WSU Sigma Nu Charter Revoked (Hazing)
 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 10, 2007 Lexington, Va. Sigma Nu Fraternity, Inc. has revoked the charter of its Delta Iota Chapter at Washington State University. According to Executive Director Brad Beacham, the decision to revoke the Chapter's charter, made by the Fraternity's High Council (board of directors), follows confirmation of violations of the Fraternity's laws, policies and principles primarily related to the misuse of alcohol, as well as acts of hazing.
"We deeply regret the loss of any Chapter, but are especially saddened by the loss of this historic 97-year-old institution. However, the Fraternity remains resolute when responding to misconduct that defies our most basic values and principles," said John R. Pitts, the Fraternity's Regent (international president) and chairman of the High Council.
"We were also disturbed that images related to these violations were posted by Chapter members on Internet web sites such as MySpace and Facebook," said Pitts. "The glorification of conduct like this is very concerning and simply not acceptable in our Honor Fraternity."
In a related action based on the same misconduct, the conduct board of Washington State University denied recognition of the Chapter for a three-year period and recommended that the Fraternity revoke the charter.
The Fraternity is confident that the Delta Iota Chapter will be re-established in the near future and will once again offer a positive experience reflective of Sigma Nu's mission to develop ethical leaders. "We will continue our discussions with University officials and alumni leaders to plan for that future," said Beacham.
Headquartered in Lexington, Va., Sigma Nu Fraternity was founded in 1869 at Virginia Military Institute in Lexington and currently has more than 180 active chapters and colonies on college campuses throughout North America.

I don't really have any insight into this, but apparently, pictures were posted on someone's Myspace/Facebook account. Pictures can be interpreted in a lot of ways.

Normally, to get a charter revoked, they'd pretty much have to be pretty cut-and-dry pictures.

And if you're dumb enough to put hazing pics on Myspace/Facebook, whether they're true or a joke, you don't deserve a charter.

This is really pretty bad. They just finished a new house/huge rennovation in '02. There must be hundreds of thousands if not millions in debt from that. They were one of the better organizations on campus, a recipient of The Rock award which went to our top 5 or so chapters, top in grades on campus.

This is very unfortunate. We've lost several of our best chapters in recent months due to hazing violations.

I always heard interesting stories about what prompted the house renovation over there. The UI chapter recently finished their house upgrade and it is just lovely.

I'm also a bit :eek: about people and what they put out on the intarweb. I don't think I am *that* old, but when I do dumb stuff it doesn't usually cross my mind to document it, and if it is, there is no way it is going public. Sadly I think it is a generational thing, and I'm going to soon be complaining about loud music, kids in my yard, and sitting on in a rocking chair with a shot gun.

I don't think it's generational. I'm 24 and I agree with you. But then, I think I got a visit from the common sense fairy at birth...she seems to have been skipping over more and more people as of late.

Yeah, as a recently legal 21 year old, I can tell you my friends and I did stupid stuff. Hell, sometimes, we took pictures... but I'll be damned if I'm going to let the pictures get on the net.

This is really sad news about WSU... any idea what went down? That chapter's been around since 1910. It's a shame to see one of our Rock Chapters go.

Kevin I am sorry and it is sad to hear!:(

The real world is out there and they have to learn! The problem is it hurts all of us as you well know!:(

I have to disagree with this.

I haven't seen the pictures in question, but in the case of any chapter closing (whether it be hazing, low numbers, other repeated violations), I find it hard to believe that an HQ would just yank a charter without doing a full investigation.

Especially not of a chapter such as this one. HUGE expensive remodel just a few years back... a fine chapter all around.

I just took a look at their chapter website and was going to come back and add that.

It's definitely hard to see any chapter of your organization close, especially one of your oldest and one that's been around for a very, very long time.

