U. of Wyoming: Temporary Suspension of Sigma Nu Chapter (Alleged Alcohol Violations)
 

The Sigma Nu chapter at Wyoming is temporarily suspended and temporarily de-recognized for alleged alcohol-related violations. The university’s press release:

http://www.uwyo.edu/news/showrelease.asp?id=17744

Brief excerpts from the press release:

Oct. 4, 2007 -- The University of Wyoming has issued a temporary suspension of all activities of Sigma Nu fraternity and has temporarily revoked Sigma Nu's status as a UW Recognized Student Organization, pending university disciplinary proceedings.

These actions are in response to evidence that members of the fraternity engaged in activities that violated the Student Code of Conduct by endangering the health and well-being of UW students. The evidence indicates that several UW students were dangerously intoxicated at a fraternity event.

The press release quotes the dean of students as saying, “ . . . members of our Greek community, upon learning of these activities, reported the behavior to us."

The October 6, 2007 online issue of the Jackson Hole paper reports varied reactions to the suspension and gives a few more details about what the university and Sigma Nu national are doing:

http://www.jacksonholestartrib.com/a...6c0003420c.txt

I'm extremely surprised, but pleasantly so, that at least the school allows alcohol at its functions. It shows it's willingness to treat students as adults.

Sorry this had to happen. But these things are life lessons. If the investigations and consequences are held openly, students can realize that actions have consequences, and that's an important learning experience.

In fact, members of our Greek community, upon learning of these activities, reported the behavior to us."

Haha, yeah, I bet they did. Stupid thing to do in my opinion. You just create an atmosphere where every frat is going to be watching and willing to rat each other out. Hurts the whole greek community there.

It could also create an atmosphere where the university administration has some degree of trust in Greek Life.

I agree with you DA. Should one do the Adult thing and pont out the bad egg before you get lumped in with it or do you do the kid thing and play along with it?
Doing the adult thing would build up the trust factor a bit more.

While I don't think it's bad for one greek organization to report another, I do hope that there is more evidence than someone saying "There were a bunch of really drunk guys at ABC last night." I could see that becoming a recipe for disaster if rival fraternities decided to report things and sanctions are made without any other evidence.

Update: October 17, 2007 News Release

The university has issued a press release the includes the text of an appeal from their IFC and Panhellenic asking people not to prejudge Sigma Nu. The text encourages everyone to wait for the results of the investigation.

The press release:
http://www.uwyo.edu/news/showrelease.asp?id=18223

Came across this while doing a search on another matter:
Penalty against fraternity shocks some at UW

http://www.casperstartribune.net/art...6c0003420c.txt

Update December 20, 2007: Wyoming Suspends Sigma Nu for One Year

The Casper WY paper reports in an article:

http://www.casperstartribune.net/art.../d8tla1r80.txt

Brief excerpts from much longer article:

The University of Wyoming has suspended a campus fraternity until January 2009 . . . .

Representatives of UW, the local Sigma Nu chapter, Sigma Nu's national organization and the private corporation that owns the fraternity house signed an agreement last week that specifies the Sigma Nu fraternity is forbidden from participating in UW events over the coming year. The fraternity must follow a strict disciplinary program to get reinstated as a campus organization. . . .

Under the agreement, a Sigma Nu alumni board must be created to manage the operations of the fraternity house in 2008 and to implement a plan for re-establishment of the chapter. The fraternity also must hire a "house mentor" to live at the house.

Sigma Nu members are also required to participate in alcohol education programs and will host programs for other campus Greek organizations. . . .

Would seems, from what I have read, that your own National determined that it was serious.
Care to state your point(s) or rather counter-points?

Any time a chapter violates the student code of conduct wherever they may be, it's "serious." Such incidents can have an effect on whether insurance covers an incident. The fact that such events happen shows that a chapter is an insurance risk.

To analogize, if I'm clocked going 6 miles per hour over the speed limit, although the infraction isn't that big a deal and I wasn't threatening anyone's safety, if my insurance company catches wind of it, my rates are going up because according to their statistics, I'm more of a risk.

True Kevin. I agree with both that and you.

However I still would like to hear Mr 3's counter-points.

Anytime one fraternity turns in another, you really need to get together and come to some agreements. It does nothing but hurt greek life as a whole.

It wasn't really the nationals, it was the university officials. Those who talk so low of us don't even know us. I'd ask of them, just spend one day in our house. They act as though we are unstable or something... We're by far the best maintained fraternity on campus. We were just put in a sticky situation.

Brother Morton,

To me, it sounds like the big story here is that your campus has an unhealthy 'snitch' mentality. Unless we're talking bigtime RM issues, this one-upping vs. other organizations by reporting issues to the Greek Life office isn't going to go anywhere anyone wants to go.

My hope is that you guys put this behind you and have some frank, off-the-record chats with fellow IFC organizations regarding the direction you guys want greek life to take at UW. Today it may be the tri lambdas reporting you. Tomorrow, it's you reporting them. What comes around goes around -- and all of it reflects poorly upon greek life as a whole.

Whatever happened and whether it is serious or not is between your chapter and the greek life office. From the sound of things, I think there are bigger fish to fry.

True in some cases.
In other cases as we have seen all too many times here in RM when one
chapter does something bad it reflects on the rest of Greek life.

"Something bad" in this case is hella-ambiguous, doncha think?

:):eek::confused:;):D

Well....not to be too biased here (as I'm a Sigma Nu and all) but yeah, I completely understand the snitching culture some IFCs have and it's NOT healthy.

Personally had I seen a bad alcohol situation at another fraternity's house I would try to assist the sober actives of that chapter in getting medical attention to the victim (or overdrinking idiot) and be quiet about it. I highly doubt I'd tell the administration....that's just un-needed attention. When people overdrink it's rarely because a "frat guy" is force feeding them, when that IS the case it's called hazing and it's not tolerated.

