigma Chi — are registered as undergraduate organizations, fraternity members interviewed said they would be unlikely to make University registration a prerequisite for membership in the IFC.

Sigma Chi President Brian Goldsmith ’09 said that given the goals of the body — facilitating communication and providing a forum for discussion about Greek Life issues — simply having a representative from each fraternity show up to IFCS meetings and voice an opinion would be sufficient.

For the Women’s Center — which accused fraternities of propagating misogyny on campus in a 26-page report it submitted to administrators on Feb. 9 — the proposal is a welcome step toward improving dialogue between fraternities and other groups on campus, Political Action Coordinator Isabel Polon ’11 said, but more should be done.

“I think we at the Women’s Center all feel that any steps taken toward some sort of mediation focused on fraternities is positive,” Polon said. “But we don’t think it should be the only action taken.”

Among other conditions, the Center’s report calls for a reform of sexual-harassment and sexual-assault education provided to students, the formation of an “official institutional relationship” between the University and Yale’s fraternities, and the calling of the Zeta Psi members involved in the photograph, as well as the fraternity’s leaders, before the Executive Committee.

Sigma Phi Epsilon President Michael Schwartzman ’09 voiced support for an IFC, saying it could potentially foster “an atmosphere of mutual recognition and respect in interactions” between fraternities and the University. But he said fraternity leaders should not allow emotion, running high after last month’s incident, to push them toward creating a body that lacks the support of a broad swath of Yale’s fraternity population.

“I’m hesitant to believe that a sufficiently balanced IFC could be created as a response to recent events,” Schwartzman said. “Given the Women’s Center’s recommendations, I fear the principal expectation for the IFC would be to put fraternities on a tighter leash.”

Yet the allure of working with the University remains dim for other fraternities, including Delta Kappa Epsilon, where newly-minted president James Pilkerton ’09 said an IFC would be unnecessary at Yale and that the fraternity plans to stay independent.

“As far as remaining independent goes,” Pilkerton said. “The way I see it, as long as we’re off campus, and as long as we’re not receiving University funding, there’s no reason for us not to stay as independent as we can.”

The Women’s Center asked that the University respond to their report’s stipulations by March 7, but administrators have said that a thoughtful discussion process will likely take longer

Texas Christian SigEps Elected to SGA and IFC Posts

(from the HQ news feed)

Thomas Pressly '09, and Brett Major '10, took the president and vice president slots respectively for Texas Christian's Student Government Association and will serve through 2008. Texas Gamma SigEps filled these two posts last year as well.

Chapter President Clayton Simons '09, was elected to serve as Interfraternity Council President for Texas Christian, giving Texas Gamma three of the most influential campus-wide positions for students at the university.

Congratulations!

End of the Road for Fraternity houses?

Loyola of New Orleans seems to be finding new ways to exercise draconian en loco parentis standards. The bitch of it is that Sig Ep is caught in the middle.

A new university rule prohibits off-campus housing for Loyola groups, including fraternities.

Earlier this semester, Timur Alptunaer left one of his first meetings as president of the Inter-Fraternity Council with some surprising knowledge: The university had adopted a policy that no longer supported off-campus housing for fraternities or any other student organization.

The fact surfaced once Alptunaer voiced Sigma Phi Epsilon's intention to purchase a property in the area to house the chapter.

"Loyola University New Orleans shall not recognize student organizations that maintain off-campus facilities which are publicly identified or commonly associated with the organization and which the group plans to use for organizational activity," states the policy.

"It's coming off as all frats are banned from buying a house because they are typically the ones that have that arrangement," said Chris Cameron, director of the Office of Co-Curricular Programs.

"But in reality, the chess club couldn't go off campus and buy their own house and live there."

Right. And you know how wild and crazy those chess geeks get.

This comes at a particularly inconvenient time for the Loyola SigEp chapter.

Alptunaer got word to Sig Ep's alumni board of directors as they were in the middle of securing a property on which they could house their chapter, an opportunity that comes once every several years because of a city ordinance placing a moratorium on building fraternity houses on properties not zoned for that purpose.

"Basically, unless you get the city council's vote to do otherwise, you needed to wait until a property zoned for a fraternity house opened up and then buy it for a chapter house," Gele said.

