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.