Based on something that happened at my late, formally great chapter, I looked to see what Wyoming's hazing laws said. Found out Wyoming is one of the very few states without anti-hazing laws.
However, the stories posted above indicate that Sigma Nu has alcohol policies as does the school within the code of conduct (which also has anti-hazing provisions)
Link for school's code is contained on this page: http://uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu/dos/progra...icial/code.asp
A. Offenses Involving Alcohol and Drugs.


1. Use, possession or distribution of illegal drugs or other controlled substances except as expressly permitted by law.

2. Public intoxication or the use, possession or distribution of alcoholic beverages except as expressly permitted by law and University policies, rules and regulations.

3. Unauthorized selling, directly or indirectly (such as through donations or solicitations), of alcoholic beverages on University premises is prohibited. This restriction shall include the exchange of tickets for alcoholic beverages or any other means by which alcoholic beverages are provided for a consideration of cash or other method of exchange.

4. Unauthorized public advertisement of alcohol related functions or parties on University premises.

II. DEFINITIONS: For purposes of The Student Code of Conduct:

F. “Hazing,” refers to an act that endangers the mental or physical health or safety of a student, or which destroys or removes public or private property for the purpose of initiation, admission into, affiliation with, or as a condition of continued membership in a group, team or organization.

We could continue this debate on/about the pros and cons of being a tattle tail or we can discuss R/M issues and hazing.

I say hazing because that was a charge added to an incident at my old
chapter when the fire department found under age drunk pledges in the
house.

And remember that it was not too long ago that a Fraternity member
died from alcohol poisoning.

On our campus I remember having a party and drinking it up with some active KE's. We did many shots, and got them fall down drunk. We then called their house and told their pledges to come carry them home.

True story. :D

If Greeks are in the minority on each and every campus, why fight among each other and cause a wall to be built between each other?

I'm quite certain that these guys know they did a bad thing and have taken internal steps to rectify the situation. An online confession or discussion about the particulars of whatever went on doesn't help anyone. Such a discussion may even cause the chapter more harm or breach the agreement they made with the school.

It looks like this thing was handled through the house corporation, the national fraternity and the school. If they're all happy with things, so am I.

Kevin; I would agree with you.
However judging solely on posting from someone claiming to be a Brother there, does not seem to me that there is an understanding.

And the point of my posting was not to cause a discussion per se on the particulars of the event but to get away from the grade school level of snitching.

From my experiences covering things up, as has been suggested here, as if they never happened generally only makes things worse at so many levels.

Jon, I'll take credit for that. I advised him not to say anything which wouldn't help his chapter's situation. He's not his chapter's spokesman, so really, we have no business interrogating him over this thing.

That he may or may not be upset that his chapter got turned in for what may or may not have been a minor violation is really immaterial. The story here is that they were reported by another fraternity and the problem has been solved by the active chapter signing, the university and the house corporation [alumni] signing an agreement which seems to set milestones for reinstatement.

As far as I'm concerned, there's not a lot else to the story other than the snitching issue, which can be an interesting discussion.

"Snitching issue"?
Def:
1. intransitive verb inform on somebody: to tell somebody in authority about another person's wrongdoing
IMVHO, this is a R/M issue along with an issue of what do Greeks, as both a chapter and a group, stand for. And how we behave and police our actions.
Both, as pointed out, would have a great deal impact on relationships
with school and community.
We have seen here, and I have seen personally, just how badly self-policing can go. Too many college kids think that self-policing is taking care of one incident at a time on their own and without any help. And forgetting about it when it happens again. And it is only when matters get really out of control, that the "authorities" step in. And then of course everyone gets bent out of shape on that.
And we have all seen just what happens when the media get hold of a Greek incident.

And just as there are no perfect cut and dry definitions of hazing, we could get into a long discussion on who tells what to whom at what point and when is it correct. And why and why. Which IMVHO would turn in a train wreak.

The problem that I have seen many times is when the "snitching" GLO is only doing so against a house that is above them in the tier system (it exists, I didn't create it, so don't blame me) in the hopes of knocking them down some, and in some way bringing their own group up some in the aftermath.


-- holy run-on sentences batman...

[quote=banditone;1605272]The problem that I have seen many times is when the "snitching" GLO is only doing so against a house that is above them in the tier system (it exists, I didn't create it, so don't blame me) in the hopes of knocking them down some, and in some way bringing their own group up some in the aftermath.

quote]
Seen this many times???? Hummm:confused:
And just what kinds of "reports" are being made?
Reports are one matter, the out come of the investigation is another.

I know someone almost died because someone thought it would be "funny" to spike some punch at a party. He happens to be allergic to alcohol.

Or how about date rape? Does that reported?
Would reporting either one be considered knocking a house down or following code of conduct, morality, and ethics et al ???

Both happened, one at a campus, one later one. And I asked the question rhetorically.

Just goes back to my comments in prior posting.

"I saw beer at so and so house".

that type of report. no, i'm not talking about rapes or hazing liquor fests.

You neglected to add to your posting what happened next. Were there any investigations or just a report filed away?
And that liquor spiking was not part of hazing; was at a party.
Hazing is another issue.

Jesus dude, whatever. You win. I honestly don’t' know what you are arguing about.


Just telling you, on some campuses that I've been on, the snitching is malicious in nature. Just done to hurt a strong house, and bring up a weaker one.

Update on settlement agreement

From the Jack$on Hole paper's site:

http://www.jacksonholestartrib.com/a...06000362b5.txt

and the "cryptic" press release from the U. of Wyoming:

http://www.uwyo.edu/news/showrelease.asp?id=21128