Think it can't happen at your school? THINK AGAIN!
 

Today, it was announced that Bloomsburg University has terminated their fraternity and sorority programs effective immediately. The University has cut ties with all national and local fraternities and sororities.

Back at the beginning of the spring term, the University put out a statement stating that due to the plethora of risk management issues, students injured and deaths and hazing, that they were giving Greek Life organizations one last opportunity to get their stuff together. They stated that if any fraternity or sorority broke rules (Hazing, risk management, etc,) and were found responsible, the entire Greek System would be shut down.

Well, this past weekend, a member of Phi Sigma Sigma sorority passed away after falling down steps at a suspended fraternity's party, and today it was announced Greek Life is over at Bloomsburg.

So there you go...it can happen.

Wow. Just, wow.

Holy cow. Won't this just send orgs underground and make it even worst?

It looks like the Greek Life page on the university's website has already been removed...

It was removed today, right before they sent an email out to the entire student body stating they were shutting it down.

Because Bloomsburg already had a thriving underground Greek Life community due to 8 groups being suspended in the last two years, this will likely drive the rest of them there now.

I truly hope that NPC will help this sorority community to continue, because the sororities at Bloomsburg were thriving and doing things the right way.

Good grief.
Well...here we go. Now other colleges and universities have a lodestar to follow: “Because we have determined our current Greek system to be in crisis, we are following the lead of Bloomsburg University and immediately disbanding....”

Ladies, in this case, “It just takes one...” now has a whole NEW meaning.

Don't most NPC sororities ask their members to 'do things the right way' by AVOIDING parties at suspended Fraternities homes?

Nobody knows why the young lady was at the party, and frankly, it's not my concern. What happened to her could've happened to any person at the party. It just so happened she was a member of Phi Sigma Sigma. The Greek system was shut down because a person died at Pi Lambda Phi's fraternity party, period. Whether she was in an NPC sorority or not is not the issue.

The SORORITY should avoid having a party with an suspended fraternity. THAT was not what THIS was. Maybe her boyfriend or brother or whatever was a member of Pi Lam. I don't know, and it doesn't matter.

This whole situation is bad on so many levels. If your university has even talked about a scenario like this, well now the precedent is set.

I wonder if this applies to ALL Greek organizations or just NPC/ NIC/ IFC? There are quite a few NPHC and other organizations at this school that I am not familiar with.

It means ALL local and national NPC, NIC, NPHC, MGC social organizations

I know I sound dumb here but what would keep the sororities from functioning like they do at say Santa Clara University in California? They are not recognized by the university but are still allowed to exist and function. Can someone explain that to me?

School says ban is not related to recent student death: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.inq...outputType=amp

Kutztown did this in the 80s and it didn’t stick.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the school, there are no houses on campus, housing is not at a premium (ie people do not join GLOs as a means to a housing end) and half of the groups are local and have been around longer than the nationals (ie “we won’t be national anymore!!” is not an innately terrifying thought).

This is probably the dumbest decision the school could have made. There are probably a good amount of people in the system who are glad the school is “out of their hair.”

APhi4Ever - there is nothing that would keep the nationals from doing that, but it depends whether what they are getting from the chapters in terms of membership #s and $$ is worth it.

And because this is covid and my time sense is shot -

How does doing this before school is out for the year help anything? No one is going to be there, and more than likely everyone has leases signed already - that is, a local landlord is not going to kick a group of paying customers out because they aren’t “recognized.” More than likely one of two things will happen over the summer; the national groups will work with the college to reattain recognition, or everyone’s charters will get pulled and the college will have a fully underground system that neither they nor the HQs can control.

Dumb, dumber, dumbest!!

This story came out much later in the day yesterday, almost as if they were backpedaling off of the death of a student story, which they were using as their justification. After speaking to some other folks, it appears that ALL GREEKS are gone, including groups like APO or Phi Sigma Pi. I don't know which of those actually still exist there anyway.

REALLY!?! I had no idea about Kutztown.

Actually it was probably more like the 70s. I know we opened a chapter there around 86-87 and it was when Greeks were coming back. I’ll see if I can find any info on it.

Back pedaling is RIGHT!

