Underground Chapter

[g41965]

I read a news article that concluded an underground chapter of Alpha Delta Phi has and continues to exist at Williams College 35 years after the college trustees banned greek life as a "matter of educational policy".
The article states"ADPHI still holds secret meetings on campus and maintains a chapter meeting room." from the Williams Record 12/5/03, Does anyone have any further information.
By way of explanation Williams abolished its once strong greek system in 1968. Recently Williams administrators reaffirmed the ban and added by way of insult that their "oh so qualified students agreed with the ban and no real interest in reviving greeks existed on campus".
What a self serving load of BS, especially if an underground has survived for 35 years with a threat of member expulsion. Some student must seek out greek life.
I really don't understand the trend in colleges and our larger society to limit freedom of assembly and expression.

PS check out the Williams site, they allow all sorts of groups, just not greeks.

KA Society and Theta Delta Chi also supposedly had undergrounds at Williams( at least the 150 year DU history so states) anyone have the scoop.

[PhiPsiRuss]

No one really has "the scoop" thanks to the persistent threats of the Williams Gestapo. Their intellectual dishonesty about freedom of association is breathtaking.

Watch for another school, Franklin & Marshall, to reverse its roughly 15 year old prohibition of social GLOs before the begining of the 04-05 academic year. Their prohibition has been ineffective, and they are tired of having their proverbial heads in the sand.

[queequek]

Sorry for no replies, I think this is a sensitive matter as the school officials might lurking around gc and finds out what GLO went underground.

Yes, but I know several GLOs (older GLOs) went underground in the anti-greek campus, especially in the east coast.

Good luck finding the info!

[Kevin]

I think with the advent of national programming and national organizations being very serious about stopping hazing, it is time that anti-greek colleges give a second look. We are offering a more positive experience than ever.

I have to hope that as GLO's evolve we stop shooting ourselves in the foot so often with negative press. It's great that these universities are considering reopening. However, how many (Alfred) have recently shut their doors due to the stupidity of individuals within GLO's?

[GeekyPenguin]

Originally posted by russellwarshay
No one really has "the scoop" thanks to the persistent threats of the Williams Gestapo. Their intellectual dishonesty about freedom of association is breathtaking.

Watch for another school, Franklin & Marshall, to reverse its roughly 15 year old prohibition of social GLOs before the begining of the 04-05 academic year. Their prohibition has been ineffective, and they are tired of having their proverbial heads in the sand.

I know a fellow who was in a "underground" chapter at F&M before he transferred to Marquette...I couldn't believe some of the stories I heard.

[queequek]

Originally posted by GeekyPenguin
I know a fellow who was in a "underground" chapter at F&M before he transferred to Marquette...I couldn't believe some of the stories I heard.

Let's hear some!

[PhiPsiRuss]

By Christopher Marcisz
Eagle Correspondent


WILLIAMSTOWN -- Williams College officials say they have received no
response to an offer of amnesty last month to members of an underground
fraternity still believed to be active on campus nearly 40 years after
the college began eliminating the Greek system locally.

Details about the group known as St. Anthony Hall, such as its size and
activities, remain sketchy. Its presence on campus came to light this
summer when an alumnus approached the college about gaining access to the group's ceremonial "goat room," which is in a college-owned building that now houses the Center for Development Economics.

'Join the fold'

In offering the amnesty, Dean Nancy Roseman said it was an invitation
to the group to rejoin the campus community with certain conditions.

"That's the whole concept behind the amnesty," she said. "It is about
saying to the organization: Join the fold."

The move would require the group to abandon some of its practices,
including its secretive behavior, close links to a national organization and
demands for exclusive use of its ceremonial room. So far there has been no
response.

Speculation about the group had long been circulating, according to
Roseman. Conversations among alumni about their college years, and concerns expressed by some students, have kept the issue on the radar screen.

Williams began the long process of rooting out fraternities in 1962 in
an effort to create a more inclusive college environment and decrease
on-campus drinking and hazing. The organizations were an entrenched part of campus life, with roughly 44 percent of students living in fraternity houses.

