Student suicide raises questions about UCF Pike
 

http://www.ucfnews.com/news/831200.html?page=1

Article highlights:
The apparent suicide of a UCF fraternity pledge in November has prompted police to open two investigations surrounding his death.

John Yancy, 19, was found dead Nov. 19 in his Oviedo home, with a handgun at his side, by a roommate who called police.

...

[A family friend] said Yancy had never done drugs before entering college. Based upon incidents described by Yancy prior to his death, she blamed Pi Kappa Alpha for distributing drugs to its members.

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On Nov. 14, five days before his death, Yancy was arrested for possession of cocaine and Xanax. According to the Orange County Sheriff's Office report, Yancy said the drugs were for his own use. He referred to the Xanax as a "xanny bar." In Yancy's wallet after his death, investigators found a Post-It note that read, "8 - Bars $30," suggesting a sale or purchase.

...

On the day Yancy died, police found items in his bedroom that included several prescription medications, $230 in cash, five cell phones, many bags containing a white powder and residue, a measuring scale and several bongs, marijuana plants and syringes. They also found a safe and a combination to that safe. The combination was addressed to a UCF student. Inside the safe were more bags containing a white, powdery substance.

...

Yancy's family and friends want the investigation to take a hard look at the actions of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity members.

"He had told us about them beating him up," the family friend said. "At the funeral, members of Pi Kappa Alpha told very disgusting stories."

One of the restrained stories involved Yancy being high one night, and members of the fraternity shaving his sideburns off. A more disturbing story involved fraternity members tying up pledges and women visitors, and forcing them to take drugs until they passed out, she said.

...

Yancy's mother had tried to talk to UCF President John Hitt and other members of the administration about her concerns with the fraternity, but that she didn't get the answers she was looking for. "They just kind of blew her off. The president didn't even acknowledge [John's death]," she said.

article comments
 

When I was a student, the UCF Pikes had the reputation of being jocks and were a top fraternity. There were always rumors about steroid use in the house, and a lot of the guys were very "built." They've gone through ups and downs with the quality of their members.

From what I have heard from students and local alumni, UCF has started to attract more students who engage in recreational substance abuse.

I hope the police, Pike and the university are able to determine what caused this student to commit suicide, and that if there were fraternity brothers who helped foster a drug habit, that those members are held accountable.

ETA: My observations of Pike are from my time as a UCF student in the late 1990s. My comments about UCF and a new drug subculture come from talking with current students, university alumni, etc. I do not think the Greek community has experienced any wide effects as a result of this drug subculture, nor are all the students drug addicts or users. But recently, there are more and more reports of student drug use at UCF.

Emotions run high after any death, sometimes even higher when someone so young takes his/her life.

It's best to let the university and law enforcement officials finish their investigations before coming to any conculsions -- or allowing speculation to paint the wrong picture.

We have seen parents, in their grief, who have not been entirely fair with schools, law enforcement and Greek organizations. On the other hand, sometimes they have brought to light serious problems.

Again, I think it's important to allow the authorities a little time before anyone rushes to judgement.

Not trying to discredit the story at all but its important to be certain about these things when making claims. There is a big rumor on my campus that you had to do cocaine during pledging at my fraternity. I have never done cocaine in my life but everyone on my campus assumes I have. I always try to discredit this rumor.

The Central Florida Future, UCF's student newspaper, isn't known for being Greek-Friendly. One of my all-time favorite headlines was something along the lines of "Sorority gets wet, Fraternity gets hammered" ... it was an article about the hurricanes that hit Central Florida (one of the sorority houses lost a roof during the rain, and a fraternity was helping board up windows...)

You get the idea.

I don't think there's a single fraternity on the UCF campus that I haven't heard stories about hazing activities. Most of the activities are pretty tame and probably wouldn't cause any physical/mental harm to the pledges. Every once in a while you'd hear about some not-so-tame activities but never to the extent of tying pledges up with female visitors and making them take drugs. I'm not saying that this never happened but I really find it hard to believe.