What I meant is that I doubt that any HQ would pull a charter over pics that were up for interpretation, as Kevin implied in his first post. I don't know how you would define "up for interpretation" though. Someone underage with a solo cup that also has vodka in the pic...that I guess could be interpreted different ways. Someone's red, bloody ass and a paddle in a pic, however, leaves little for interpretation - Even as a "joke" with fake blood, etc would be inappropriate for someone to post. I'm not saying either of these scenarios were present in this situation. I'm just saying that one warrents more action than the other.

Here's the thing though -- there is no possible way a picture can confirm what sort of liquid is in a cup. Could be kool aid.

As to the bloody ass/paddle, yes, it could be staged for shock value. College students have done stranger things.

I'm sure there was more.

Ideally, there might be an un-housed fraternity or sorority on campus that could rent the house until y'all come back.

Bottom line is that in and of their own selves, pictures might not be sufficient to close a chapter. However, they can be more than sufficient to warrant an investigation by HQ. In other words, pictures can often be "the smoke" when it comes to the saying: "Where there is smoke, there is fire."

We also have no idea what may have happened in the past. It may be the final action in a string of incidents we aren't privy to. I am sure Kevin can confirm this, but chapters aren't usually closed without careful though and consideration, especially one with a long history and obvious awards.

I of course don't know for sure, but campus rumors are they were shut down for hazing.

The two unhouses chapters - Sigma Chi, TEKE, are probably too small to make it reasonable to lease the house - which is HUGE.

The house mother for my chapter and I always joke how nice it would be to gut their house and move in (as its a stereotypical frat house on the inside - stains, holes in walls..).

Sigma Nu finished the semester with a GPA over 3.0 (very high for a fraternity on our campus) and was/is one of the largest chapters on campus. From what I understand, they were under a lot of pressure from alumni to get grades up in order to possibly save the chapter, but I don't know how much truth there is to that.

I've noticed that a number of fraternities seem to be adopting a pull first, grant appeals later philosophy as of late. For instance, the infamous Ole Miss Kappa Sig incident, which involved KS pulling the charter over a facebook pic from a year before. After the chapter jumped a lot of hoops, they were granted probationary status. Due process is not the trend, it seems. KS did the same at Lehigh, but in their case, it resulted in the chapter losing campus housing. I don't think that would fly in AD. Not that we have any hazing/substance use issues in AD!;)

Recent grades and membership numbers at Washington State do indicate Sigma Nu's high grade ranking there:

http://www.wsu.edu/GreekLife/Grade_R...Spring2007.htm

hmmm yeah I got that email from national today about the charter pull.....then our alumni advisor re-sent it to everybody in the chapter and is all "see what happens when you haze? you guys better never haze"

He's definitely on top of his game :)

I couldn't agree with you more.

I won't pretend to know anything about this past what is in the news release.

Frankly, unless it is public knowledge, it is Sigma Nu's business and no one else's.

That's how I intend to keep it in here :)

I agree.

In addition, I'd like to think this should apply to all GLOs as well.

Whatever goes on in a fraternity/sorority is the business of its members and its members only. Unless it's public knowledge, it's nobody else's business except that of the GLO.

I wish more GCers knew how to respect that. :mad: :rolleyes:

Absolutely. I delete rumors and hearsay with extreme prejudice no matter what the organization. Sorry if I implied I would be unfairly acting to protect my own organization.

Oh no, that's not what I got from your post at all.

I left that comment mainly because we've often seen situations on GC where non-members like to stick their noses where they don't belong. ;)

I definitely appreciate your help in helping me/us catch these things. Thanks for that.

Normally I'm very anti-thread hijack.. but this thread? I'm not a huge fan of the subject.

And the OP is a pompous ass.

Emphasis added by me. Note that the release states that the violations were confirmed, meaning Sigma Nu did conduct an investigation. It also implies that the photos were just the icing on the cake...that the fraternity found it especially appalling that the chapter seemingly PROMOTED the shady acts online.

ETA: The fraternities at WSU have had a bad time in recent years. Sooner or later all the fraternities might be gone, leaving the sororities as the only greeks. I wouldn't be surprised if Sigma Chi national puts pressure on its guys at WSU to add numbers and move into the house if they can, given how strong the chapter is at UW.

