NYU Alpha Sigma Tau: Some chapter Sisters Dismissed
 

According to a recently-posted article, at NYU (New York University) Alpha Sigma Tau HQ dismissed 49 chapter members, whereupon another 19 resigned in solidarity.

All this apparently stemmed from attendance at a fraternity event where alcohol was available / served.

For more details and comments, see article posted Jan. 26, 2012:

http://nyulocal.com/on-campus/2012/0...ers-dismissed/

If people other than the sorority and fraternity members were at the event, as it sounds they were, how on earth can you consider it a mixer? Mixers are by definition private parties between a fraternity and a sorority. It sounds like these guys just rented a place and anyone - including nonstudents - could attend. This would be kind of like saying that if everyone in the sorority went to a Giants game and everyone in a fraternity went there, that IT was a mixer.

Is this the same event that person posted Youtube videos about?

There has to be more to this.

I believe so.

Ugh, yes. It was a huge problem for nationals, but it was handled quickly and the videos were immediately removed. I was able to watch it a few times before it was taken down, though. From what I understand, the chapter had been having RM issues with both the university and our national organization. They refused to comply with their probation, and as a result, their chapter was cleaned out. It's such a shame that these girls decided to be bitter and take no responsibility. The video they posted was pretty slanderous, in my opinion. I was not happy about the way AST, as an organization, was dragged through the mud. I'm just glad this whole ordeal is over. I think that nationals did the right thing, even though it's sad to see so many sisters leave the organization on bad terms.

For some groups, having an entire chapter go to a Giants game together would be considered a chapter activity, whether or not it was planned. Having alcohol involved would break chapter rules so having a chapter claim that this party was "open" to try and skirt probation restrictions is a little disingenuous, and I don't blame their national officials from seeing right through it. Obviously this wasn't a one time event, and the explanation in the story is a simplistic representation of the events. I don't envy an organization that has to deal with these sorts of issues, especially with this some women in this generation that refuse to take responsibility for their actions.

Yes, to all of this. On my camps 1/3 of the chapter at an event with alcohol = chapter event, period.

And there is NO WAY this was a one-time thing.

It wasn't, for sure. It makes me so sad to see this happen, but I think what our national organization did was the right thing.

How did this work with Popular Poppie's birthday party where she has a massive party and invites, along with all her other campus friends, all her sisters to a party?

Pro Football game scenario...
 

Combining the two scenarios, does that mean that if greater than a certain percentage of an NPC sorority chapter at Georgetown University attend a Washington Redskins game that they would be in trouble because Beer is sold at the game?

They have to follow the rules set down by their organization. Beer being sold by the Washington Redskins isn't the problem. The major problem is the lack of respect for rules while the chapter is on probation. A lot of things are ignored when chapters have a history of following the rules, but when a chapter shows they refuse to follow any of the rules...

I have a question..

This JUST happened, correct? So why is initiation in January? Is NYU running on a quarter or trimester system, rather than semesters?

Nobody would be in trouble, but it would be a chapter event, and thus subject to the rules of a chapter event. On my campus, that means that you had to do certain paperwork in advance and follow certain rules regarding alcohol.

That said, I come from a campus where chapters were usually 150+, so you'd have to hit 50 women to be at the 1/3 of a chapter mark. It's a bit of a stretch to think that 50+ women would coordinate to do something that wasn't officially a chapter event and/or planned well in advance.

Also, if 51 women go to a Giants game without filling out paperwork, and NOTHING GOES WRONG, it probably doesn't register as a blip on anyone's radar...CPH doesn't care, HQ doesn't care, etc. It's when 51 women go to a Giants game and one of them is rushed to the hospital for alcohol poisoning that suddenly we have a problem on our hands.

No, it happened last fall. Apparently the site that ran the article just found out about it and ran with the story based on the information provided only by expelled members.

This. In chapters that are in trouble, there's frequently this culture of trying to get around the rules with what the misbehaving members believe are technicalities. It wasn't their party so it shouldn't count. They don't believe the organization is serious about the consequences, especially when they continue to misbehave in large numbers. No one would ever expel that many members, right? They should have consulted with women who were once members of the Theta chapter at JHU. They thought they were smarter than their organization as well.

I don't think it has anything to do with being "smarter than their organization." I just think the rule in general is stupid. It also sounded like this party was held at a nightclub, not the fraternity's house (i.e. 3rd party vendor in play).

At any rate...it might have been better to close the chapter completely rather than to cause a divide in the sisterhood like this. The 25% left (who I'm betting are fairly new sisters) have a huge task ahead of them to rebuild the chapter, and I would hope that they get above and beyond the normal amount of help to do so.

As far as I know, that's the plan. Before all this happened, the NYU chapter was doing great. The goal is to get it back to where it needs to be :)

You may find the rule stupid, but a chapter that is a risk management problem is an insurance nightmare for the entire organization. Someone gets hurt at this party, and AST becomes liable regardless of where the party was held and who supposedly sponsored it. As to whether or not the chapter should have been closed, NYU is a very valuable asset for an organization, and I'm sure they will try everything they can to make this chapter survive. I don't blame them for trying. With that being said, that doesn't include letting the chapter members threaten the welfare of members or the reputation of the organization.

While I get the RM/liability/Insurance issues, I concur. Especially if the rule is "routinely" ignored for chapters in good/ok standing.

For smaller chapters, this rule can b/c a nightmare when just trying to just hang out.

EXACTLY. It was obviously passed by people thinking only of huge schools and huge chapters. And (like many RM rules) it is not enforced equally across the board.

This is the problem with a rule like this. While I was a collegiate member, we had 19 members at the most. One semester, we were down to 9. Depending on the semester, anywhere from 3-6 sisters hanging out would have been considered an "official sorority event.". Because of this, I'd be willing to bet that between Spring 2004 and Fall 2006, we probably had between 500 and 1,000 sorority events.

I don't know what the alternative is, but it gets a little ridiculous for smaller chapters.

Heck, you may have had course lectures that counted as "official sorority event"s.

Oh yes, we definitely had some of those. And nearly every semester we would recruit at least a couple members from Lion Ambassadors.. So every LA meeting and event could also be considered an "official sorority event."

It really does get out of hand when you start to think about it..

The rule I referenced required 1/3 of members AND a second trigger: alcohol, the expenditure of sorority funds, a location associated with another GLO (i.e. a fraternity house), and I think there was one more thing that I can't think of right now.

The point is that, even if something is not an "official" event, we all know that the RM fall-out still exists when a bunch of women from one house do something wrong. Saying "it wasn't a real event" is a stupid loophole, and we all know it.

There are other 'unknowns' here which the newspaper would probably not ever know about. It doesn't take much to make it look like an official event in court. For example, a mass email is sent out to the chapter "Hey, XYZ is having a big party tonight, let's all go to celebrate Initiation."

We just don't know all the details. I can say that I've never seen actions like this taken without a lot of deliberation, heart ache on both sides, and a prior history of issues.