I obviously went to Winthrop Univ., and I am not speaking on the University's behalf or my sorority's but my own.

Here's a little info about Winthrop Univ.:

(Note: these are just facts, not opinions)

At Winthrop Univ., the men's fraternities or NFC groups (as Winthrop calls them) are on deferred formal recruitment. NFC also has informal recruitment in the fall and formal recruitment in the spring. Only upperclassmen can participate in the informal recruitment.

Sororities have formal recruitment in the Fall and no informal recruitment. Every undergraduate female student registered at Winthrop can participate.

Before SAE were banned, Winthrop only had 4 NFC fraternities on campus. SAE had had problems before this said incident. They had been on probation from the University because of drugs at a party. The drugs at the party incident happened in 2001. The probation was lifted in 2002.

When I graduated in December 2003, the 4 Winthrop NFC fraternities were: Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Pi Kappa Alpha, Tau Kappa Epsilon, and Kappa Sigma. The 5 NPC sororities were Alpha Delta Pi, Chi Omega, Delta Zeta, Sigma Sigma Sigma, and Zeta Tau Alpha.

When I entered Winthrop in 1999, Winthrop had 5 NFC fraternities: Sigma Nu, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Pi Kappa Alpha, Tau Kappa Epsilon, and Kappa Sigma. Sigma Nu went defunct due to lack of members in late 2000.

MY OPINION:

My experience as a greek at Winthrop University was middle of the road. We did not get very much support from the administration. I felt that they just looked for reasons to make our lives as Greeks difficult. They wanted to brush the Greek community under the rug and ignore us. This is why Winthrop University is welcome to give a general sweep against SAE and not give it a proper investigation. Winthrop treated the PiKAs the same way during an incident in 2002. The incident had nothing to do with hazing.

I am not condoning SAE's actions with hazing but I would like a proper investigation before bringing down judgments and punishment.

all good points....
 

You guys all made good points....to summarize, then, may we
be made acutely aware that we indeed have an honor-bound
responsibility to behave like gentlemen...and that means, to me,
no booze in the house, no girls on second floor, no hazing, good
manners...gentlemen.
But as Kappa Sig says "not all can wear the badge...."
If you cannot make grades you are not worth a hoot to the club
anyway. If you cannot behave, then the same applies.
SAE will, hopefully, learn as will the others. And I hope they do
come back wiser and stronger.
Our HQ has all the hay down they can put up. So, can we, the
doting alums, check in from time to time and see if our chapter is
doing the right things? Yes, we do have responsibilities; but the
school can help, too.
When have you dropped by your chapter or your area GLO to see
if you can be of help? We may be old geezers, but we are loving
ones.

I agree with you. I did not go to Winthrop (besides ST-Arts when I was in middle school, but that doesn't count) but my mom did work there within a student life department, plus I'm close enough to still see certain things going on. I am very wary to put full blame on SAE without knowing the FULL story. I'm sure 5 pledges quitting could be because of hazing, but I know from personal experience that some girls just talk of quitting during pledgeship, and either stick with it together or quit together. If 1 or 2 guys just didn't like things they were made to do (say, study hours) than they could have convinced the other 3 to quit. I mean, I'm sure it could have been true hazing, but we don't really know the whole story since none of US are Winthrop SAE's.