The college's policy on fraternities remains clear and has been
reaffirmed through the years by the board of trustees.

"Williams students may neither join nor participate in fraternities
during their time at the college," the college handbook reads. "The college
will take disciplinary action against students who are found to be
participating in such organizations. Penalties may include suspension or expulsion from the college."

The student newspaper, the Williams Record, reported in November that
St. Anthony Hall, also known as Delta Psi, had been active underground
since the 1970s. According to the paper, students have been meeting in a barn in Pownal, Vt.

St. Anthony Hall is a national organization founded in 1847, with nine
active chapters across the nation. It bills itself as an "undergraduate
literary society" rather than a fraternity. Unlike many fraternities,
it admits women and claims its activities include literary gatherings.

Officials at the group's national office in Ithaca, N.Y., declined to
comment.

Its Web site states, "We remain to this day a group of college students
interested in the bonds of fraternity and sharing a common passion for
the love of learning and the appreciation of a well-rounded education."

Last summer, John Shaw, a member of the class of 1962 and a former
national chairman of the group, approached college officials about regaining
access to the fraternity's ceremonial "goat room."

The room is in the basement of the fraternity's former house, now the
Center for Development Economics at the corner of South Street and Route 2.

The Record quotes Shaw as writing in a 2002 St. Anthony Hall
publication that he hopes his efforts will succeed.

"This effort will not be bloodless, and I anticipate opposition from a
variety of quarters, but our flag will once again fly in Williamstown."

Some students have responded sharply to the acknowledgment of the
group's presence, in weblogs and columns in the Record, urging more aggressive disciplinary action against a group that clearly violates college
rules. But Roseman said the overall response to the offer has been muted.

Roseman said exposing and punishing the members would be a difficult
process. "I don't know where to begin," she said. "I don't know any
members."

She added that official pressure "would drive it deeper underground."

[DGMarie]

Apparently the staff writer is just really upset by all of this discovery. I highlighted the worst in bold.

Fraternity policy aside, it does sound like a nice liberal arts school, if pricey (about $33,000 per year).

No amnesty for fraternities
Aidan Finley - STAFF WRITER

To matriculate as Williams College students, we signed two documents: the honor code and the fraternity pledge. Both are helpfully printed in the student handbook and can be found on the Registrar’s webpage. As befits a binding document, the fraternity pledge is simple and unambiguous: “Williams students may neither join nor participate in fraternities during their time at the College.” Furthermore, “penalties [for violation of the fraternity ban] may include suspension or expulsion from the College.”

And yet, this past week finds confirmation not only that the agreement has been willfully violated but also that the administration has failed to take appropriate action. A fraternity has been uncovered at the College (“Internal tensions expose frat; College offers amnesty,” Nov. 18, 2003) but the administration is not moving to suspend or expel anyone. Instead they have offered “amnesty,” something that doesn’t appear in the statement concerning fraternities, or under the list of “appropriate penalties.”

Seeing as the fraternity pledge states it explicitly, the College presumably believes that: “in making…important decisions over…three decades, the College has had as its central goal the sustenance of a community characterized by openness, academic vitality and equality of opportunity.” This is not a “minor goal,” or an “easily dispensable goal;” this is a “central goal.” The College, as a vibrant community, depends upon “openness, academic vitality and equality of opportunity,” three important values impugned by the presence of fraternities.

But the administration is apparently willing to compromise, even abnegate, these allegedly “central” principles. Dean Roseman did not even bat an eye in offering the fraternity complete amnesty: “If this group would like to enter the fold of Williams College, we would be delighted to have them and would not discipline any current or former members.” This collective shrug, this appeasement, this pandering response to very serious allegations does this College a grave disservice. Moreover, this willful deception on the part of my ostensibly fellow collegians makes me quite angry. But, what makes me angrier still is the intentional ignorance or deliberate blindness of the administration, leading to their abject failure in detecting and eliminating this pervasive (and repeated) circumvention of our “central goal.”

