U of Central Florida: All Fraternities Asked to Suspend Pledge Classes
 

The U of Central Florida has asked all fraternities to suspend pledge classes / pledge activities. The campus paper's posted article indicates that the background details aren't being given.

Very odd, I think.

Presumably we'll get some info later on what the alleged “major risk management issue” is or was, and what resolution was reached.

http://www.centralfloridafuture.com/...sses-1.1932811

Excerpts from article (link above):

Updated: Wednesday, September 30, 2009

All UCF fraternities are being asked to suspend pledge classes according to an e-mail sent out by Kerry Welch, assistant vice president for student development and enrollment services.

The e-mail, which was sent on behalf of UCF Fraternity and Sorority Life, said that they received a complaint that may be a “major risk management issue,” and that no other information could be released at this time.

The e-mail said . . .
“Hello All,

This email is being sent based on a complaint we received today. It has come to the attention of the University that we may have a "Major Risk Management issue" involving a fraternity within our Greek Community. I'm not at liberty to go into details regarding the information shared, but . . . we are taking this matter very seriously. Therefore, we're asking all Fraternity's to voluntarily suspend all New Member Education Processes/ Membership Intake processes immediately and until further notice/information can be gather and shared. This request is being made to all Councils with Fraternities. . . . As soon as the matter has been cleared, organizations will receive notification to move forward in their process.

. . . Dr. Kerry Welch and Belinda Boston”

The way I read it suggest that one of the fraternities was reported for hazing. If so I can see why they would be worried that it was a Greek wide issue.

Gee, I don't know whether they "can" or not, but they "did."
The Orlando Sentinel has a little more, mentioning that UCF has made the request out of an abundance of caution. (Apparently / allegedly no formal complaint has yet been filed ?) I take that to mean UCF may be over-reacting (they may not be -- who knows ?), but wants to 1) investgate and 2) do a CYA.

See:
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/new...-activity.html

Does UCF house the fraternities, or are the fraternities built on university land? (I guess I could look it up, I am interested, but lazy.) If so, could they be worried that the major risk management issue might leave them open to lawsuits? I guess we will find out in the coming days.

I would expect a vice president of student development, a PHD, no less, would know that the plural of "fraternity" is not "fraternity's."

If one group is doing it, that isn't indicative of a system wide problem. If the incident was some Thunderdome style cage match with each fraternity entering one pledge I could see it as a problem.

If I remember correctly, they're housed in some sort of Greek Park; not sure if it's university owned or not.

I know what you are saying, but I'm saying that maybe the university is thinking that.

I probably shouldn't be giving people ideas. But as a theme party, it might be hysterical to see the costumes.

rofl!!

I'm a big Mad Max fan so I found this awesome :D

But concerning the topic at hand, the fraternity men I've spoken to at UCF are just as clueless as we are and chalk up this incident to an unsupportive/overly strict university president and his staff.

I guess we'll learn more soon enough.

I know that there was an issue with the Beta Theta Pi chapter at UCF, and I believe that Beta is even involved with a lawsuit with the university over the university's treatment of the Beta chapter there. The university took a lot of heat over their decision--the alleged incident involved both actives and alums--so they probably are a little over sensitive based on that.

Yes and from what I understand, the Greek community is still pretty sore. However, the fraternity men I've spoken to are not Betas and in fact are members of a chapter that have not been involved in any trouble with UCF.

Again, we'll know more when the university deigns to share...

Right. I actually meant that the University is probably a little over sensitive and wants to cover its butt, not the Greeks. Sorry.

It will be very interesting to find out. This seems fairly unprecedented.

UCF did this action based on an anonymous tip regarding an unnamed student and an unnamed fraternity. That alone says there was probably no way for them to actually first verify if this claim was true before sending an email like that and sending Greek Life into a frenzy.

http://knightnews.com/2009/09/source...eaten-bruised/