Alpha Chapter Woes

[ECUJacob]

So, this entire blog is filled with holes and blanks that I would like to have filled. It's only showing one person's side of the story.

Bryan Stainfield started the blog on Wed., February 14th. So, almost two weeks later, after several heated posts, he still has not provided a background for whatever drama is going on up there.

I'm curious as to what happened that would drive the AO to have a review of the chapter.

[ZZ-kai-]

Sounds like a lot of holes in that story to me, lots of bitching and not much meat to it. I highly doubt that the AO just went in there just to go in there. They're not going to make waves just for shits and giggles. That being said, it seems that 4 guys have a blog, and one pissed off mom, and thats about it. That is about 3% of their chapter. Until more info. is posted, or this becomes a public discussion among actives/alumns/chapters, I'm not putting too much into it. Seems like some guys whining to me??!!

[EE-BO]

Originally Posted by ECUJacob

So, this entire blog is filled with holes and blanks that I would like to have filled. It's only showing one person's side of the story.

Bryan Stainfield started the blog on Wed., February 14th. So, almost two weeks later, after several heated posts, he still has not provided a background for whatever drama is going on up there.

I'm curious as to what happened that would drive the AO to have a review of the chapter.

Stories are already starting to circulate. I have my own limited opinions which I have no intention of airing on the web, but be that as it may I am sorry to see this blog.

It is a no-win situation.

For starters, unless the full story can be told- it is useless as a tool to get the rest of us to look at what happened and make our opinions heard if such a thing is merited.

Second, you can't tell the whole story on the internet because this is a private fraternity matter! As long as whatever happens in a chapter problem does not involve any criminal charges or public threat, then it is a matter for the chapter first, and the Beta brotherhood second- and nobody else at all.

I have much to say about this, but I cannot even bring myself to hint at my inclinations. This just doesn't belong on the internet.

But I will say- this young man is our brother and clearly upset and worthy of our consideration and care regardless of which side is right or wrong on any given issue. I hope he will bring this blog down and handle the matter among brothers- even emailing guys like us from other chapters just to be there to listen if that helps.

[BigRedBeta]

I e-mailed Bryan late last week and he said there was going to be a full disclosure post soon, starting from the very beginning which stretches back to last year. Apparently it's a pretty long story.

Given the small run-ins we've had with EC's in the past couple years about parties and the like, having the AO over your shoulder is probably a real tough thing. While I can certainly understand the GF's position on the grounds of risk, insurance costs, and general image to the public, I think there is a pretty big lack of understanding on their side as to just what the implications of their position are on the chapters. Regardless of what they want chapters to be, the chapters still have to provide what rushees are looking for. And at many places that includes girls, parties, and alcohol, in addition to great brotherhood, academic success and men of principle. If this ends up being about social policies I wouldn't be surprised, but it will still upset me (considering how good Alpha has been over the past several years...of course, if they undergo some sort of reorg, then my chapter can take back our lead in total Knox awards...)

[EE-BO]

The long story actually goes back several years and gets to the core of many things this fraternity is dealing with in the interests of finding our right place as an organization.

If you have any influence with Bryan, please encourage him to take that blog down and not go any further with it. Or PM me his email if you would and let me please talk to him.

There is a valid discussion to be had on this, but the internet is not the place for it. He loses the ears of many who have an open mind, including me, by making a public scene of this matter. And I don't want that. I do not want this young man to walk away bitter and angry.

[BigRedBeta]

I have no such influence.

While I understand your thoughts on sharing the situation over the internet, I personally have to say that I would know nothing of the situation if not for them posting this blog. By doing this, they've reached a much broader audience of brothers which is no doubt their goal. Of course the flip side of this is that non-members, the media and any person who might wish to disparage Greeks in general, or Beta in particular have access. Given the recent Delta Zeta DePauw incident, there certainly are some PR risks with this blog...

However, since I still only have very vague bits and pieces from the blog, I can't make an assumption into exactly how appropriate or inappropriate a blog and public disclosure are. It seems, EE that you have more information that has lead you to much different conclusion about this. Perhaps you can share this through a PM, so I can better understand your views?

[EE-BO]

PM about to be sent.