But, unfortunately, I've been hearing more and more about recreational drug abuse at UCF. When I first joined, it was very uncommon to find members of the greek community who abused hard core drugs. I just hardly ever heard anything except for twice when 2 different fraternities each expelled their members for GHB usage. After my graduation, I've been hearing countless stories about UCF greeks who are abusing these drugs. I don't know why this drug culture has suddenly grown but I really hope it ends not only for the sake of risk-management issues but for the well-being of the students.

Pike always had a rep for being the jocks, the partiers, the steroid users but never the hard core drug users. The guys I knew in Pike were not like that so I'm really hoping these allegations are false.

Re: Student suicide raises questions about UCF Pike
 

I don't mean to be dismissive or anything, but a family friend would probably not know whether or not the kid did drugs in high school. That's not exactly something you go around sharing with casual acquaintances. And let's face it, you don't usually go from non-drug-user to that hardcore in three months no matter who you start hanging out with.

And even if he did get into drugs mostly because of the fraternity, this is still a choice he made. The other fraternity members should be held accountable for their actions if the accusations are true (hazing, tying people up and forcing drugs on them, etc.), but there needs to be some personal accountability here as well.

very sorry to hear about this. just a bad situation across the board. my thoughts are with the friends and family of the young man, they are going through an unimaginable hell right now.

Wow, I'm currently subleasing an apartment from Heidi, the girl who wrote that article...small world.
^^Sorry about that, now onto the real post^^

I'm just surprised that Pike's Orlando Alumni Association isn't stepping in to do anything about Eta Phi's image or whatever & their low chapter GPA. It's not like Pike has a chapter at Rollins that the local alums have to look out for or any other chapter for that matter in the area. Last semester I had a Microbiology class with a Pike alum from a chapter up north who's active with the local alumni association. (He was in either his late 30s or early 40s, so he's with the alumni association instead of being like one of those young alums who still hang out with a collegiate chapter) We learned that the local alums had no idea about some of the events that happened. When we mentioned that one Pike incident they had by landing one XYZ girl into a coma for a month, the alum acted like he was hearing about it for the FIRST time (this was something well-known, AND not something un-well-known like which sorority was the girl a sister of that ran over & killed 2 little girls last semester in October out on Goldenrod Rd about 5 min from campus.)

I don't know what's up with their connection with the alums, I remember when my chapter was having major financial problems with debt, our local alumnae chapter stepped in to do all our paperwork and everything for us, and took over our $$$ problem & basically became our VP of Finance for a year so that we could get back financially together again

It's curious that Cashmoney hasn't responded yet.

I don't know the whole story, so I really don't have an opinion. BUT it always makes me wonder why we're so quick to blame a fraternity for a fraternity member's drug use. If everyone in my sorority smoked weed, and I didn't want to smoke it, I wouldn't smoke it. It is tragic that this happened, I just wish the blame wouldn't go straight to the fraternity.

Rumors can run rampant cant they!

So until the proof is in?

But isnt it usually true that the few can screw it up for the many?

Not ever Memeber of a Chapter is a Doper or an Alkie. There are many reasons that a individual does what this young man did.

The sad part, is that no one may ever know!:(

Just waiting to see what the verdict is.

the whole thing remains so sad...
no matter who did it or helped it happen...

That's actually very well-known. Most people know what sorority she is in. Especially because either The Future or The Orlando Sentinel (can't remember which one) included it in the article that they did about it.

Ummm, maybe because you were a sorority member with a chapter having a financial issue... and this is a fraternity (alleged) risk management situation. Apples and oranges. Alumnae associations are asked for money and occasional mentoring support. They're not officially looped in on most risk management issues -- hence the reasoning behind having trained volunteers like advisors and national officers.

This does bring in a very good point.

Which alumni would be easily willing to step up to the plate if there is a huge risk management issue for an undergraduate chapter?

I know that risk might be transferred onto you and the liability would be scary.