Now the story is "Montour County Coroner Scott E. Lynn said in an email to The Inquirer that Burke’s death “is not considered suspicious nor was it trauma related, and nothing nefarious was involved. We are looking at a potential undiagnosed medical condition which requires further testing.”

SO it is possible that nothing that happened at the fraternity house led to the young woman's death. But let's not let a tragedy go to waste....

Alpha Phi Omega at Bloomsburg was in good standing with the Alpha Phi Omega national office at least as of last Friday (5/7) (the last time the perpetual inventory status sheets were generated) and had a good size chapter prior to covid (more than 50 brothers)

BTW, archive.org's most recent storage of the Fraternity and Sorority life page is at https://web.archive.org/web/20201203...-sorority-life

Neither APO nor Phi Sigma Pi are listed there as part of the system. I *guess* they got hit due to the fact that they aren't *automatic* entry groups (like Psi Chi, just to pick one that seems to fit it at Bloomberg https://intranet.bloomu.edu/psychology-psi-chi ).

Hmmm... are we sure the ban applied to NPHC and MGC organizations, or perhaps someone just forgot about this page?

https://intranet.bloomu.edu/multicultural-organizations

I would assume that there will be legal challenges if they don't apply that to everyone.

Given the overlap at the National level between the NIC, NPHC and NALFO, a ban of all NIC would knock out at least 3 or 4 of them (I think the only NPHC fraternity not also in the NIC is Omega Psi Phi)

Also, have talked to the member of the Alpha Phi Omega board of directors for the area that includes Bloomberg, according to them, as of Thursday, Alpha Phi Omega Service fraternity is not being caught up in this.

You know, if they're going to indict the whole greek system of this college, isn't that an indictment of the school as a whole? And if the school is at fault isn't that an indictment of our country? Well, I for one, am not going to sit here and let them badmouth the United States of America!

Thanks all of you for your comments and support. As Bloomsburg is my alma mater AND I serve as the president of the Bloomsburg Greek Alumni Advisory Council (I guess that’s served now!), this whole shitstorm has been brewing for a long time. The story is so long and convoluted, but needless to say, we are not going to just pack up our toys and go home. Bloomsburg has suspended 8 chapters in two years, and justifiably so. Some of these groups were hazing like no other, following no risk management policies and the locals operated without insurance or a care in the world. For 20 years, the old Greek Advisor claimed there was no problem while we alumni continued to point out the hazing, the taking of underground new members and the unrecognized chapters continuing to operate and hurt those of us who followed the rules and remained recognized. They did nothing. Two years ago, we FINALLY got a Greek Life director who saw the big picture. First new person in that role in 20 years. The suspensions started and we supported them because they were for real reasons. But the sad part is that these kids were just operating like they had for the last 20 ears when nobody gave a shit and they did whatever they wanted.

The University has taken ZERO of the blame for the way the Greek System had become. Administration, including the President of the University, came out and said they were on board with change and were going to make Greek Life better. The only person who followed through was the new Director. So now, here we are with no recognition and a new student code of conduct saying that if you associate with fraternities or sororities, you will be held to the code of conduct and punished. I don’t know how that whole thing is gonna work.

I will say none of our nationals have revoked any charters and I am hoping they will be supporting our continuation along with NPC. We are still going to fight to keep our chapters so say some prayers it all works. As for the fraternities, well there weren’t very many left after all the suspensions, and the ones that were left were in shambles for the most part. Three were on interim suspension for rules violations when the shit down occurred, waiting for their judicial processes to be completed and three others were the only ones left standing. I don’t know if NIC can help them, but I hope for their sake they get some support finally.

shadokat,
THANK YOU for caring enough to fight the “good fight” for the very survival of Greek Life at your Alma mater—and perhaps ultimately—at many campuses.

I hope you have some fellow like-minded Greek alums behind you. This would, indeed, be a lonely fight to have without back-up. And in this situation it would be very easy—and understandable—to just say: “Okay, we’ve been at this for years, and I’m DONE...”

Bless you and GOOD LUCK. Please keep us in the loop.

Shadokat,

Thank you!

Shadokat, I wish you good luck in fighting to keep these orgs alive!

Good luck Shadokat.

