GreekChat.com Forums - Beta Theta Pi pledge dies at Penn State

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Totally off topic, but did anyone look at the report cards for Greeks? Why do the men have like 40 people living in a 36 bed house? The fraternity side is a sad state of affairs.

RIP, Penn State Greek Life.

Delta Tau Delta Charged With Furnishing Alcohol To Minors
http://onwardstate.com/2017/10/31/de...hol-to-minors/

Quote:

Furnishing charges were filed Monday against the Delta Tau Delta fraternity, who allegedly gave alcohol to underage student Brendan Soh on Thursday, September 28. Soh, who was suspected of drinking alcohol at the fraternity, was taken to the hospital after being found unconscious on Calder Way that night.

According to the criminal complaint against DTD, police found Soh unconscious but breathing on Calder Way when they responded to a report at 1:37 a.m. that Thursday. He was then transported to Mount Nittany Medical Center.

Witnesses said he was attempting to jump a fence when his leg got caught and he fell

.....

The university placed DTD on interim suspension earlier this month to investigate the fraternity’s potential involvement with the Soh’s injuries. It currently remains suspended on this interim basis, so Penn State likely hasn’t yet completed its own student conduct investigation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ASTalumna06 (Post 2446138)

Delta Tau Delta Charged With Furnishing Alcohol To Minors
http://onwardstate.com/2017/10/31/de...hol-to-minors/

And DTD has been suspended.

That's 10 out of 49.

http://onwardstate.com/2017/11/08/an...now-suspended/

This demanded instant culture change will be problematic. These kids signed up for fraternities with one kind of culture. Now they're being asked to adopt something completely different in order to mitigate the legal risk to the University, their alumni and their national organizations.

If these groups survive at all, they're going to be rebuilding from the ground up and sadly, I don't think the demanded changes are going to do anything other than push the risky behavior out of the Greek world and into another sort of student group which will be much less responsive to the administration's orders from on high.

Especially in this part of the country where Greek membership doesn't open doors quite the way it does in say, Mississippi or Alabama. People aren't going to suck it up and pay tons of $$ to be constantly monitored and hounded because having XYZ on your resume is helpful in state politics or whatever.

The partying is going to get pushed off campus and the town is going to have a shit fit.

-OR-

18-21 year olds will stop all underage drinking and questionable activities because the administration.

http://6abc.com/another-12-students-...death/2640425/

And it continues...funny thing. In the middle of October I had jury duty. While I wasn't selected for the jury, I did get paneled, and as I'm sitting there staring at the defendant's attorney, I was like why do I know this guy from somewhere? It was one of these brother's attorneys.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadokat (Post 2447204)

http://6abc.com/another-12-students-...death/2640425/

And it continues...

Wow. This was obviously a recipe for disaster.

Quote:

Investigators say the video shows Piazza does not obtain his own alcohol at any point. In fact, authorities say, every drink consumed was provided to him by a fraternity brother.

Piazza was furnished with at least 18 drinks in 1 hour and 22 minutes, Parks Miller's office said.

The video of the press conference can be found by scrolling down on this site.

https://www.facebook.com/centredaily...location=group

Sigma Alpha Epsilon Alumni Board Closes Penn State Chapter House

http://onwardstate.com/2017/12/10/si...chapter-house/

Quote:

Sigma Alpha Epsilon’s House Corporation Alumni Board has decided to close the Penn State chapter house property for at least the rest of the 2017-2018 academic year, according to a press release from the SAE national organization. The closure takes effect December 17.

Local alumni leaders became aware of several reported violations on December 5. They then suspended all fraternity activity and notified university officials and the SAE national organization. Neither the national organization nor the university elaborated on the nature of these reported violations.

If they have fraternities in a year, they'll be lucky :(

Quote:

Originally Posted by ASTalumna06 (Post 2449031)

Sigma Alpha Epsilon Alumni Board Closes Penn State Chapter House

http://onwardstate.com/2017/12/10/si...chapter-house/

Grand jury slams Penn State for ignoring reports on dangerous hazing

http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/15/us/pen...ort/index.html

Quote:

A scathing grand jury report released Friday described alcohol-fueled fraternity hazing at Penn State University and said the rituals were a pervasive and dangerous practice that the university has been apathetic to and failed to prevent for years.

The grand jury wrote the report following its investigation into the hazing death of a sophomore Beta Theta Pi pledge earlier this year, saying "it would be failing its duty ... if it did not report to the public both what it learned and the certain dangers it foresees if students, university administrators, and the General Assembly resist adopting profound changes on college campuses and communities in Pennsylvania."

Quote:

The report also described the case of James Vivenzio, who pledged to join Kappa Delta Rho in 2012. According to the report he left the school in 2013, due to "issues stemming from his hazing." The report said he made multiple attempts to notify the university and police about the fraternity's hazing, alcohol abuse and misconduct involving the circulation of photos of unconscious, nude women from fraternity parties.

He said the three-month hazing period included mandatory drinking games until pledges threw up, and those who refused to participate were forced to leave immediately, the report said.

It said pledges were forced to drink a warm concoction that included ingredients such as cat food, urine, semen and alcohol, among others.

In a bid to put a stop to the hazing, Vivenzio met in April 2014 with the head of the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life visited him in Virginia to see the evidence of hazing and abuse, the report said. Vivenzio testified that the official said there was not much he could do to stop it, according to the report.

Vivenzio also shared his hazing accounts with several departments at Penn State in 2014, including the board of trustees, according to the report.

The grand jury report stated that emails corroborate the fact that university administrators adopted a "policy of detachment" and chose not to involve themselves with fraternity affairs.

The report http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2017/images/1...ury.report.pdf makes some troubling recommendations. In responding to this issue, it looks like things are going off the rails.

One of the issues I have is making advisers mandated reporters for hazing. First, that's not going to work when some of us advisers would have attorney-client privilege issues triggered by a mandatory reporting statute. Secondly, if my actives can't be completely candid with me, I'm not able to get the information I need to do my job properly.

This is depriving organizations of the right to self governance and putting everything under university supervision. I only had time to skim, so I'm sure there will be many more issues. One of the more troubling issues I saw was the ability for the school and IFC to conduct searches of fraternity facilities without notice, consent, probable cause or a warrant. Problematic to say the least.

Here's what I am failing to understand. A grand jury is put in place to decide if the charges filed against someone are valid to stand trial. Here, we have a grand jury who spends 11 months debating the faults of the Penn State Greek Life System, puts out a 236-page document regarding changes, and the only thing that happens is people read it. Nobody is telling Penn State they have to do ANY of these things. Nobody was in place to decide if charges are valid. All they did was a review of Greek Life - like an independent, but emotionally charged report of Greek Life from a perspective of outrage over the tragic death of this young man.

Now I am and continue to be disgusted at the absolutely horrific lack of regard for human life that the brothers of Beta Theta Pi at Penn State had for Tim Piazza.