Fraternity members indicted in student death

[AGDLynn]

The first and only national Asian American interest fraternity. Member of NIC since 1989.
www.lambdaphiepsilon.com/

I had never heard of them before and I'm not familiar with NIC orgs.

Wonder where the advisors were....

[macallan25]

Its true. Idiots.

[shinerbock]

Mac, I guess SAE can't team up w/ Lambda Phi Whatever for socials anymore.

[macallan25]

Originally Posted by shinerbock

Mac, I guess SAE can't team up w/ Lambda Phi Whatever for socials anymore.

\

Ha, yea we are all extremely upset.

[jon1856]

This story hit the media hard; several more news links on story:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...o/4401047.html


http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?se...ate&id=4848962


http://news8austin.com/content/top_s...sp?ArID=176454

http://www.statesman.com/news/conten...raternity.html

[EE-BO]

Originally Posted by macallan25

Its true. Idiots.

Were they even registered with the University?

AGDLynn, if you had not posted I would have gone on assuming this was just some underground local.

Texas has quite a few underground groups that are GLOs in lettered name only. Sucks when they get into trouble (which they do- frequently) because the media is going to treat the story as though they were a real fraternity.

[shinerbock]

one of their chapters...looks like they frat hard.

[tallgreekalum]

I didn't realize that locals were kicking around Austin. Are there a lot of them?

Originally Posted by EE-BO

Were they even registered with the University?

AGDLynn, if you had not posted I would have gone on assuming this was just some underground local.

Texas has quite a few underground groups that are GLOs in lettered name only. Sucks when they get into trouble (which they do- frequently) because the media is going to treat the story as though they were a real fraternity.

[Elephant Walk]

It's not a local.

[EE-BO]

Originally Posted by tallgreekalum

I didn't realize that locals were kicking around Austin. Are there a lot of them?

As Elephant Walk just posted- this particular house was not a local just to confirm, but yes there are many underground and local houses here.

How many is difficult to say. For various reasons I have been keeping close watch on the real estate situation in West Campus lately and there are a lot of small homes owned by Greek Letter Organizations that I am not familiar with. And not all of them have letters advertised on the front door.

But whether these groups are chapters of national GLOs or not, the fact remains that they do not tend to be registered with the University. I know this because I have last semester's official Greek House map and IFC grade reports sitting on my desk right now.

For various and obvious reasons, there has been a rise in recent years of new GLOs which tend to cater to specific racial groups and have a national presence.

However, the newness of these groups and the approach they have taken with regards to operating in a semi-underground manner gives them something in common with local and underground GLOs- specifically that they do not have the history, alumni presence or formal responsibility to colleges and strong national offices that can set the proper tone for recruitment and risk management.

My research shows that this is where the real risk lies. Different chapters in different places have different boundaries as to what is acceptable or not acceptable, and we are never going to agree on that.

But it is my opinion that chapters without alumni presence and guidance (courtesy of advisors or having lots of legacies in the chapter) and that chapters who are not selective in their recruiting are the ones that have the most problems. And if you really think about it and drop the north/south and other prejudices- this makes perfect sense in ways that would take 20 pages to fully discuss and explain (though I can do it if anyone wants!)

To get back to my earlier comment, my frustration is that when these kinds of organizations have incidents- the media does not report that the chapters involved are underground, local, not registered with the University or are just a bunch of 10 random guys who decided to rent a house together and pick out 2 or 3 letters to name themselves.

All they see is Greek letters, and then a media story is born.

Just read the first 2 pages of this particular forum and consider each incident. Ask yourself if these stories would have made the news if the student(s) involved were not greek. Look at how many of the reported incidents happened away from the Greek house.

We of 100+ year history greek organizations who are formally registered with our colleges are being judged by isolated incidents that happen with students who have nothing in common with us other than they decided to call themselves something using greek letters.

That sucks.

But I could care less about what the general public thinks. What pisses me off is that so many of our own- even from within our own brotherhood at times- are so willing to pass judgement, on this forum at that, and not stop and think about what is really going on.

[tallgreekalum]

So are these organizations registered as student groups at all, or are they just not IFC/Panhel/Pan-Hel? Is there some kind of Multi-cultural Greek Council @UT? This is the route many campi are going. The cultural/ethnic fraternities becoming residential is a fairly new phenomenon at most schools. I think that they are still following more of Pan-Hel type route rather than IFC/Panhel one. I know when I was last in Austin(we had an affiliate there for 10 years) there were one or two honor/professional fraternities with houses, as well as two non-GLO groups (I know Tejas is still there). Of course it is only the last ten years or so that the University has had much of a relationship with the IFC.

[EE-BO]

Tejas House is still there I think- but they have never tried to associate themselves with Greek Life. I knew one of the guys from one of my classes and he told me that it was basically a house where friends of current residents were invited to move in as guys graduated. No ritual or pledge period to speak of. A nice historic house too.

