Female Soldiers Start Exclusive Military Sorority

An anomaly - an interesting and worthwhile posting on TSM (sister to TFM).

Total Sorority Move | Female Soldiers Start Exclusive Military Sorority:

The exclusiveness of the Greek system is something scorned by many, but mostly celebrated by those who are a part of it. My letters are special, because not everyone can wear them. I was chosen to be a member of this organization, and then I earned my spot as a sister. It’s a sentiment that many of us share.

We tend to believe that anyone who didn’t go Greek either made a poor decision or didn’t belong. Then we remember our members of the military, many of whom are unable to attend college full-time because of their duties to this amazing country. And as we all know, part-time students are ineligible for membership within our community. That sucks. My ability to access and connect with other women is of the utmost importance to me. My sorority was a part of my college experience so significant, that I can’t imagine my life without it. And not even having the option to join? It would have been rough.

That’s no longer an issue for military woman.

On April 4, 2011, YaShica Hill and Moneka Smith-Daily served as the first national president and national vice president, respectively to our country’s first ever military sorority, Kappa Epsilon Psi. Two years later, the first chapter of KEΨ was chartered in Baltimore. Now, the organization is expanding.

From KEΨ’s national website:

Kappa Epsilon Psi has three objectives: 

Honor our Past – Annually each active chapter will honor a female veteran (over the age of 65). The female service member is inducted as an honorary K.E.Y. member, and her legacy/military service is documented.

Unite service members – We aspire to unite female service members of all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces. Membership is open to all female service members who are or have served honorably. Our goal is to have a member or active chapter on every military installation – stateside & abroad.

Mentor future leadership – Candidates with less than 2 years of military service are paired with a Big Sister that has more time in service & wisdom to share. Members that are retired from military service are paired with new members who wish to seek similar career paths in the civilian sector.

After seeing the positive reaction to the military sorority, male service members followed suit and created a military fraternity, Kappa Lambda Chi, which — you guessed it — was founded on July 4 of last year.

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Greek houses celebrate couples with pinning ceremonies

Greek houses celebrate couples with pinning ceremonies - Daily Nebraskan: Arts And Entertainment: 

Vanessa Daves

It’s about 6 p.m. on April 15, 2012, and dinner is going as usual for the women of Alpha Omicron Pi at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. They eat dinner and catch up with their house mom over dessert.

Maria Luedtke, an active member of AOPi, and Austin Peterson, 
a Sigma Phi Epsilon (SigEp) alumni, hold their chapters’ pins 
together. For the pinning ceremony, the fraternity and sorority 
members gather in the sorority house, often sing songs and tell 
stories about the couple before the fraternity man puts his pin 
on the sorority woman’s dress.

But they’re ready to cut to the chase. Everyone knows there’s going to be a pinning tonight — they all saw the pink rose that’s been on the table in the entryway of their house since early this morning.

Instead of heading upstairs for the meeting right away, like they usually do at this point in the evening, Alpha Omicron Pi President Emily Kerl, 21, turns off the lights to begin the ceremony. Everyone starts banging the tables in a drum roll and cheering and squealing, anxious to find out which of their sisters is being pinned by a fraternity man.

Pinning ceremonies are ritualistic celebrations held within the Greek community where a fraternity member gives his fraternity pin to a woman in a sorority, symbolizing that he values his girlfriend more than his house. For many couples, a pinning is a milestone in their relationship that symbolizes intent to remain in a serious and committed relationship.

Kerl brings in a single, lit candle while Emily Davis, a best friend of the sister being pinned, reads a love letter from a fraternity member to the women of the house, declaring his love for their sister he is pinning. When Davis is finished reading the letter, the candle is passed around, from table to table, girl to girl, until finally, it’s blown out by senior finance major Maria Luedtke, the woman receiving the pin.

Luedtke considers her pinning to be an important moment in the relationship between her and her now-fiancee, Austin Peterson, 22. At the time of their pinning, they had been dating for a little more than four and a half years.

“I do think pinnings are important, especially for Austin and I,” Luedtke said. “It meant much more than our commitment for each other, because we were following in his grandparents’ footsteps.”

Peterson’s grandpa, a Sigma Phi Epsilon brother, pinned his grandma, an Alpha Omicron Pi sister, when they were in college.

“Pinnings represent the couple’s commitment to each other and how they want to share it with their chapter houses,” Luedtke said.

After the candle ceremony in the kitchen, the women of Alpha Omicron Pi retired to the formal room of their house, where they were joined by the men of Sigma Phi Epsilon. Both houses sang ritual songs to celebrate the ceremony, and Luedtke and Peterson had two of their friends speak about them.

“After that, I put my pin with my (Sigma Phi Epsilon) letters on her,” Peterson said. “The pin has been passed down in my family for years, so it was cool to have a piece of my family history to give to her.”

One month after Peterson pinned Luedtke, he proposed to her.

Kerl has experienced many pinning ceremonies during her time in Greek life. She considers them important ceremonies for the couples’ relationships and said she thinks ceremonies are a fun way to celebrate the couple.

“I think what a pinning stands for is pretty cool,” Kerl said. “No matter what chapter someone is in, we all make vows to our chapter and our sisters or brothers. To put each other above their letters shows that it’s a pretty important relationship.”

Kelsey Tieken, a senior biochemistry and psychology major and Delta Gamma, was pinned a few weeks ago by her boyfriend Spencer Petersen, 21, of Sigma Nu. They will have been together for three years this December, and she considers the pinning a special moment in their relationship.