I'm sure we'll be back to colonize in pretty short order. I think the way we run our newer chapters is pretty good -- if they can implement our national programming at WSU, I think they can be a reasonably successful chapter (and a much safer one).

Based only on what has been posted here (and yes, I did do a very down and dirty web search), I agree with you.

However, until other news comes out, we truly to not know what happened.

ive heard that WSU's current president is VERY against the greek system and has made life very hard for them. ive also heard theres a new president coming soon and hopefully the greek system will get a little jump, but hopefully they learn NOT TO HAZE!!!

The new president (Dr. Floyd) has already assumed his duties. Dr. Floyd is a Greek.

Our previous president (Rawlins) never did anything deliberately anti-Greek that I know of. He did work hard to change Wazzu's party school image, and I do believe that under his presidency our Greek Community has struggled.

You'll find a lot of Cougar Greeks who are very angry with the university for being "anti-Greek." I am beginning to feel that way too.

It'll be nice to see what Dr. Floyd does.

(yes i realize this thread is old, but I just saw this particular post)

New and just had to jump in here real quick. But, yeah, I got to talk to Jake Welshans and Chris Healy who are in charge of our (Sigma Nu's) stuff and they said they're going probably going to wait a couple of years before going back.

On the topic on new chapters, as a colony at Miss. State they make sure we do everything by the book, they check everything and even come down alot to make sure everything's going according to plan.

It sucks that WSU chapter was shut down for hazing... I actually know a couple of people up there and they swear up and down that there wasn't any hazing going on at all. But, I mean, didn't HQ do a thorough inspection of everything that was going on?

A tutor I had years ago was a member of a very old fraternity at Cal. His chapter was shut down for hazing and he knew nothing of the hazing event as he wasn't involved with it, and had no idea anything had even happened until his HQ showed up and shut them down. I firmly believe things can happen in a chapter that members know nothing about until later. Maybe they live in an apartment, they are away because they are student athletes, have a job, and so on.

If I remember right the house at Wazzu had a lot of work recently done (or was it rebuilt?) and the guys at Idaho just did a huge remodel, and it looks amazing.

Yes, they did a major renovation on the interior of the house.

http://swhitehorse.phenominet.com/si...mages/wsu2.jpg

There are better pics out there on the web of the interior.

I have read that this chapter got in some trouble in the past for hazing. And if something like that happened again, then I can see our nationals pulling the charter.

You just can't do that stuff anymore. Insurance costs are through the roof for fraternities, and they aren't playing around. You haze. Your gone. Hopefully to come back in 2 years as the most optimistic timeframe (altho, the KU Sigma Nu chapter is re-colonizing already, and I believe it has been less then 2 years).

I think I've said it elsewhere -- when I was a colony member, I was LC. I'll skip the gory details, but long story short, we booted a guy. The next week or so, our EC gets a phone call from HQ. Apparently, this fella and his mother (HIS MOTHER!) both called our hazing prevention hotline and reported our chapter for hazing. Someone from HQ called us, I believe it was the director of expansion, I don't know.. the EC got that call. At any rate, the guy and his mother had contrived some story about us hazing. The folks at HQ thought it was the funniest thing they'd heard in awhile. They just called to let us know that we had nothing to worry about.

The moral of the story is that our HQ won't generally act on anything (at least in my experience) without a lot more than a kid and his mommy making allegations.

As for those Acronyms, LC and EC refer to Sigma Nu offices -- LC is like Executive Vice President, EC = President.

hazing
 

Sigma Nu was founded against hazing. We all Know that . That being said , we have to guard ourselves against weaklings who confuse hard work with hazing. Mopping a floor, mowing a lawn trimming a hedge, painting the house! This is not hazing. This is showing an interest in the house a future Knight will someday call his own.
Sigma Nu Epsilon Tau Tau
ZK550

Well said brother.