Banning alumni from the house?
 

My chapter just moved into a new house (well, not new, but different). We have a good core group of guys living there. This is a fresh start for them and a chance to leave all our baggage from the last house, there. In the past, we have had some dumbass alumni come back and trash the house, and this happened again this past weekend at the new house. We are looking for solutions to this, other than me throwing them from the porch. (I'm alumn, and yes, I'd make the trip back there to do that).

Question is, have you ever banned an alumni from the house? If so, how did you do this, how did you communicate this and how did you enforce it?

If you have not used 'banning', what did you do to solve the problem?

Any/all help is appreciated.

Thanks.

Supposedly (this is all third hand since I wasn't in the meeting) one of our alumnae got banned from attending functions. As no one really liked the president who did it, it didn't stick, especially since there's no real precedent in the bylaws for it.

I think the best thing to do rather than differentiating alums and actives would be to write something into the bylaws along the lines of anyone who trashes the house, is banned from entry. That way you can also prevent non-live in brothers from messing up the house.

Also, if you piss off one alum, even though you may think he's the biggest jerk on earth, you may also piss off his best friend who was your biggest supporter. So it's best not to single people out like that - just if you do this, this is what happens to you.

I've got no experience with this particular problem, but it sounds like something you might want to discuss with your alumni advisor and district chief.

I know sorority rules tend to be pretty different from fraternity rules, but at my chapter house the rule was that any guest (including alumnae who were not advisors or corp. board members) needed to be invited/escorted by an active sister while in the chapter house. This pretty much eliminated the possibility of random alums roaming around.

This may be harsh, but you can threaten the people who create havocs will lawsuits. Sometime you need to get them at their wallet so they'll understand that their actions are not acceptable.

Thanks for the responses. The scenario is with a few recent alumns. And they learned it while undergrads, when recent alumns. (at that time) came back and did it......it's unfortunate because there is a 4-5 year period where this crap was happening, and our main 'alumni group', are guys like me who have been out since before this crap was going down....SO, we want to put out the fire NOW before they start influencing the current chapter.

We have discussed getting the police involved if need be. But then again, cops at a fraternity house, for whatever reason, is never good. We don't want to go that route if we don't have too.

I like the by-laws idea though. If they know about and respect that rule as an undergrad, they'll know about it and should respect it as an alumn.

I also like the rule of 'paying for what you break', but these are alumni who don't give money to the House Corp., or the chapter anyway...so, it'd be tough to get them to pay for what they break.

What I'd like to do is write a letter to their mom and tell them what their son did....that'll usually help.

Check your Governing Documents too. I didn't realize until recently that there is a clause in ours that discusses the temporary suspension status for an alumna. Even though they aren't an active member at the time, they can be suspended (and thus removed from the property).

A fraternity on my campus had the same issue. They had a bylaw, it didn't really work. The got an influencial alumn and the chapter president to write a letter of warning after an incident that essentially said that if destruction of property happened again at their hands, they would be barred from entry and if necessary the campus security (it was an on campus house) would be called. It seemed to have worked for the most part.
Good Luck

Do you have a lawyer in your alum board? A letter from a lawyer about paying what you break or else would convince a lot of people to pay it.

Yes, we have a Beta Alumn. on our HC Board, who is an attorney - and we are exploring those options as we speak....good idea!

State laws are different here. I'm sure you have an alum who is an attorney that might be able to help you out.

You might want to refer the problem to the housing corporation.

We had the bylaw thing also and it didn't work. What we did was threaten expulsion from the fraternity unless they paid for damages rendered. Then the message resonated throughout the alumni. No problems since.

If an alum isn't very active in the national org, not financially supporting the chapter and being obnoxious like this they may not care if you revoke their membership.

I know it looks bad if a squad car is in front of your house, but it might be better than the possible consequences of this behavior.

If they are no longer a member, it won't be as bad when you call campus or local cops to get rid of a trespasser.

We have one or two alum that no one really likes...but when they get drunk or coked up they decided to hang out.

The usual course of action is to ignore them until they do something dumb and then beat their ass. They get pissed and vow to never come back. That holds for about a semester then they are back and it happens again.

I really don't see the point in banning an alum.

A little more depth. We rent our chapter house, it is not owned by the HC. We do have a very active HC, however, we hold no power/authority over the chapter (I'm on the board).

I am thinking that the only people that can stop this are the brothers living in the house. They need to stand up and say "get the eff outta here if you're going to do that.". If that doesn't work, they need to get the cops involved.

Sad, but unfortunately it happens.