At the ceremony, she walked down the stairs of Delta Gamma into the foyer while her sisters lined the stairs holding candles and singing ritual songs. Three of her best friends spoke, and three of Petersen’s best friends in Sigma Nu spoke about their relationship and how they’d seen it grow over the three years they had been together.

“One of my best friends who has known us since freshman year of high school said she couldn’t think of a better couple,” Tieken said.

And even though hearing her best friend say that was a highlight of the ceremony, it wasn’t what she thought to be the most memorable part.

“Something I’ll always remember, no matter what, is the moment when he put his pin on me, signifying that he was putting me above his fraternity,” Tieken said.

University of Alabama president: Our Greek system remains segregated, we will not tolerate discrimination [video] | al.com

Alabama's President attempts to drag the Greek system into the 21st century. Members are ready, alums not so much.

University of Alabama president: Our Greek system remains segregated, we will not tolerate discrimination [video] | al.com:

University of Alabama
President Judy Bonner (The
University of Alabama) 

TUSCALOOSA, Alabama — University of Alabama President Judy Bonner took an unprecedented stance in a video sent out to the UA community this morning, stating outright that the college’s fraternities and sororities are segregated and discrimination will not be tolerated at UA.

Bonner prefaced her remarks with the story of the Stand in the Schoolhouse Door, a time when the nation’s eyes were on the University five decades ago. 

“Today the eyes of the nation are once again on the University of Alabama,” Bonner said. “This time it is because our Greek system remains segregated, and chapter members admit that during the recruitment process that ended a few weeks ago, decisions were made based on race.”

At a closed doors meeting with chapter advisers Sunday, Bonner said she told the group UA will not tolerate discrimination of any kind. 

“The chapter members are ready to move forward. The University of Alabama will support them in every way possible,” Bonner said. “We will work extremely hard to remove any barriers that they perceive. If we are going to adequately prepare our students to compete in the global society, we simply must make systemic and profound changes.”



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Trinity College fraternities, sororities ordered to go coed | Inside Higher Ed

Greeks ordered to go coed. Does this effectively end national Greek organizations at Trinity college? Why or why not?
We would love to see your thoughts on this one.

Trinity College fraternities, sororities ordered to go coed | Inside Higher Ed

If women live in a fraternity, is it still a fraternity? Can a sorority house men?

Most people would probably say no. At least, not by today’s standards.

But officials at Trinity College in Connecticut aren’t thinking about today’s standards. They’re thinking about the standards of 2023. That’s why they’re requiring Greek life to go coed.

It’s part of a strategic plan to improve the sense of community and image of the college, where students tend to run in cliques, retention rates have declined slightly, and social culture has grown out of proportion to academic life, said Frederick Alford, dean of students. At the outset of the planning, the president asked officials to ponder what they wanted Trinity to look like in 2023, the year of its bicentennial.

Over the past year, a committee of trustees, administrators, faculty and students have studied Trinity’s culture through interviews and data-gathering. While some of their recommendations will affect all students – for instance, the college will start placing all incoming students into cohorts in one of six residential “houses,” where they will engage in various living/learning activities and be mentored through their second year by a dean and faculty member – the makeover of Greek life is clearly causing the biggest stir.

Greek students on campus are outraged, and alumni and family members have spoken out as well. (A Change.org petition has more than 4,000 signatures.)

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/11/30/trinity-college-fraternities-sororities-ordered-go-coed#ixzz2DiaJvmHI 

Speaker encourages panhellenic members to buy in or get out - Daily Campus - Southern Methodist University

David Stollman tells it right.

Speaker encourages panhellenic members to buy in or get out - Daily Campus - Southern Methodist University

The simple statement “Buy In or Get Out” flashed on the screen in the Hughes-Trigg Ballroom Sunday evening as Panhellenic women from each sorority chapter on campus filled the room for the “Stand Up, Stand Out” lecture by David Stollman.

“I’m not here to blow sunshine at you,” Stollman said. “I’m pretty blunt and pretty honest.”

Stollman, who is the co-founder of Campuspeak and hazingprevention.org, has traveled to campuses countrywide for 15 years, encouraging Greek communities to “inject some backbone into their membership standards.”

As an active volunteer for his fraternity Sigma Phi Epsilon and the current chapter advisor for Alpha Sigma Tau sorority at New York University, Stollman has his finger on the pulse of Greek life, its stereotypes, and what needs to be done to fix them.

“I do what I do because I believe in sororities and fraternities. This is what I do by choice, because what we do makes a difference,” he said.

Stollman immediately engaged the audience with his humor, cracking jokes about the common stereotypes that describe fraternities and sororities. He then had the audience call out adjectives that are frequently used to describe members of Greek life. A few included jerks, alcoholics, hazers, partiers, snobs and airheads.

“Would our founders be proud?” he asked.

To enforce his point, Stollman showed a slideshow of pictures of college Greeks around the country, doing exactly what those adjectives described. He proved that there is much that needs to be fixed when it comes to the current image of Greek life.

“I don’t want these stereotypes hung around my neck,” he said.  “Be the ones that don’t tolerate it.”

Trading Orange for Pink

Trading Orange for Pink | The Daily Beacon:

...an excerpt:

In that effort, ZTA sisters hand out ribbons and cards to remind women to perform regular self-examinations.