For the public record though, I do not have any special insights and conclusions on this. I am a great believer that a chapter's active members, alumni and GF liasons are the ones to handle chapter matters.

I do not want to embed myself in this, just as I would not want other chapters embedding themselves in the doings of my chapter. I just wanted to put my comments out there in the hopes that the people who started this blog might change their minds.

While it is true that many would not have been aware of this situation, from the inside there is not a lot of information out there either- nor have I pressed for it- for the reasons I state above. So, the blog does not really do anything to provide info to those who are entitled to it (Alpha actives and alumni) in reaching a determination.

As an advisor, I try to encourage my chapter to approach their fraternity experience like a business. In many ways, being in a fraternity prepares you for professional interactions.

In this particular case, the primary driver of the blog seems to be a desire to get more information about the reasons for the member review. Agreeing with its findings or not is surely a matter of contention too, but what I have read indicates the most urgent desire is to get more info from GF.

And, looking at it from a real life perspective, the presence of the blog is only going to make it less likely that will happen. How the member review went down is something I know nothing about, nor it is my business- but I think it is safe to say that if those asking for the information are showing a willingness to broadcast chapter matters on the internet, then GF has no incentive to try and have a discussion with those individuals because they have no way of knowing if those individuals will make additional discussions public if they do not like what they hear.

I do not ever try to butt in on other chapters- I really don't. But then again, I have never seen anything like this blog before in response to a chapter's internal matters.

And I am just not sure it could do any good at all. If anything, it creates more harm.

As an active member I often had an inherent mistrust of GF and Housing Corps and all that- but with age and experience I know that these entities do care. And a chapter with a strong caring alumni base will have the best ally possible in dealing with internal strife.

Alpha chapter has such an alumni base- full of men who care deeply about the chapter and have devoted their time to other chapters around the country, including mine.

So while there may be particular aspects of this one process that need to be discussed for the better of future management, I cannot imagine how this blog is going to help in any way.

Right now it can still be possibly excused to some extent as frustrated young men who need someone to work with them on understanding what happened- or accepting it.

But if the disclosure gets much more detailed or starts naming names, then it will go beyond that and I do not think these young men will find a sympathetic ear because at that point it will look like something quite different, and it would then validate the presumption that these men were in the wrong all along.

JMHO.

[furmanbeta]

While I can understand where you guys have been coming from, I think that there is something that should further be understood and looked at here. I definitely concur in the opinion that I do not want other chapters butting into my home chapter's business, nor do I necessarily feel the need to get involved in theirs. However, looking at things from a business perspective, each chapter is not its own business, each chapter is a member of the larger corporation. As such, members of the corporation should have the right to gain at least some knowledge into the inner workings.

Basically any time that you take a look at the GF website, you'll see that there are chapters reporting on various successes that they have had. But isn't it strange that there is virtually never a failure posted? Is it because every chapter is functioning so well that there are no massive failures worth reporting? Of course not, this is merely selective reporting of the news to create a particular image. There is barely a mention of when a chapter is closed, much less severely reprimanded. The entire process needs to become somewhat more transparent.

That having been said, I am no great fan of the AO staff in large part. While I am sure that the hearts and minds of these men are in the right place, they are working on a seriously misguided sense of action. It is not the job of the General Fraternity to step in constantly. We're closing chapters as quickly as we're opening them, that suggests to me that there is a problem. Now comes the question of what the problem actually is. The first possibility is that there are far too many irresponsible individuals, who are not living up to the Code, and basically disgraces to the name of the fraternity. The second possibility is that those individuals who sit on their high hill in Oxford have little understanding of what it takes to be successful on the undergraduate level, have forgotten what life was like when they themselves were undergrads, and are high and mighty enough to believe in their own superiority. As for me, I think it's the latter.

Here's one final thing to consider, and I can't believe it hasn't been brought up yet. Alpha won some awards at Convention last year, with the most important being the Knox and Sisson Awards. These are the absolute highest honors that a chapter can receive throughout the course of a year. They are the supposed mark of chapter excellence. Are we to believe that in a period of about 6 months (4-5 of which were actual academic months) that this chapter has devolved to a point where the entirety of the membership needs to be reviewed? Something is rotten in Oxford.