On Wednesday, March 23, 2005,
Student Life, the student paper at Washington University at St. Louis, published an article about the shutting down of the Alpha Phi formal at the City Museum for alcohol-related problems. According to the article,
"Alpha Phi's formal at the City Museum came to an abrupt end Friday night when the museum's management shut down the formal and demanded the entire sorority leave the building."
The shutdown occurred at 11 pm. The museum's rationale was that
"multiple members of the sorority were publicly intoxicated," posing
"what the museum called a safety threat to the sorority members and other City Museum guests."
Museum management cited incidents of passing out and vomiting into trash cans in public areas. The sorority chapter president denies some of the allegations of incidents of passing out.
Museum personnel indicated that pre-partying was the major cause of the problems -- sorority members arrived at the party drunk.
The reported incident is eerily reminiscent of other recent reports of Greeks' drunk-and-out-of-control behavior in public -- whether at a Hampton Inn in Charleston, a ski resort (some Penn Greeks), or (a little farther back in time) a Northwestern fraternity's formal at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago.
As DeltAlum has pointed out, incidents like this, unfortunately, just reinforce public perceptions of Greeks as irresponsible party animals. Incidentally, it probably doesn't help that Washington U. at St. Louis recently had well-publicized Greek drinking issues and a controversial crackdown on alcohol in the Greek system.
For the complete article, see the student paper's web site at
http://www.studlife.com
You might have to do a sign-in or registration. You can also try accessing the article through Google News or other search engines.
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