"It's a private way of reminding you on a piece of paper that has stickers on it for you to put (it) on your agenda, or on your calendar, because we're all about early detection and being properly informed," Ahmed said.

The awareness effort has expanded to include the fraternity ranks as well, with Sigma Phi Epsilon assisting with the handouts on the Walkway.

"They (Sigma Phi Epsilon) have put aside any predispositions about handing out reminder cards about, well, pretty much feeling yourself up," Ahmed said.

Blake Hollis, junior in mechanical engineering and president of Sig Ep, said that breast cancer is an issue that actively affects the families of many of his fraternity brothers.

"Breast cancer really affects everyone, I'm sure you know people who have had it in the past. As a chapter, all of us are helping the Zeta Tau Alpha Foundation."

The Zeta Tau Alpha Foundation is a national organization for breast cancer awareness and education, meaning that ZTA chapters at campuses across the country are fighting the disease in similar ways to those of UT's chapter.

"The Zeta Tau Alpha foundation is really one of the best foundations I've seen that actually gets the awareness out there in ways that people remember," Hollis said.

For Ahmed, it's a fight that hits home. Her grandmother passed away due to breast cancer, and her aunt struggled with it as well.

No One is Useless - You Can Always Be A Bad Example

SC Alpha gets the star treatment. And so, by association, does all of SigEp. Don't even get me started about Vermont.

Brothers, we know we are better than this. When are we going to show it?

This article asserts that, as a group, women are outperforming men on college campuses in both academic and leadership measures. And sororities are outperforming fraternities based on measures such as Fraternity/Sorority GPA vs. all men/women GPA.

What do those of you "in the trenches" as either students or campus professionals see? Is this accurate? If so what role can SigEp play in raising the game of fraternity involvement?

Women zoom ahead of men in college - Education - TheState.com:

"What’s wrong with male college students?

A lot, it seems.

They come to college better prepared than their female counterparts. Then, they underperform.

Consider the case lesson offered by Sigma Phi Epsilon’s Alpha chapter at the University of South Carolina.

After a series of alcohol-related incidents and damage to its fraternity house, the fraternity got with university officials and established a series of goals that, if completed, could have put the local chapter back in good standing. But university and fraternity officials say the young men simply didn’t do what was asked of them, and earlier this month the fraternity suspended its Alpha chapter’s charter.

USC officials said they were disappointed — but not totally surprised.

Dennis Pruitt, USC’s vice president for student affairs, said male college students at USC, and elsewhere, are not seizing academic and leadership opportunities with the same zeal as female students."

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Colony of gay and ally sorority founded at Berkeley

New colony of sorority founded by students

By Mary Susman

Each weekend last year, current UC Berkeley sophomore Sydney Lai would go to fraternities with friends, where she would flirt with guys and enjoy her nights - all the while playing a game with her identity.

Lai is a lesbian, and although she said she likes the satisfaction of fooling men at fraternity parties into thinking she is attracted to them, the game bores her after awhile. Yet much of the Greek scene is focused around heterosexual lifestyles, sometimes leaving students who identify as queer feeling disenfranchised.

"Aside from the sisterhood, which is what attracted me, a lot of the socializing is with frats, which is for me I guess just wasting that time," Lai said. "I don't want to spend all my time flirting with guys."

So Lai founded her own lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and ally sorority colony of Gamma Rho Lambda this semester with a mission to reclaim what it means to be both a sorority sister and a queer woman.

"What binds us together is not so much our sexual orientation, but the fact that we advocate as well as identify with that group," Lai said. "We wanted that sisterhood."

Gamma Rho Lambda was founded in 2003 at Arizona State University. Zina Alam, vice president of communications for Gamma Rho Lambda National Sorority, said after becoming the "only nationally-based, active queer and ally sorority" in 2006, it now has 11 groups nationwide at both liberal and conservative college campuses.

"Some schools, they already have a lot LGBT groups, so they want something more," Alam said. "Some don't have any. They call (the sorority) the safe zone, they call it their second family and it's the only family that understands them and accepts them for who they are in more conservative communities."

Group membership for each chapter ranges from eight to 30 members, according to Alam, who said the sorority has gained about two new colonies a year since 2006. The national sorority also receives two to five inquiry emails a week from students wanting to start their own chapters, she said.

"We just let people come to us," Alam said. "We don't go out and colonize. The people at the universities have to help recruit and be motivated themselves."

The campus Gamma Rho Lambda colony - which will become a chapter after three semesters - was recognized nationally in February with an alpha class of 18 students.

"The sorority has become my life," Lai said. "Honestly, I spend probably more time on this than I do on classes."

Although the sisters live separately, they have weekly meetings and are planning for a service project in the future. As the alpha class, the group has added responsibility. According to Lai, everyone has to go through new member education like any other new sorority, except for one difference. While they learn the Greek alphabet and their sorority drinking song, they also learn about queer issues.

Lai said the group is already becoming close, especially after internal bonding activities, which range from hikes to karaoke nights at a sister's apartment to a screening of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

The sorority is joining an already active queer community at UC Berkeley - there are over 10 student organizations for queer students - yet the founders of Gamma Rho Lambda believe the sorority provides a unique space for queer women.

"A sorority is a lot more serious. A club, you can come and go, and you don't really feel that involved," said sophomore Melissa Gioino, one of three founding "mothers" of UC Berkeley's colony. "A sorority - it's more of a commitment."

