Bad Year in Boulder

[DeltAlum]

The single most distressing thing in the following article is something that has really been bothering me -- the trashing of fraternity houses when a charter is lost.

Shouldn't it occur to the members that the fraternity may want to recolonize someday?

The same thing happened to Delt several years ago at Colorado, and the beautiful chapter house has since been sold to the university. It is so sad to walk by, see the letters still in stone above the doorway, and know that, even in the unlikely event that we will ever be on the campus again, Delts will never again live in that amazing facility.

I guess it's tough to see past personal problems of the moment cause actions which hurt the greater good of the fraternity -- no matter what the letters involved are.


Tough semester for CU's fraternities

By Matt Sebastian, Camera Staff Writer

It's been a rough semester for the University of Colorado's fraternities.

Three of Boulder's oldest chapters were shuttered by their national
offices this fall - most recently the Kappa Sigma fraternity, whose
members are suspected of trashing their house last week.

CU officials say the number of fraternity closures is unusual, but
not necessarily worrisome.

"I don't think it's a good or bad thing," said Laura Strohminger,
CU's director of Greek affairs. "It just means the national
headquarters are taking responsibility for their men."

Not everyone involved agrees.

Alpha Tau Omega chief executive Wynn Smiley, who closed his
fraternity's Boulder chapter this year, said CU has taken too much of
a hands-off attitude toward the Greeks.

"The University of Colorado is an interesting animal," Smiley said.
"There's little oversight from the university ... and that makes it
more difficult to hold members accountable."

CU's practice has been to discipline individual students through the
campus's Office of Judicial Affairs. The chapters, 16 of which now
remain, are dealt with by their respective national headquarters.

Bob Maust, coordinator of CU's alcohol education programs, said the
university monitors Greek life and works very closely with fraternity
and sorority members.

"We may not have any legal entanglements with them, but we made that
decision very deliberately," Maust said, noting that some
universities own their campus's fraternity houses.

The fraternities that revoked their chapters' charters this year are
the following:

Alpha Tau Omega shut down its chapter, established in 1901, at the
beginning of the fall semester, a year after CU officials started
calling on the national office to take action. Last spring, Boulder
city officials found the fraternity's 17th Street home so poorly
maintained that it was declared uninhabitable.

Members also were delinquent in paying dues to their national office
and CU's Interfraternity Council.

Phi Delta Theta closed its chapter, which dates back to 1902, in
October following a rollover accident in Boulder Canyon that left a
pledge seriously injured. Members had taken a group of new inductees
up into the mountains and left them with a keg of beer.

After the fraternity lost its charter, six former members were
arrested for causing $15,000 in damage to their chapter's former
house.

Kappa Sigma revoked its chapter's charter on Dec. 13 after members
violated a prior suspension by bringing alcohol into their
Pennsylvania Avenue house. The chapter, founded in 1916, also engaged
in hazing, according to Mic Wilson, the fraternity's executive
director.

But the chapter's troubles, Wilson said, weren't linked to a violent
assault that occurred just outside the fraternity's house in March. A
Kappa Sigma member was sentenced to two years' probation for
attacking another CU student.

After Friday's revocation, the fraternity's house was extensively
vandalized. Boulder police suspect disgruntled fraternity members
caused more than $20,000 in damage. No arrests have been made.

"We were all taken a little aback by that," Wilson said. "But we
won't tolerate such things."

Copyright 2002, The Daily Camera.