Newly pledged son's House Charter now suspended.

[highanxietymom]

Hi, I'm just an anxious mom who has been reading your posts with great interest. I finally worked up the nerve to actually register and pick your collective brains. Your advice seems to be sound and your hearts are all in the right place.

My son has had a devastating experience with his newly pledged fraternity. This is a large campus (30,000 or so students) located towards the south? He participated in formal fall rush not really knowing what to expect. We live in a small town of 3000 and not many kids go to a state university and even fewer if any ever go Greek. His grandfather was a Lambda Chi at this same university but was never initiated. Our fraternity knowledge is quite limited.
My son, was Mr. Leadership in high school. President of everything, national awards...etc. All-State tenor..champion debater and so on...I think he's a great pledge prospect!

My brother's father-in-law is a big time national award winning alum of a certain chapter on campus. This fraternity in the one my son was most familiar with and the only one which he actually had a rec for. We didn't know a lot about this particular chapter although I had heard they had a reputation for partying. The night before signing, he chose to go to his 2 final parties at this house(BB) and another more prestigious house(AA).

He was immensely impressed with the AA house. He knew 2 members in it, but didn't participate in any summer rush activities because he was out of state most of the time. The BB house offered him a bid and the AA house did not. The 2 members he knew said that the bids went to legacys and guys who attended summer rush but it was a close vote. He was dissapointed as he felt he had more in common with the AA guys than the BB guys but was excited anyway.

Tragically, 6 months through the pledge program in house BB, severe infractions of the risk management code caused the house to be closed for the rest of the school year. The national organization takes action by suspending the charter indefinately. They can return to campus in 3-5 years. The brothers move into off-campus housing but try to stay close together. The national headquarters says the pledges can be initiated since they completed 6.5 weeks of the 8 week pledge program. In fact, all the powers that be...from the national people to the president of the parents organization all seem to be pushing for the pledges to initiate so that these guys can recolonize the chapter when it is allowed back on campus in 3-5 years.

My son feels a strong bond of allegiance and loyalty to his pledge brothers (and the BB House) because they have been through enormous adversity together in these past few weeks(and it's not over yet). However, he realizes that in 3 years he will be a Sr. and his college career will be nearly over. I'm encouraging him to de-pledge and go through rush again in the spring. Our Spring rush is much smaller than Fall rush. He knows more guys in all of the houses and knows more about each house and what he's looking for. I can't imagine what possible benefit he could gain by being initiated into this organization? I think they are pressuring the pledges to stick with it so that they will have members left to recolonize... how does that help my child?

My question to you is will there be a stigma attached to him if he de-pledges (even though the chapter is now basically defunct?) What would you do in this situation?

Hopefully, he can get into AA or another desirable house and at least manage to have a fraternal life of some kind???What should he do to increase his chances of getting in this spring? We did basically nothing in the fall. Should we seek letters of recommendation to the houses he's most interested in? Should those letters be directed to the rush chairman of these houses?