While Gamma Rho Lambda is the first queer sorority at UC Berkeley, it is not the first queer organization within the campus's Greek system. A gay fraternity, Delta Lambda Phi, existed briefly in the 1990s. Currently, Sigma Epsilon Omega, a gay fraternity founded in 2007, has 40 active members, according to junior James Kealohi, president of the fraternity.

"It's nice to have a group of friends that share the same values and opinions as you," Kealohi said. "At the end of the day, SEO is a tight group of gay people and close friends."

Kealohi said he rushed various fraternities and considered joining a traditional one, but when he went to his first rush event at Sigma Epsilon Omega, he knew he belonged there. After one year, he became president.

Sigma Epsilon Omega, Kealohi said, was immediately accepted within the Greek system, and several students within the Greek community said it is generally accepting of queer students.

Sophomore Sean Oh, Interfraternity Council vice president of external affairs, said he has never heard of any conflicts within UC Berkeley's Greek system between queer and straight students in fraternities, but he encourages the formation of queer-specific fraternities.

"Every house has an individual culture," Oh said. "If they want to start their own, that's fine. It's all about where you fit in."

At the same time, Oh said no effort is made to be inclusive specifically of queer students. Yet many, including sophomore Jonny Park, say the environment of UC Berkeley is uniquely accepting of queer students compared to other campuses where queer students are more frequently rejected from the Greek scene.

Park, who identifies as a guy who likes guys, is a pledge of the fraternity Theta Chi, a traditional social fraternity. He said he never planned to pledge a fraternity, though he did rush SEO.

"I understand the need for LGBT-specific frats and sororities, but I personally don't necessarily believe in them," Park said. "I feel like fraternities and sororities should be frats and sororities - they shouldn't be gay or straight."

Park said he thinks having openly gay brothers is beneficial for traditional fraternities because it exposes everyone to different perspectives.

"I hear of a lot of people who are in the closet and are afraid to come out of the closet," he said. "I feel like these are brotherhoods - they're not straight frats - and once you're a brother, you're family."

Gioino is currently the only non-queer sister in Gamma Rho Lambda; she has been a queer advocate ever since some of her close friends came out during high school.

Nevertheless, Gioino said that being a straight student in a lesbian sorority means she often has to defend her own sexual orientation. She said her friends and family members often ask "Are you gay? It's okay if you are," although most do not trust her answer.

Moving forward, Lai said they will integrate more into UC Berkeley's Greek community by having fraternity exchanges because the sisters "want to fit in with what sororities do," Lai said, adding that there are girls in the sorority who are attracted to men. The group also hopes to gain recognition as a sorority for queer women and those who do not fit in with traditional sororities.

"We were a bunch of queer women who knew of other queer women, but we didn't identify with the specific cliques," Lai said. "I guess, in a way, we formed our own clique."

http://www.dailycal.org/article/112646

Self-objectification Studied in Sorority Membership

Only The Beautiful Need Apply
New study flags damaging effect of joining a sorority on body image and eating behaviors.

Undergraduate women who join a sorority* are more likely to judge their own bodies from an outsider's perspective (known as self-objectification) and display higher levels of bulimic attitudes and behaviors than those who do not take part in the sorority's recruitment process. Over time, those women who join the group also show higher levels of body shame. These findings¹, part of Ashley Marie Rolnik's senior honors thesis² at Northwestern University in the US, are published online in Springer's journal Sex Roles.

On college campuses across the US, thousands of women join sororities every year through a structured recruitment process - the sorority rush. Although these sisterhoods provide college women with opportunities for personal growth and enrichment, they have been criticized for their potential to lead their members to focus excessively and unhealthily on their appearance.

Rolnik's study is the first to test objectification theory (which links self-objectification to body dissatisfaction and shame, eating disorders and associated behaviors) outside the laboratory in a real-life context. They surveyed 127 first-year college women aged 17-20 years at a US Midwestern University to investigate the relationship between participation in a sorority rush, self-objectification, and eating disorder behaviors. The students were split into two groups: those who went through the recruitment process and joined the sorority, and those who did not take part in any aspect of the rush. At four different time points (before the rush; a few days into the rush; on the day the bids to join are received; and one month after the rush), participants completed online questionnaires.

Levels of self-objectification and disordered eating behaviors were higher among rush participants than among women who did not take part, throughout the study period. A month after the rush, new members also displayed higher levels of body shame. Those women with higher body weights were more likely to drop out of the rush process and feel dissatisfied with it, even though those who dropped out were not overweight but simply less thin than those who joined the sorority. These findings suggest that sorority membership may exacerbate pre-existing, problematic attitudes and behaviors.

The authors conclude: "Interventions aimed at reducing sorority women's focus on physical appearance may hold promise as one of the many routes to addressing body image disturbance and eating disorders among sorority members. As sororities are very powerful at influencing the norms and ideals of their members, a move away from a focus on appearance and towards a set of norms that encourages healthy eating habits and more positive approaches to body image has real potential."

*Sorority: a social organization of female students at a college or university

References:
1. Rolnik AM, Engeln-Maddox R, Miller SA (2010). Here's looking at you: self-objectification, body image disturbance, and sorority rush. Sex Roles DOI 10.1007/s11199-010-9745-y
2. The thesis was completed under the direction of Professor Renee Engeln-Maddox, Northwestern University, USA.
The link for the full text of the research article is:
http://springerlink.com/content/p102r857n13r7000/fulltext.html
___

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/180941.php

_____________________________________

ASU Sigma Chi's Accused Of Sodomy and Rape

Woman Says Frat Boys Drugged & Raped Her

By JAMIE ROSS

PHOENIX (CN) - Members of Arizona State's Sigma Chi fraternity drugged and sodomized a woman at a toga party, the woman says in Maricopa County Court. She claims the Sigma Chi chapter at ASU has a history of code of conduct violations and "sexual violent offenses" including hazing, forced drug use and animal abuse.