-Rudey

Technically, anybody who's a member of an alumni(ae) board is liable. I pray that my umbrella policy never has to be dusted off, especially since I'm on 2 boards.

Interfraternally,
Bill F.

Absolutely right, which is one reason it is sometimes hard to find alumni volunteers. I'm not an officer of any kind right now, but when I was, I augmented my personal liability policy.

Has anyone actually sued any alumni boards though or is this just a long shot?

-Rudey

That is a really good question, Rudey. I've read a lot of cases where chapters have successfully been sued, and members have had their future wages garnished to pay damages, etc... and instances where national orgs have been taken to court. I do wonder, too, have the alum advisers ever been held fiscally accountable, or the national officers.

What should one who is an alumni/ae board member do to protect themself from such liability? And are we talking about strictly advisory board members, or can members of an alumni/ae association be held liable as well (for example, if they stepped in and donated some of the $ that was needed to pay damages)?

And if the board members were to get sued individually, would they not be able to claim that they acted in a reasonable duty of care in their capacity as advisors in order to avoid liability?

There have been several (not a lot) instances of Chapter Advisors and Housing Corp members being sued listed here in Risk Management.

Unfortunately, I don't have time to look for them.

Two comments on that. I don't know the outcome of those cases, and I suspect that a lawyer would have to know a fair amount about how a chapter works (like being a Greek alum) to know enough to include an advisor or House Corp member in the suit.

Finally, I would think that every National office carries blanket liability insurance for volunteers -- probably a million dollars. However, with the size of some litigation these days, I added my own policy at my expense. Off the top of my head, I think it was around $100/year as part of another policy (homeowners maybe?). I could be wrong on the cost.

I don't know why this is surprising to any of you, you have all heard my stories of how my chapter was before we got kicked off campus and our charter pulled. True, very few of you believed me even when i posted newspaper articles about some of my chapter brothers dying....but why all the surprising comments? Did you all think it was just me? I didnt become the person i once was on my own. I was actually a good kid entering college before i joined a fraternity. And I'm not saying I dont love my org, because i do. But, there's shit that goes on in all kinds of chapters at Florida schools that NONE of you would believe.


I feel bad for the brothers at UCF, I personally know what they're going through. :(

When I was a sophomore, I went to a risk management seminar where they discussed a (real) case where everyone and their brother practically were sued. All of the alumni, the school, the greek life coordinators, etc... I think in those cases people are just looking for anyone to blame, and it gets skimmed down by the courts as to who actually is liable. I think they did this to scare us out of doing anything that would get the alumnae sued, plus it included ALL of the officers of the fraternity, even the ones who weren't present for the incident.

This seems to be the problem with the litigation happy public today!

Oh, my Daughter/Son would never do this without undue influence from "YOU PEOPLE".

Well, if the Parents of today kept a better leash on "Their" Kids, maybe it wouldnt have even had to happen, or on the flip side maybe they felt free to try to fly and get stupid?

As in Our Alums wanted to know why We didnt referb our house in stead of demolishing it, I tlod them plain and simple, it was dangerous, unsafe and a God Damn Fire Hazard.:mad:

We need out of it.

Yes, I am a member of House Corporation and have been for 8 years.

Maybe litigation is the reason so many Organizations are having problems getting volunteers, is becasue of law suits.


Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Goys/Girls Clubs of America, Adoption Agencys and so on.
:(

True, there should be personal accountability, and I totally agree with that.

However, I think the fraternity chapter should also be held liable if the statements turn out to be true after the full investigation. While it is true that we can walk away and just not smoke pot or whatever, if we are being forced to do so, well, that is another story entirely. Aren't drugs like these addictive too? What if, in a hypothetical world his drug habit started out w/ the fraternity and he got hooked? Of course these are hypothetical situations, and we won't really know for sure, but it's possible.

