Lambda Chi Alpha Membership Review, Expulsions and Resignations -- Southern Methodist
 

A long article in Southern Methodist's campus paper reports on Lambda Chi Alpha's expulsion of three dozen or so members after a membership review.

http://www.smudailycampus.com/news/l...bers-1.1341139

Published:*Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Updated:*Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Spencer Eggers/ The Daily Campus

. . . SMU’s Lambda Chi Alpha chapter saw 36 members expelled last Sunday after conducting a membership review the previous Saturday.

Forty-seven members saw all charges against them dropped and were returned to good standing within the organization. Several members, who were not expelled, as well as alumni, have resigned their membership from the fraternity. The Daily Campus could not find any official total concerning those who have resigned because the number keeps growing as each day passes.
According to John Holloway, director of chapter services of the international headquarters for Lambda Chi, the membership review came after a “thorough and sophisticated assessment” from which chapter alumni and international headquarters “corroborated reports of hazing, drug use in the chapter house and risky behaviors with little to no consequence at any level within the organization.”

. . . Members were notified of their expulsions by letters dropped off at Hughes-Trigg. Many members’ mothers were in attendance because it was Mothers’ Weekend for the fraternity.

“The room went pandemonium,” [a member] said. “Some people were crying, people were screaming, moms were yelling—moms didn’t know what was going on, moms still don’t understand, we still don’t understand.”

. . .Expelled members will be given pro-rated refunds for dues, housing and meals.
. . . Campus housing is being made available by SMU.

Thirty-one brothers lived in the house before the membership review, and all but eight have been expelled or have resigned.

. . . Members each sat for a 15-minute interview with alumni during the membership review.

SMU did not play a role in these proceedings and had no role in expelling members.

. . . LXA had been placed on probation for risk management violations by the international headquarters in January 2009. According to Holloway, the chapter was making “little progress” on completing the probation terms and additionally, “they had two more risk management incidents which violated state and local laws, General Fraternity laws and the policy of SMU.”

. . . Expelled members have the opportunity to appeal the international office’s decision. . . .
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I have heard quite a bit about this as I am in one of the sorority chapters at SMU.

One thing I would love to reiterate, for the sake of my university and also my friends that either resigned/expelled from LXA or continue to be brothers: This article does not touch every single aspect of the situation. The comments and statements in the article are not definitive of their chapter as a whole. They are all really angry and hurt right now, but they have always been an outstanding chapter here at SMU while I have been here, and well respected among the student population. I really hope that you guys are successful in your rebuilding efforts.

Also more information can be found here, if anyone is interested:
http://www.smudailymustang.com/?p=25826

Dang! Getting the letters on Mothers Weekend! I'm sure that there were some upset Mommas.

Delivering the letters during an event, especially one with mothers present is extremely low class. This should have been dealt with in a private manner.

Totally agree. I can't think of a dumber thing to do than pissing off a large group of Southern women on any issue - let alone one to do with their sons!!

I feel like I have never heard of a membership review ever working.

I've seen several work. But, this one is pretty large scale. I've never seen one that involved more than a 1/3 of the chapter. I've seen 4 or 5 bad eggs at once, with a few of their followers resigning though.

I wonder if they were even aware that it was Mother's weekend.

I figure either a) They didn't know or b) They thought it would better if moms were there to help kids pack and move, etc.

Wow! What a shock and such a bummer. Back in my days at SMU, the Lambda Chi's were known as the "Milk and Cookie Boys" because of their clean cut image. It just goes to show how things can change over the years.

As a mom (who just got back from her son's Mom's Weekend), I can tell you that I would be POed beyond belief to have that kind of unexpected bombshell dropped during that event. (I say unexpected because maybe the boys had some idea that they were in deep doodoo, but the moms were probably completely in the dark).

I'm sure many of the moms travelled a far distance, paid for airfare, hotel and transportation, only to have an unbelievably upsetting and terrible weekend. Yeah, I'd be pissed.... not sure who at though, depending on what the real circumstances are. I'm curious as to that.

My question is: why drop these off on a SUNDAY? Even if it wasn't Mom's weekend, there's a chance that there would have been brothers home for the weekend and I don't care what you've done, you deserve the courtesy of having that handed to you, PERSONALLY, by an officer of the fraternity - not Fed Ex or however the hell the letters got there. (P.S., FedEx and other delivery services charge extra for Sunday deliveries, another reason not to do it then.) Maybe stargirl007 can fill us in on that.

Couldn't it have waited until the end of the term? I mean, it's mid-April now. Waiting a few more weeks would have made things a lot easier on everyone and kept bad publicity to a minimum.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the active brothers pissed off the wrong group of alums. The article said that it was not driven by their National and was handled by the alumni. Either way I would find it hard to believe that LXA at SMU could recover from this. I am a zero tolerance type person when it comes to risk management but this seems so extreme. Maybe I am all wrong. Hope so for their sake.

I doubt their HQ made this decision lightly. But you're right, it'll be awful hard to come back from this even if they do have virtually unlimited resources at their disposal.

Sometimes though, there are more important things than being top tier.

Well, then they would be dealing with finals and such - not nice.

And when Waynesburg got rid of all its Greek orgs - they did it while school wasn't in session. Totally shady move.

So if they had to do it, this probably is the best, calendar-wise.

I'm really not sure why they were dropped off on a Sunday. It seems like a LOT of miscommunication went on between the people that conducted this membership review & the chapter itself. As far as a chapter officer handling it, I am pretty sure they expelled most if not all of their officers in this membership review, and if they weren't expelled, they resigned.

This is also not the first time a member purge such as this has happened to LXA at SMU. In 2001, they purged a considerable amount of members, but it wasn't to this magnitude. I have heard of a couple of other instances in decades past, but they recovered from them all.

I think what will be the most critical is how many upperclassmen they can recruit in the fall. It will be interesting to see if they are successful with this after some of the bad publicity they have gotten on the matter. They cannot recruit freshmen until the Spring semester, so like I said, it will be interesting to see how many they will be able to recruit. It just is not fun to see another fraternity on our campus go through something like this. We had a chapter kicked last year, and one with a pretty serious punishment (in terms of what it was for) and seems to have affected their recruitment quite a bit. I hope LXA can prove our campus wrong and move forward from this.

Exactly! by all means, have it in writing, but have a national officer hand deliver the letters in private one on one meetings! And NOT ON MOTHER'S WEEKEND!