The plaintiff, a former student at ASU and member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority, went with other sorority members to Sigma Chi's toga party at a sushi restaurant which the fraternity had rented for the night. She says she was given alcohol there though she was just 19 years old.

At the restaurant, she says, Matt Potter, a Sigma Chi member, gave her an alcoholic drink "that had been spiked with a drug designed to incapacitate her and impair her memory."

She says her memory of the night was impaired by the drink, until she woke up the next day at the Sigma Chi house with severe rectal pain, without her purse and some of her clothing. She says a friend took her to Tempe St. Luke's Hospital, where a sexual assault examination determined that she had been assaulted and "exposed to bodily fluids" through anal and vaginal penetration.

She claims that members of Sigma Chi and her sorority identified David Gallagher, a Sigma Chi member, as one of her assailants. She says Gallagher went by the nickname "Therapist" - i.e. "The Rapist" - at the fraternity.

The woman says she suffers from severe post traumatic stress and dropped out of ASU after suffering panic attacks and fear while on campus.

She says the ASU placed the fraternity on probation in 2003 for bruising pledges by paddling their buttocks, and that ASU received a report of "screams for help and a possible violent sexual assault" in the house in that time.

In 2005, Sigma Chi members allegedly mutilated and decapitated a woman's pet cat, and caused thousands of dollars of damage to a San Diego hotel. They also harassed other hotel guests, according to the complaint.

And she says Sigma Chi hazed Alpha Phi sorority pledges in 2006 by forcing them to unwillingly participate in "girl on girl" activities and stripteases.

The Sigma Chi House Corporation of Epsilon Upsilon is also named as a defendant in the complaint.
 
The woman seeks punitive damages for civil conspiracy, assault and battery. She is represented by LaShawn D. Jenkins.

A copy of the Complaint can be viewed at http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/02/05/TogaParty.pdf

Stop desecrating your composites

From our friends at "The Apathy Myth":

[...]The composite was from one of the local fraternities, dated 1993-1994. I got up to take a look at the old clothes and hairstyles. I noticed that the glass had a gigantic crack in it, and the frame was heavily scratched and banged up.

"What's this doing here," I asked?

"Oh, we steal theirs, they steal ours. They're all over the house," replied one woman. "I bet we have one from almost every fraternity on campus."

I noted that the sorority's current composite was enclosed in a very large, locked container lit by lights in their foyer. "Why is it that you take such great care of your current composite, but you could care less about the old ones?"

The woman looked at me strangely. "We need them for recruitment, I guess," was her best answer. "The guys don't care about their old composites, and we have so many of our own, we don't have anywhere to put them anyway."

For many students, they're a joke. Funny names, odd hair. Old. They break them, throw them in closets, steal them from other chapters. I am willing to bet that many find their way to the dumpster every year from damage caused by neglect.

Undergraduates at many campuses should be ashamed of the way they treat old composites.

The Apathy Myth: Stop desecrating your composites

Delta Delta Delta Launches Reflections

TRI DELTA TACKLES WOMEN'S BODY IMAGE ISSUES
WITH FAT TALK FREE WEEK AND REFLECTIONS

Tri Delta is thrilled to launch the first-ever Fat Talk Free Week (Oct 13 - 17), a nationwide event that coincides with the official public debut of Reflections: Body Image Program, Tri Delta's revolutionary body image education and eating disorders prevention program. Tri Delta co-developed Reflections with Carolyn Becker, Ph.D, FAED, of Trinity University, and the local sororities on that campus.

With major partners on board including Seventeen magazine, National Organization for Women (N.O.W.), the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) and the Academy for Eating Disorders (AED), Fat Talk Free Week is a 5-day public awareness campaign that is designed to draw attention to the damaging impact of the "thin ideal" on women in society.

Check out the powerful video, https://secure.pursuantgroup.net/pursuant4/deltadeltadelta/fall08/dddselect/flashstory.asp that we hope you'll watch and forward to your friends and family today!

For more information about Fat Talk Free Week and Reflections, visit www.reflectionsprogram.org.

Official press release: http://www.bodyimageprogram.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/reflections-launch-release-10-13-08-final.pdf

How to survive a KKG brush-off: Anthrax

OK, now this is just f***ing weird. The (current) main suspect in the 2001 anthrax letters apparently was obsessed with Kappa Kappa Gamma. All you Kappas out there, better be careful who and how you turn down. There might be a crazed biology nerd in your future.

His decades-long obsession with a college sorority may link a former Army biowarfare scientist to four anthrax-laced letters dropped off at a New Jersey mailbox in 2001, authorities said Monday in the latest twist of one of the most bizarre unsolved crimes in FBI history.