Beta Kappa (business fraternity- co-ed) used to have the house next to ADPi, but that changed hands a couple of times and is currently in Acacia's hands. I am not aware of BK having a property at present.

As for your question about other councils, I just checked and at the bottom of the Greek Life page on the UT website there are other councils listed besides the IFC (national fraternities and the list I was looking at last night) and UPC (representing the 14 national NPC-affiliated sororities). They are as follows- with portions of their mission statements in quotes to indicate who they represent,

NPHC- fraternities and sororities

"The National Pan-Hellenic Council at The University of Texas at Austin is the governing body for the nine historically African American Greek organizations. Seven of these organizations are currently affiliated with Greek Life and Education."

TAPC- Texas Asian Pan-Hellenic Council

"The Texas Asian Pan-Hellenic Council is the governing body for three Asian-interest organizations at The University of Texas at Austin." [Note- later on in their mission statement, it is indicated these are all sororities.]

UGC- United Greek Council

"The United Greek Council was created by the predominantly Latino/a based fraternal organizations at The University of Texas at Austin in the spring 2000 semester."

I must confess I was not completely aware of the extent of this- so that is new information for me.

However, I also just now looked over the list of all registered Greek organizations for all of these councils plus affiliates without council representation- and I can see off the top of my head that there are 3 GLOs I am aware of that are not registered.

That includes the organization being discussed here. I checked the discipline records online as well to ensure they are not listed because they were kicked off when this incident was first reported, but there is no record of any such action.

So it would appear this GLO was never registered with the University in any capacity. And I would note as well that none of the councils I mentioned above cover Asian-American fraternities of which there are reputedly many (2 of which I know about.)

[jaynu]

Originally Posted by EE-BO

We of 100+ year history greek organizations who are formally registered with our colleges are being judged by isolated incidents that happen with students who have nothing in common with us other than they decided to call themselves something using greek letters.

That sucks.

And those of "us" who have only been around for decades at most face the same problems. New students judge us everyday on the misconceptions created by these older, more "historic," organizations. ONE isolated incident happened with an Asian GLO that shouldn't reflect anything or become a generalization for other organizations around the country.

Isolated incidents... This past year I've heard of everything from a new member falling off his balcony to a pledge being locked in a casket. These did not occur within Asian organizations, but rather those with 100+ years of history. You speak of this "we" and "you" division like my organization would be any different than your's in purpose. I keep wondering what older, more experienced organizations think about newer organizations because these type of divisional comments.

I'm proud to be in my organization (Yes, an Asian one). I without a doubt believe we have more in common than just 10 random guys "calling [ourselves] something using Greek letters." We serve our community, set up Philanthropy events, and furthermore, turn young men into leaders. There's nothing to talk down to about that. If not for this ONE incident, I'm sure all of the current Asian GLOs would have been in a council within the next few years. I'm sure that we'll be on one before our first decade on campus is over. In the meantime, all we've been doing was researching on the different councils to find which one will suit us best. Coming from a much smaller, and newer organization, the idea of being "recognized" is much different compared to that idea for century-old organizations.

(Sidenote: I have friends and acquaintances in all GLOs. The point I was trying to make is that ethnic groups aren't any different in tradition and culture, so much as to say I'm Vietnamese, he's African American, and she's White.)

[jaynu]

Jon, I was referring to someone else's comment about an active being stripped of membership for ratting something out.

What does your comment imply?

[macallan25]

Originally Posted by jaynu

And those of "us" who have only been around for decades at most face the same problems. New students judge us everyday on the misconceptions created by these older, more "historic," organizations. ONE isolated incident happened with an Asian GLO that shouldn't reflect anything or become a generalization for other organizations around the country.

Isolated incidents... This past year I've heard of everything from a new member falling off his balcony to a pledge being locked in a casket. These did not occur within Asian organizations, but rather those with 100+ years of history. You speak of this "we" and "you" division like my organization would be any different than your's in purpose. I keep wondering what older, more experienced organizations think about newer organizations because these type of divisional comments.

I'm proud to be in my organization (Yes, an Asian one). I without a doubt believe we have more in common than just 10 random guys "calling [ourselves] something using Greek letters." We serve our community, set up Philanthropy events, and furthermore, turn young men into leaders. There's nothing to talk down to about that. If not for this ONE incident, I'm sure all of the current Asian GLOs would have been in a council within the next few years. I'm sure that we'll be on one before our first decade on campus is over. In the meantime, all we've been doing was researching on the different councils to find which one will suit us best. Coming from a much smaller, and newer organization, the idea of being "recognized" is much different compared to that idea for century-old organizations.

(Sidenote: I have friends and acquaintances in all GLOs. The point I was trying to make is that ethnic groups aren't any different in tradition and culture, so much as to say I'm Vietnamese, he's African American, and she's White.)

I agree with his "divisional comments" and wish to add that "the new member" who you refer to was in my fraternity (SAE) at Texas and had nothing to do with any kind of RM issue. He fell off of his balcony at the Towers. He wasn't forced to drink a gallon of liquor.