I think perhaps another reason why people are so quick to blame Greeks is because of the standard that has been set. We are supposed to be the "cream of the crop" -- the ones who can balance scholastics, work, community service, social, and everything else. So obviously when stuff like this happens -- Greeks dying of alcohol poisoning, over-dosing on drugs, or hazing or whatever, of course people are going to point fingers. Most all sororities (not sure about fraternities) have explicit rules prohibiting certain behavior -- underage drinking and doing drugs included... so of course when these events happen, and it possibly causes something bigger -- like alcohol poisoning deaths, suicide or whatever, people WILL point. I know it's one of those things that will probably never be fixed though, because there will always be the "bad apples" of the bunch that ruin it for everyone else.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by texas*princess
[B]True, there should be personal accountability, and I totally agree with that.

Dittto

I think perhaps another reason why people are so quick to blame Greeks is because of the standard that has been set. We are supposed to be the "cream of the crop" --

I disagree here. I know many people who have the attitude of greeks are a bunch of people who drink and haze and therfore will blame greeks for anything. IE, oh look its a drug related death, i think that frats are involved cause greeks do things like that.

Could just be my experience, but hey after all. Its my 2 cents.
d

This is still on my mind. I know the chances are low that alums are sued but still...

-Rudey

Yea I think that is the experience of many people. but if you think about it I hardly doubt some of our founders started our GLOs to be known as the hazers, drinkers, druggies on campus. I didn't mean my previous post to be a "literal" thing.. just one of those idealistic ones.

I know this is waaaaaaaaaay on a whole other plane.. probably not even reality, because this "ideal" probably never will happen in every single member in every single chapter. How many of us have GLOs that have a "purpose" or "mission statement" or "creeds"? Do you see "hazers, drinkers, druggies... etc" anywhere in there? Probably not. It's not so much what we are or what some chapters are, but what we're supposed to be and what our organizations were created to help us become.

====
Take the ADPi Creed for example (these are just going to be a few snippets to make a point... ):

"I believe that the principles established by our founders in 1851 are enduring attributes, exemplifying the highest ideals of Christian womanhood.

I believe that our motto, "We live for each other," expresses the true spirit of fraternity; and that by living this motto my life will be enriched by true friendships and by unselfish service to mankind.

I believe that I must strive to become a well-balanced person by following the dictates of the four points symbolized by our diamond-shaped badge: first, strengthening my own character and personality; second, watching my attitudes toward my fellow-beings; third, recognizing the value of high educational standards; and fourth, developing faith and loyalty.

====

While I know this is an "ideal" and not neccessarily always something you see in every single member of every single chapter, I personally think this could be a reason people are quick to point fingers and blame everything on Greeks. Here we are - members of organizations that are there to foster and enrich the lives of people... and there are members out there hazing or doing other dumb things that give the rest of Greeks a bad name.

I'm not saying we can't have fun and go "party" or whatever, because after all, we are "social" organizations, but gosh... it's just really sad what some people do to the people who are supposed to be "carrying the torch" in the future.

We don't need to babysit each other 24/7, but there's nothing wrong with showing concern when you know something w/ your brother/sister isn't right.

Apparently it's just not possible for some chapters to have an enjoyable collegiate Greek experience without breaking every single Risk Management rule. What's worse is that people don't seem to learn from other chapter's experiences, and that's terrible. How many threads do we get here each month about hazing incidents, alcohol poisoning deaths, etc.?

I do wish that my chapter would have lived more by the vows that we took at initiantion (not saying what they are, of course). I am just saying that i think that people blame greeks cause they have this opinion that Greeks act like this, ie hazing, drinking, ect.

I don't haze, never participated in hazing. I actually left my first university because they hazed. however they called it dorm initiation and said that it was not hazing cause the students agreed to particiapte. however, this same university that allowed this dorm initiation to occure would not allow greek organizations on campus because they (greek letter organizations) hazed and had curruped (sp) morals.