U.S. officials said Bruce Ivins' fixation with Kappa Kappa Gamma could explain one of the biggest mysteries in the case: why the anthrax was mailed from Princeton, N.J., 195 miles from the lab it's believed to have been smuggled from.
[...]
Ivins, 62, killed himself last week as the Justice Department prepared to indict him on capital murder charges for the deaths of five people who were poisoned by the anthrax in the weeks following 9/11. His attorney maintains he would have been proven innocent were he still alive.
[...]
Multiple U.S. officials told The Associated Press that Ivins was obsessed with Kappa Kappa Gamma, going back as far as his own college days at the University of Cincinnati when he apparently was rebuffed by a woman in the sorority. The officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly.
[...]
An adviser to the Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter at Princeton, Katherine Breckinridge Graham, said Monday she was interviewed by FBI agents "over the last couple of years" about the case. She said she could not provide any details about the interview because she signed an FBI nondisclosure form.

So it was a "Kappa gal", and not "Al-Qaeda" that caused all that fuss. Figures.

Sorority may link anthrax suspect to NJ letters

Michelle Obama Becomes a Greek

Michelle Obama Joins Alpha Kappa Alpha, a Historically Black Sorority
The Chronicle of Higher Education

Michelle Obama has accepted an invitation to become an honorary member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, ending weeks of speculation on historically black college campuses about which, if any, sorority she would join.

Ms. Obama did not join a sorority while a undergraduate at Princeton, and Alpha Kappa Alpha, which was founded at Howard University in 1908, did not have a chapter on the campus at the time.

The sorority, which also counts Brown University President Ruth J. Simmons among its honorary members, told the New York Times that once Mrs. Obama is inducted into the sorority, she cannot join any of the other “divine nine,” as black sororities and fraternities are often called.

But a spokeswoman for Ms. Obama said that her membership was non-exclusive.
“She looks forward to working with all of them to help bring change to their communities,” the spokeswoman told the Times.

Another Greek Picture Rolling Out of Hollywood

ZETA TAU ALPHA DENOUNCES "THE HOUSE BUNNY" MOVIE

INDIANAPOLIS-Zeta Tau Alpha Fraternity for women expresses dismay that Columbia Pictures and Happy Madison Productions will release in August the feature film, “The House Bunny.”

This movie depicts a sorority called “Zeta Alpha Zeta” and refers to its members as “Zetas” and its facility as the “Zeta House.” The chapter house shown in the movie has the word “ZETA” above the door in turquoise, one of the official colors of the Zeta Tau Alpha Fraternity.

The Fraternity is the exclusive owner of the registered trademarks Zeta Tau Alpha and the Greek letters ZTA, and has been consistently using the term Zeta and Zetas to conduct business for nearly 100 years. The Fraternity believes that the use of “ZETA” in the film is improper and confusingly similar to ZTA. Zeta Tau Alpha is working with legal counsel to explore its options.

"We regret that the production and distribution companies have chosen to release a movie that portrays collegiate fraternity and sorority life in an offensive and inaccurate manner,” said Zeta Tau Alpha National President Laura Ladewig Mauro. “We have written a letter of protest to both companies but have received no response.”

Zeta Tau Alpha was founded in 1898 at the State Female Normal School (now Longwood University) in Farmville, Va., and has 148 active collegiate chapters and more than 195,000 members worldwide. A member of the National Panhellenic Conference of Greek women’s organizations, ZTA develops members’ leadership, academic and service skills and supports breast cancer education and awareness as its national philanthropy.

DZ's Train Volunteers About Mental Health

Delta Zeta Implements Online Program to Assist Student Mental Health Issues

MentalHealthEdu™ designed to assist students with mental health concerns

FEBRUARY 6, 2008 – Oxford, OH – Delta Zeta Sorority announced today that it will implement an online program, MentalHealthEdu, which will serve as a resource for Delta Zeta chapter advisors.

The sorority is the first Greek organization in the nation to offer the program as a training vehicle to its volunteers.

“Delta Zeta is dedicated to the health and well-being of our members, and we know that early intervention with mental health concerns is one of the best ways to ensure their ongoing success-academically and personally,” said Michelle Smith, National President of Delta Zeta.

“This step recognizes the unique role that our volunteers who advise collegiate members can play in assisting students who may be experiencing difficulty.”

The initiative is the result of direct feedback from a number of Delta Zeta volunteers, who, in a recent survey, reported that they did not feel adequately prepared to deal with certain mental health issues encountered while advising collegiate members, including self-injury and eating disorders.

In response to this feedback, Delta Zeta decided to implement the program as a training vehicle for its official volunteers, including its College Chapter Directors (CCDs), and employees such as House Directors and Educational Leadership Consultants, who interact with the college-age women on a regular basis.

The sorority will also offer MentalHealthEdu to its Regional Collegiate Coordinators (RCCs) and members of its National Council and National Chairmen. This year, approximately 250 volunteers will be invited to take the online program, which is now a part of Delta Zeta’s core training curriculum.

Delta Zeta’s approach towards mental health is essential in stemming the impact on both campus culture and graduation rates.

From 1989-2001, Kansas State University found that the number of students with documented cases of depression doubled, and the percentage of students taking psychiatric medications rose from 10% to 25%. Further, in 2006, the American College Health Association’s National College Health Assessment found that during a 12-month period, 42% of college students felt so depressed at times that it was difficult to function and 9% had seriously considered suicide.

MentalHealthEdu engages an entire campus community in the campaign for overall student wellness. The program provides participants with the information and tools they need to identify and assist distressed students. Participants learn about the increasing number of mental health issues on college campuses and the leading causes of distress in students.