It all starts with rush and pledging. Rush good guys, educate them properly, and you'll get good alumni. Rush an assbag, you'll have an assbag for an alumni. I have seen too many cases of that. booo :mad:

Sounds like step #1 is to get the HC to be the leaseholder. As an alumni corporation, you definitely want some say as to how your chapter runs their property. It's crucial to your long-term goals which an active alum housing corp should be very interested and involved in.

See what you can do about that over the long haul. In the meantime, get your chapter president on board with you wanting this guy forbidden to trespass on your property. Get an attorney to help you put together a letter or whatever needs to be put together to say something to that effect. It shouldn't be too hard, but I'm sure the law is different in your state than it is here.

Our active chapter had a similar problem with this nutso resident of the community who kept coming onto greek property, getting us cited for phantom noise violations, etc. a couple years ago. After he received a strongly worded letter, we never heard from him again, at least not to my knowledge.

I'm sorry you are having this problem! You aren't the first chapter to deal with this circumstance, and will certainly not be the last! Many chapters have problems with their members taking alumni status, however, they are still in college (or grad school) and are therefore still on the campus. In the past we have had problems with this issue. I hadn't thought of the whole by-law aspect but that is GENIOUS! That way it gets the active collegiates in on the reasoning and institution so that it doesn't become a continuous problem. It sounds like you need to write these particular members a letter stating that for liability purposes, they are not permitted to be in the chapter house unless they are invited for a particular chapter function. This is not a lie. Non members are not covered under your liability insurance. Even members aren't covered unless they have a housing contract or are there for a function of the fraternity. Try starting with a nice letter. There will be one or two members who it will be an ongoing problem with. However, just stand up for what is best for your chapter! You sound like you have started doing the correct thing!

The thread is about an alum that does not respect the house.

Alums are still Full Members Of Your National.

But, if they come down and disrespect Your Local Chapter, then they can be asked to leave. We had this happen, and He was force fully taken out.

If an Alum Member is there, it is as a guest and should represent them selves as such.

Some times New Alums feel that they are still to close to The Active Chapter.

It is still again, if one person disrupts the proceedings, then something needs to be done. They will get over it as other Alums will say, Hey Bro. You Screwed Up).

Trashing a House, Well, maybe an ass whiping?

:confused: There is no reason for that at all. We all as GLOs who have Houses Pay for them! Many times as in My Situation, We as Alums Have been paying for it, so why should some ass screw it up?

We had this problem a few years ago when I was president of our House Corp. We had one alumni who went nuts after his wife divorced him, and would periodically come by with his hooker girlfriends (seriously :rolleyes: )

He came by the house one weekend (not an alumni function) and they caused so much trouble and damage the chapter called me and asked what to do. I told them to call the cops on him, and then the House Corporation voted at their next meeting to ban him from the house unless he straightened up his act, and then sent him a letter saying so. He never did, most brothers have since banned him from their own houses.

BSUPhiSig'92, I take it is not the Norm?

Most Alums except the Newest Dont realize They are Alums.!!!!!!

Actually They Have somewhat Full Rights to come back. Trash The House. NO!

The Alums Do Not Run The Day To Day of Active Chapter.

Now, if the House Corp. Owns The House, then You report it to Them! They will handle it from there!!!!!!!!:)

Good Luck, It will Help showing That You Care!:cool:

In our instance, this is a house rented by nine dudes, who put Beta letters on it. So, I guess it's the Beta house, but truly its a house rented by nine dudes. Which is why our HC is not 'really' involved in the leases. Don't get me wrong, our HC is active and participates heavily with the chapter, but we don't 'run' the physical house - it is landlord owned....

So, any alumni that thinks they can come back to 'their' house, really, in all legal aspects, cannot....know what I mean?

while we don't explicitly ban alumni from the house we have to hire security during homecoming. we've definitely had problems in the past...alumni seem to be attracted to fire extinguishers...

Any alumnus.

In this case, it'd be up to whoever is the leaseholder. How you get this guy formally barred from entry is dependant on your state's laws though. You might just try asking him nicely and see how that goes :)

ZZ-kai-, just thought about this,

Since the rentals is with the invidiual brothers, why not, with the help of your lawyer brothers, have the individual brothers threaten to sue the maverick brothers?

That's an option I guess. The thing is, they're pretty good guys, they're actually past Pres. and VP too....but then again, when they were in office, the chapter took a big shit...so, it doesn't surprise me. Anyway, they're always welcome to the house, it's just when they get destructive that it pisses us off. We'll get them, we're having a 'fix-it-up' weekend this weekend, and if they show, they're getting an earfull from me.

This made me laugh. :)

Lambda Chi Alpha's constitution CLEARLY states that Alumni are welcome at chapter functions/events as a GUEST of the undergraduates, and only at their INVITATION.

For us, thats pretty clear. Does your constitution not have soemthign simular? Could you add it to your bylaws if not?