I am just saying that people think that greeks will do horrid things and they cant see anything else, even if there were 100 women who didnt drink, do drugs or anything, but there was one that was caught the rest of the greeks would have the reputation of being like the one. I hate this and think that it is really really closed minded of people, but that is just what i see in this world. I dont like it, nor do i understand it. I wish that people can see and would take the time to see the truth and not the sterotypes.

And as far as what you were talking about your creed. i agree. my sorority is based on religious values and i wish that more people cared more about the values that their organizations were founded on and less on the partying and more negative aspects of greek life.

well, now that i have said all that i think that we are saying similar things but maybe approaching it from different sides.
debbie

Basically, if We as Greek Organizations do not Police ourselves, the The Schools will step in not with a velvet glove but an iron fist.


A few people who break the ideals usually are the ones who destroy a whole chapter. But, if a chapter has ongoing problems then someone will come in and resolve the situation to their satisfaction, not ours as an organization.

Tom you're absolutely right. But the school is only coming in with the iron fist because they have the student body's interests to protect. I can't even imagine the nightmare of working at a university and being entrusted with the mental and physical well-being of 1000s of students.

Should something happen to one of those students, the university is liable. Not to mention the PR nightmare and financial support being pulled from the school if there is an incident with one of the students.

National GLOs don't condone abuse of their members (nor do locals). But the actions of a few chapter members have wide-spread repercussions on the national GLO, the chapter where the alleged incident occurred, the university and all of its students. People get caught up in having their "fun" and don't see that their innocent "quest" or "pledge challenge" can get twisted.



"What do you want a BB gun for, kid? You'll shoot your eye out."

My point was more that yes, we can undergo some peer pressure, but at a certain point the blame is on us, solely. I mean, I've been at a fraternity party before where people were passing around joints... I took it and passed it on to the next person without taking a hit. Noone judged me for it, it just was my personal choice.

Now, granted, I hate that this guy felt the need to kill himself, but I just wish our first thought wouldn't be, "Oh, my god! The fraternity forced him to do drugs so he killed himself!" Once again, however, I reitterate that I don't know the guys nor do I know the whole story, so I am not here to pass judgments either way.

Listen people, no one made him do coke or take Xannys. He might have been made to smoke an ass load of weed...but thats not really a drug. Weed is like smoking a really strong cig. So stop thinking people made him do hardcore drugs, because they didnt. He did that shit on his own. Yes, he may have got his ass beat. So what! That kind of shit happens all the time in any frat....its just none of you want to admit it on a public message board. I could totally see him during formal pledging and someone blindfolding him and then putting a pill in his hand and making him swallow it....but they wont put a couple Xanny bars or a gram of coke in his hand and make him do it. He probably told his mom that crapp because she was on to his habit he already had. If anything, they'd put advil in his hand or something of the likes and make him swallow it.....its about trust. Do any of you think that maybe the drugs he was ALREADY DOING made him so depressed that he killed himself because of that and not from the pressure of PIKE? Some of you sound so stupid. Its my understanding that many frats (at UF at least) ask their pledge classes in front of all the brothers who there does drugs. Get it out of your minds that PIKE makes people do drugs and if you dont you're kicked out. :mad: :mad: :mad:

i think i have to disagree. last time i checked, weed is still an illegal narcotic in most areas of the US. Chemically, THC is proven to be a mind altering stimulant, hence, weed is most certainly a drug.

sorry, i guess we didn't realize that you were right there to witness the whole situation. our bad.

hi pot, meet kettle



sorry for the sarcasm, but you're way off base.

Too true.... and the MJ is stronger now, or at least the standard street variety up here... 15x the average amount of THC over the wild 60s... in terms of narcotic affect I believe it is about as intoxicating as 2-3 shots (but with different neurological effects).

As R A Cooper and HUP Pike said, it is still Illegal and better Grade than every.

With the Prime Wittness DOA, then we may never know will we?:(

The Shame, is it happened at all.

If it was and Probably not part of Initiation, then there must have been a reason that:

1. He did it for a Reason.

2. Was it for other reasons than being in a Greek Organization.

Maybe that is the question?