Suggestions for approaching distressed students and exercises that present realistic situations help administrators, faculty, and staff play an effective role in health promotion by giving them the skills to feel confident in offering support and directing students to appropriate campus resources.

The program was developed by Boston-based Outside The Classroom. Delta Zeta plans to use MentalHealthEdu to empower its volunteers by helping them understand their unique opportunity to assist students with mental health concerns.

“We’re proud to offer MentalHelathEdu as a resource for our volunteer leaders,” said Smith. “We’re confident that this program will assist our advisors in guiding women to appropriate help when needed.”

Tri-Sigma at MSU Closed for Hazing

MSU sorority closed over drinking, hazing

University, ousted women differ on gravity of allegations.
By Steve Koehler
Springfield News-LeaderJanuary 16, 2008

A Missouri State University sorority was disbanded for playing drinking games, leaving blindfolded women in a cemetery, and forcing a woman to get an application from a strip club.

The national council for Sigma Sigma Sigma yanked its charter, shuttering the local chapter for four years and leaving about 50 members to find a new place to live. It is reportedly the first MSU sorority forced to close.

Complaints about the chapter surfaced in mid-November after someone reported seeing a woman wearing the sorority's name being led blindfolded into a house. The investigation that followed focused on allegations of hazing, drinking and student conduct violations.

The sorority, which had been on campus since 1945, had about 140 members including the 54 who lived in three-story brick house on East Elm Street. The decision to revoke the charter means that new members will lose the $800 each paid in fees and can't pledge with another sorority.

Jamie Francis, a sophomore member of the sorority, said MSU and the chapter's national governing board "ruined us" over minor incidents.

"We didn't think at all that we'd be kicked off for anything so petty," said Francis, of St. Charles. "We didn't feel what we had done was that big a deal. What happened (to us) we didn't deserve."

University officials disagree.
Dixie Williams, assistant director of student activities for fraternity and sorority life at MSU, said the incidents were severe.

"I don't believe at all that these are minor things," she said. "Blindfolding women and leaving them in a cemetery is hazing."

Other allegations ranged from taking blindfolded women to a cave and to the basement of a house where they were interrogated. Pledges who refused the hazing were verbally abused, Williams said.

"The possibility of injury both mentally and physically is present," she said.

Kelsy Bartlett, a sophomore member of the sorority, pointed out that about 50 of the 60 prospective members involved in the incidents stayed with the sorority after the initiations. That fact, she said, shows that what took place wasn't that bad.

"It wasn't like they had to jump off a cliff," she said. "It was all in good fun."

Bartlett said the group's national governing board and MSU acted too harshly over "little things."

"What we did they considered hazing but we didn't. It wasn't considered that. We didn't believe it was hazing," Bartlett said. "No one complained."

Drinking
In one incident, the sorority reportedly held an unregistered event - or "walk-off" - with over 40 members traveling to a rural site. At that event, alcohol was consumed and drinking games were played, which is against conduct rules.

Bartlett said drinking by members - which she said included some minors - was done off-campus at an informal party.

"A bunch of us were hanging out," Bartlett said. "It was not in the house. In our eyes, we tried to keep everything as clean as possible. We don't drink in the house or do anything in the house. All Greeks drink when underage. We never did it irresponsibly."

Francis said that underage drinking is common.

"Anyone knows college and high school kids drink," she said. "The (Greek) rules don't go with the times there are now. They're outdated."

Mike Jungers, associate dean of students, said rules regulating fraternity and sorority activities apply whether events are inside the house or off campus. He said alcohol is banned from new-member events.

A check of Springfield police records shows seven criminal reports from the house since October 2006, including three for liquor violations.

Investigation
The initial report of a blindfolded woman wearing the Sigma Sigma Sigma clothing being led into a house triggered the two-month investigation.

University officials contacted the sorority leaders about the report and were told that the members involved had been disciplined.

However, Jungers said, the university quickly learned of other incidents involving the sorority. "Information started tumbling into the university and what we were hearing was serious," he said.

MSU officials contacted the national headquarters of the sorority with their concerns. The national group, based in Virginia, owns the building on MSU's campus and sent officials to investigate.

Last week, the national office revoked the charter for the local sorority. The chapter appealed the decision to revoke the charter but was unsuccessful.

"The decision to close the chapter for failure to comply with national policies was made by the executive council of Sigma Sigma Sigma," according to a news release. "The closing of the chapter is not an easy decision. We value the contributions ... members have made over the years and when conditions are appropriate for our return, Sigma Sigma Sigma will actively seek the opportunity to become a productive and viable chapter at Missouri State University."

National leaders would not comment to the News-Leader about the incident.

Bill Hansen, whose daughter Dana Hansen was in the sorority, said he talked to MSU officials and national board members during their campus visit last week.

He expressed concern about how students were questioned.

"It seemed like they decided the girls were bad and evil and wanted to get them," said Hansen of Overland Park, Kan. "I said, 'Look, here's the deal. Even an accused murderer gets representation. Give them their day in court.' "

Hansen said the rules regulating sororities may be too intrusive. He pointed out that members are in trouble for having a party at a beach house with both members and non-members.

"Where do you draw the line and stop regulating the girls' lives away from the sorority?" he asked.

Suspension
Shortly after the investigation got underway, MSU informed the sorority that it was suspended as a student organization. That meant it could not engage in any social or recreational activities or recruit any new members.

At MSU, fraternity and sorority life is governed by a board made up of representatives from various Greek-letter organizations.

