Wall Street pipeline fraternity snubbed by JPMorgan for excessive hazing rituals

SAE fraternity announced their no-pledging directive on the same day JP Morgan decided to stop doing business with them.

The bank, which has said it would pay more than $23 billion to resolve regulatory and criminal investigations, has cut ties since last year with about 2,000 clients that could attract scrutiny.  In February, JPMorgan said that it was reconsidering the relationship with SAE to avoid tarnishing its reputation.

A cynic would say "It's all about the Benjamins". A more charitable person might conclude the build-up of unsavory news stories caused misgivings both internal and external. Read the article and decide for yourself.

Wall Street pipeline fraternity snubbed by JPMorgan for excessive hazing rituals | Financial Post:

Early this month, JPMorgan Chase & Co. stopped managing an investment account for a prominent client: the charitable foundation of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, one of the nation’s largest fraternities.

The bank was concerned about SAE’s bad publicity, according to Anthony Alberico, a JPMorgan vice president who dealt with the foundation. SAE has had 10 deaths linked to drinking, drugs and hazing since 2006, more than any other fraternity.

“If JPMorgan is going to turn us down, who’s next?” said Bradley Cohen, SAE’s national president. “What if universities start saying SAE’s not welcome?”

The snub by the largest U.S. bank validated a startling decision that Cohen, seeking to protect future members, had already reached. On March 7, the same day JPMorgan formally cut ties with the fraternity, the 51-year-old Cohen announced an end to one of SAE’s defining traditions: pledging, the months-long initiation where recruits sometimes fall prey to brutal hazing. The move catapulted Cohen into national prominence and drew criticism from alumni such as Texas oilman-turned-investor T. Boone Pickens. SAE became one of only a handful of 75 national fraternities to eliminate pledging.

“How much longer can we sustain these losses — loss of life, loss of credibility to those who join and drop out because they were lied to, loss of valuable resources and loss of our reputation as leaders and as true gentlemen,” Cohen told SAE brothers this month at the University of La Verne in California during his first public address since the announcement.

Fraternities continue to follow in SigEp’s footsteps

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Fraternities continue to follow in SigEp’s footsteps:

Sigma Alpha Epsilon is the most recent fraternity to follow SigEp’s lead and replace pledging with a better fraternity experience.

On Friday, March 7, 2014, Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) became the most recent fraternity to replace pledging with single-tier membership. The news came as part of more sweeping changes that introduced a new, member development program: The True Gentleman Experience.

SAE’s True Gentleman Experience is based on “five cornerstones” that are similar to SigEp’s own philosophical tenets, elements that have been central to the Fraternity’s Balanced Man Program (BMP) since its inception in 1992.

SAE’s new program, the True Gentleman Experience, is being supported by a 43-page training manual, which introduces the program’s five cornerstones. These cornerstones, and the program at-large, mirror SigEp’s Balanced Man Program, its philosophical tenets, and its own 46-page manual, the Balanced Man Program Guide.

Recent Bloomberg and Insider Higher Education articles recognized SigEp as an early adopter of single-tier membership and continuous development. When SigEp first launched the Balanced Man Program, it represented a drastic departure from more familiar pledge programs as it sought to combat stereotypes associated with Greek life and return SigEp’s focus to its founding values. But in the two decades since the BMP’s launch, many fraternities have attempted to replicate the program.

SAE is the fifth member of the North-American Interfraternity Conference to remove pledging (along with SigEp, Lambda Chi Alpha, Alpha Gamma Rho, and Zeta Beta Tau), but several more, including Beta Theta Pi and Delta Upsilon, have adopted member development programs that share SigEp’s strong anti-hazing stance and emphasis on continuous development. Today, universities are demanding that fraternities evolve and adopt similar programs.

While SigEp’s transition was voted on by undergraduates and has been demand-driven since its inception, news of SAE’s own reform came as a surprise to many members when it was announced on Friday. Response from SAE members on their Facebook page shows that the fraternity will need to work to create buy in with alumni-volunteers and undergraduate brothers who must execute the program for it to succeed.  

One Facebook comment from an SAE alumnus expressed concern about the way the changes were rolled out, “to effectively change national policy without a vote, by effectively enacting a change by what amounts to an executive order... isn't the right way handle things, in my opinion.”

Still, other SAE alumni voiced support for the change, “I am very proud of our council. They had to know this move would be unpopular. This decision took the courage we wanted to see in the leaders of SAE when we elected them.”

SAE’s announcement that it will become the most recent fraternity to move in this direction creates new opportunities for SigEp to lead the Greek community. Many of SigEp’s chapters have already responded to SAE’s announcement with excitement, offering assistance to SAE chapters on their campuses. SigEp’s two-decade head start provides SAE with case studies and resources that will be helpful as they seek to implement a new development model.

Brothers at Southeast Missouri State spoke with a local CBS affiliate about the future of fraternities, a future that looks a lot like what SigEp has been doing for more than twenty years. Vice President of Communications T.J. Weber told reporters, “We call our guys new members as a blatant thing of respect.” He offered encouragement for other chapters on campus who might be considering a similar change, sharing that SigEp’s Balanced Man Program, and its emphasis on equal rights and responsibilities, “gives you more of that feeling of brotherhood.”

A Major Fraternity Bans Pledging

The video founder's day address by Brandon Weghorst, spokesperson for Sigma Alpha Epsilon. He discusses the proposed changes to their membership process.

The Brian Lehrer Show: A Major Fraternity Bans Pledging - WNYC:

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