Today this article appeared in Inside Higher Ed. It was fantastic to see my executive director speak out honestly about how Bloomsburg did this.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/...ths-misconduct

As for your kind comments, thank you. There are some like-minded folks who are joining the fight. Three Greek alums who serve on the University Alumni Association have resigned because of this already. There are also MANY Greek alumni who are of the mindset that this is great because now we don't have the University breathing down our necks. That side is concerning, as many groups who had already been suspended prior to the shut down have continued to operate as if nothing changed, and some of them are national organizations. I really wish there was some way for the national organizations who revoke charters to stop the chapters from continuing to operate with their letters.

Anyway, this is surely far from over. The one reason I keep fighting is because my sorority experience was one of the best things I gained from my undergraduate experience, and it has only provided me with more great opportunities as an alum. That opportunity shouldn't be taken away from current undergraduates. I know that there were groups who were likely going to get thrown out for hazing or risk management violations, etc., and I'm ok with that. But to cancel everyone because other groups did wrong is not the answer.

Oh, I completely forgot to mention that for clarification, all social Greeks under the office of Fraternity and Sorority Life are gone. This includes NPC, NIC, NPHC and local groups. The listing on the multicultural center's page as missed by the web team. Groups such as Alpha Phi Omega and Phi Sigma Pi do not fall under the office of Fraternity and Sorority Life, and as such are still recognized. I do know that Phi Sigma Pi has had previously "trouble" with the University, as they act much like a social organization.

Thank you very much for the clarification, especially on the Multicultural page. I wish you success in the fight to deal with what looks like a massive overreaction by the university.

Are we going to just go back to the model in the 80's where the Panhellenic Advisor was an alumna of an NPC? There was no FSL office or Greek Life Office. IFC and PHC worked together to plan joint events like Greek Week. There were none of these ratings systems. There was no documentation sent to a centralized office as part of the University. We were recognized student organizations but it didn't take much to be one. There wasn't any oversight by the University itself. That fell on our Inter/national organizations.

I think the real goal for the University is to make sure they don't get sued because of out of control behaviors from the organizations they claim to oversee. Remove the FSL office and you are no longer liable for what those groups do.

I really wonder if this has anything to do with the upcoming school mergers.

This situation is similar to one student doing something wrong, and the entire class is punished-which is not right. I hope that NPC will support your efforts, and many ,many thanks for your efforts.
It doesn't sound like a Greek problem as much as a campus culture problem.

I know that the Alpha Phi Omega chapter has been told by APO staff to keep its head down and wait to see what's going on in August.

I doubt it. From
https://www.ydr.com/story/news/2021/...es/4871911001/

While universities would share a new name for each three-school group, they would also maintain their current identities and campuses, as well as their athletic programs.

If the athletic programs stay the same (i.e. the new (made up name) "Southeast PA University - Kutztown Golden Bears" play in the same conference as the "Kutztown State Golden Bears" did) then I don't see any reason that Greek Life would be affected. (Note, this *may* be affected by individual Greek Letter Organization bylaws)

I don't think so. First off, Bloomsburg is the position of strength in this merger. Lock Haven and Mansfield are both dying without this. Secondly, Mansfield put out a statement saying they support their Greek Life system and that Greeks do good for the community and the school.

Apparently asking for a consistent policy from the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education on this is a complete non-starter.

Once the merger takes place we'll have functionally have one college with one campus where greek life is so dangerous they have to nuke the entire concept and one campus where "Greeks do good for the community and the school".

This whole merger thing is really not a merger of the entire universities. If you're keeping your athletics, your student life, your name and your logos, then it's not a merger. Bloomsburg will just absorb the "running" of the other two. As someone at Bloomsburg explained to me, the "merging" of the schools doesn't go as deep as individual departments like Greek Life. Who knows what it's all about.

Well this was published today. One local apparently took the bait from this organization that is claiming they will get Greeks reinstated. I don’t trust people who come out of the woodwork when trouble is brewing. It feels very ambulance chaser to me, which may be a derogatory comment for attorneys but I hope it helps explain my trepidation. Thoughts?

GREEK RUINS: FIRE calls on Bloomsburg to restore 17 Greek chapters disbanded without due process

Updated the link...