The decisions issued by the board are generally accepted by the university. The board could have yanked the sorority's charter if the national council had not taken action.

Jungers said in this case, the investigation began as the semester was ending and the board was in transition. The sorority issue was expected to come up this spring before a new board.

A week ago, the national Sigma Sigma Sigma office informed members that the house was closing and they would have to find new living quarters.

That was about the same time that MSU sent a letter to members' parents, warning them that the sorority was under investigation and could be closed down.

Bartlett said MSU didn't have the right to contact parents without the students' permission because of federal student privacy laws. "Parents had nothing to do with this. They shouldn't have gotten a letter," she said.

But Jungers said the letter was informing parents about the status of the organization, not their student, so it was allowed.

"We felt it important to notify parents of the allegations. If the sorority was suspended or the charter taken, there could be housing issues," he said. "We wanted to involve parents with accurate information."

Bartlett has moved into an apartment across the street. She started looking in December when it looked like the sorority might shut down.

"I'm really disappointed and feel bad for the new girls," Bartlett said.

As for herself, Bartlett said she's glad she had a chance to experience a sorority.

"I still think Greek life is a good thing. I made good friends. I met my best friend. We're still all going to stay in touch. I think what happened still hasn't set in yet."

© 2008 Springfield News-Leader

DZ's to Return to DePauw

Delta Zeta, DePauw settle over sorority's expulsion
Associated Press
GREENCASTLE, Ind.

- A sorority expelled from DePauw University during a dispute over the eviction of some of its members might return to the western Indiana campus in as soon as three years.

Delta Zeta and DePauw have settled a lawsuit in which the two sides agreed the sorority "will have the opportunity to seek a return to campus beginning in academic year 2010-11," said a statement posted on the university's Web site Friday.

Delta Zeta does not currently have a chapter on the campus, but a group of DePauw Delta Zeta alumnae would help with the return, the statement said.

"DePauw values its relationship with its alumnae who are members of Delta Zeta and recognizes that like DePauw, Delta Zeta has an objective to develop college students," the statement said.

University spokesman Ken Owen said the school had no comment beyond the statement, which gave no other details on the agreement.

The Oxford, Ohio-based sorority also had no additional comment, said its attorney, William Nolan of Columbus, Ohio.Delta Zeta in March sued DePauw in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis alleging the 2,200-student private liberal arts school had broken promises and contracts, defamed the sorority and interfered with its business relationships.

DePauw President Robert G. Bottoms on March 12 evicted Delta Zeta from the school's Greek system, starting this fall, because the school was unhappy with the sorority's policies and actions and with postings on its Web site following the evictions of some of its members a year ago.

Delta Zeta, which had been accused of asking only attractive, popular students to remain active members, has maintained the evictions were based on the members' lack of commitment to recruiting new pledges.

Seven Greeks Die in NC Beach House

7 students dead in N.C. beach house fire
6 from USC, 1 believed from Clemson
The StateColumbia, SC

(Update - with pictures from the scene and video:
7 students die in N.C. beach house fire (w/video) | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle)

Firefighters work at the scene of a fire at a beach house in Ocean Isle...

Seven college students -- six from the University of South Carolina and one thought to be from Clemson University, died in an early Sunday morning house fire at Ocean Isle Beach, N.C., authorities said.

Dean of Students Dennis Pruitt said the USC students were from Delta Delta Delta sorority and Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, although it was not an official social or university outing.
[...]
USC President Andrew Sorensen, who was attending a conference in Washington D.C. when he received news of the fire, returned to Columbia Sunday. Speaking at press conference, Sorensen called the deaths “profoundly tragic.”

“These are young people that were in the prime of their lives,” he said. “They had so much to look forward to.”
[...]
Identities of the dead were not available and it was not immediately clear how many of the students were male or female or what class year they were in. Pruitt said authorities were being cautious in releasing names because there were other college students in the area over the weekend. The bodies were being sent to the state medical examiner's office in Chapel Hill, N.C., for identification. Names may not be released for several days, authorities said.

Thirteen students were reported to be in the house. Six were sent to hospitals for treatment and released. One survivor jumped from the burning home and into an adjacent waterway.

The private home was being used by the owner's daughter and a group of her friends, Ocean Isle Mayor Debbie Smith said.

USC grief counselors, including a school chaplain, were consoling students Sunday afternoon at the Delta Delta Delta sorority house in the Greek Village.

Sorority members said five of their "sisters" had taken a trip to Ocean Isle Beach this weekend, but they did not know any more details. The trip was not organized through the sorority, they said.

"Nothing like this has ever happened at Ocean Isle Beach," Smith said.

"There were three kids sitting on the ground screaming," said newspaper deliverer Tim Burns, who called 911 after seeing a column of smoke rising from the house. "There was one guy hanging out the window and he jumped in the canal. I know he got out because he was yelling for a girl to follow him."

Burns said he didn't know if that girl was able to escape.

Another story here:
The State | 10/28/2007 | It had been planned as a fun weekend

Talk Nerdy to me! - Nerd Auction

Nerdy and the Greek

The ComputerClub at Washington State University plans to partner with a sorority for a fundraising auction. The club members will fix the sorority's computers and in return the sorority will give the geeks a makeover and they will have a date auction.

"We're going to host a nerd auction. You can buy a nerd and he'll fix your computer, help you with stats homework, or if you're really adventurous, take you to dinner!"

Watch the video.

The WSU Linux Users Group press release.