The Record reports that the former national chairman of the St. Anthony’s Hall fraternity (a Williams alumnus) has made repeated entreaties to the Provost’s office to purchase or otherwise exclusively secure the Center for Development Economics (CDE) goat room. Somehow, this strange request did not raise any flags, and as the Record notes, “administrators opposed the alums’ proposal because of the College’s general policy against granting exclusive use of campus spaces to specific student organizations.” What is more damning is the recent revelation that there has been a secret “Lambda” chapter of this fraternity on campus since 1973! Williams has sold us a fraudulent bill of goods: the supposedly “fraternity-free” College we’ve paid for has not been fraternity-free at all.

One of the reasons I applied to Williams, and one of the reasons I wanted to come to Williams was precisely because this place was fraternity free. I didn’t want my social life intertwined with pledging, hazing, racism, sexism, anti-Semitism and the rest of the “community values” fraternities’ offer.

I embraced the College’s elimination of these pernicious organizations from campus. I am not happy to discover that I have been duped, that the College has tacitly allowed an “underground” fraternity for thirty years, negotiating with its national board over purchasing the goat room, looking happily the other way as class after class of Williams students graduated with “secret” fraternity members, making a yearly lie of our paper pledge.

Why is there only bemusement when we hear of this? Why do we blithely smile to learn our fundamental community value, the College’s “central goal” has been contravened and that there is to be no penalty? A couple of years ago, the University of Virginia discovered a widespread cheating ring that had penetrated and made a mockery of their honor code, the nation’s oldest, and most severe, with the only penalty being expulsion (“UVA dismisses 48 in cheating scandal,” AP Nov. 25, 2002). After a long investigation, UVA expelled 48 students, demonstrating that their honor code is binding and cannot be taken lightly.

Williams finds itself in an analogous situation in which a deliberate, intentional and consistent violation of our community has occurred. The appropriate response is not amnesty but discipline. Amnesty merely condones the now consequence-free act of founding or joining a fraternity. The honor code comparison is instructive. Academic honesty, so essential, is enforced by a committee of students and faculty. When students violate it they are not offered “amnesty,” and even those who come forward and confess are punished severely. The fraternity ban, allegedly essential, has been left to an administration where the will to enforce such standards is lacking.

This is my challenge to the College: stop being hypocritical. Eliminate the fraternity pledge, which is a document you obviously have no interest in enforcing, or else enforce it as we agreed it would be enforced. Expel or seriously punish the students (and alumni) involved in this admitted fraternity and make abundantly clear, again, that these organizations are wrong for this community.

[PhiPsiRuss]

Originally posted by BetaRose
Williams accepts federal funds, so they can't follow through on their threats to expel students for fraternity membership.

Don't bet on it. That law that congress passed several years ago has yet to be tested in the courts.

[33girl]

Hey Aidan! You're a massive tool!

That is all I have to say.

[Lady Pi Phi]

Question...


If the college did find out who the members were and decided to punish them, how could they punish the alumni as the author of the article suggests they do. Since they aren't in college anymore, they have no authority over them.

[PhiPsiRuss]

Originally posted by Lady Pi Phi
Question...


If the college did find out who the members were and decided to punish them, how could they punish the alumni as the author of the article suggests they do. Since they aren't in college anymore, they have no authority over them.

They could revoke his degree.

[GeekyPenguin]

Originally posted by russellwarshay
They could revoke his degree.

Actually, I doubt they could - he graduated in 1962, which, according to the article, was the same year they decided to start getting rid of GLOs.

[PhiPsiRuss]

Originally posted by GeekyPenguin
Actually, I doubt they could - he graduated in 1962, which, according to the article, was the same year they decided to start getting rid of GLOs.

You're probably right. Unless the 1958 William's honor code has a provision for alumni behavior.

[DGMarie]

This article contains the following big words for those playing the home game:

impugned
abnegate
pandering
ostensibly
abject
pernicious
bemusement
blithely
analogous
contravened