"You can't buy any property and use it to build a fraternity house, which makes housing very limited."

However, their efforts and patience in the light of Loyola's new policy were for naught.

"I wish Sig Ep had come to our office sooner, and we could've said, 'Don't bother, we're not going that way as an institution,'" Cameron said. "The unfortunate part is that they invested so much time into trying to get the house."

Wouldn't it be easier to just disband fraternities altogether, if that is the intention?

The Maroon

San Diego Sig Eps Clean Up at Greek Awards Ceremony

Chapters receive recognition during Unity Night on Monday

Greek Weeks 2007 came to a close on Monday after Unity Night was held in Montezuma Hall.Sororities, fraternities and some individual Greek members received academic awards and this year's outstanding Greeks were recognized as well.

The Greek Man of the Year awards went to Tim Velasquez and David Judge; and Greek Woman of the Year went to Amanda Venegas, Anna Nguyen and Brittany Abrams.

Greek New Member of the Year awards went to Spencer Neft, Kimberly Guzman and Alicia Gomez, the latter of whom is a psychology major who also won an award for most improved grade-point average.

Awards for Chapter President of the Year went to Justin Motika, Kimi Marshall, Denishia Clark and Beckie Cecil.

Sigma Phi Epsilon nearly cleaned up all of the Inter-Fraternity Council awards. Sigma Phi Epsilon received the highest chapter GPA, highest initiate GPA and the highest new member GPA awards. Sigma Alpha Mu received the most improved chapter GPA award.

Individual IFC awards went to Jonathan Tucker from Sigma Phi Epsilon for the highest SDSU GPA and Sean Olah from Zeta Beta Tau for the most improved GPA.

"Everyone here tonight should be proud of the accomplishments that these students are being recognized for," said Kim Stokely, the assistant coordinator for fraternity and sorority life, to the audience. "Because it is the combination of intelligent and dedicated students, thoughtful faculty and staff and encouraging friends and families that make those accomplishments possible."At the end of the evening, Mama's Kitchen, the philanthropy for Greek Week, received a check for
$20,000.

Dreaming of sleep

This article on sleep deprivation in college students focuses on Lehigh's Tyler Rock - IFC president, SigEp chapter president, and fifth-year senior with a double major. (That makes me tired just typing it.)

As both a civil and integrated business engineer, Tyler Rock goes two or three weeks straight averaging four hours of sleep per night. In addition, the current president of the Interfraternity Council puts his alarm clock far away from his bed so he must get out of bed to wake up. Rock rises and blinks his eyes repeatedly in an attempt to stay awake. He showers about 10 minutes after the alarm goes off.

Because of his extracurricular activities, the fifth-year senior has had a jam-packed schedule for most of his tenure as a student. He is also Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity’s president and has been a member of Student Senate for three years. He has certainly kept busy. Maybe too busy. Approximately half his college days have been taken up with 8 a.m. classes; but, despite his fatigue, Rock loves his extracurricular activities.

“Oftentimes I will lie awake thinking of a variety of things on my mind throughout the day,” Rock says. “Anything from a test to any extracurricular thing I’m doing.”

Sleep is an aspect of life neglected by college students. With the Internet, television, instant messaging, studying and partying, students don’t find time for sleep.

“If people are having trouble with the amount of hours they are sleeping, then they need to manage their time better,” says Steph Berger, ’07, Healthy Hawks coordinator. “Something must be cut out of their schedule, extracurricular activities if it’s necessary, because there is time in the day for sleep.”

Unfortunately, young adults produce melatonin as if in a time zone two hours behind wherever they are actually living. Melatonin is the hormone in the brain that regulates the cycle for humans to want to rest. Therefore, all students would need to adapt to the regular time zone in order to remain awake to the rhythm of the sun. One poll, conducted in April of 2005 by Katie Becker, ’07, found the average length of sleep for 40 students the night before was 5.8 hours.

“Personally, I think a balanced sleep schedule helps,” Rock says. “Exercising and watching what you eat should help, too. The healthier lifestyle you live, I think, helps with a healthier sleep schedule.”

Click the link below for the full article.

Dreaming of sleep - The Brown and White