Lehigh's chapter of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity had its charter suspended a few days ago by its national chapter for "violations of their risk management policies".
According to this article in the student newspaper, the chapter faced charges of "hazing, furnishing false information to university officials and illegal or unauthorized consumption of alcohol"; the article also states that "Delta Tau Delta's poor conduct... was ongoing over the past few years", "they were poor in accreditation" and "[t]he decision to suspend the chapter was made by Delta Tau Delta headquarters [not by Lehigh]."
The article also states that DTD could return possibly on campus after all current brothers have graduated, i.e., after the Class of 2014 graduates. Lehigh's chapter (called Beta Lambda) of DTD dates back to 1874, making it one of DTD's olders chapters, and "is one of six fraternities in the past six years to have its chapter closed at Lehigh."
Yesterday's student newspaper published a letter of the New Member Educator of DTD, who is also President of the Class of 2011, and who I will mercifully keep anonymous on this blog, although you can learn more about him here. You really have to read the letter to understand the rest of my post, and I urge you to do so.
The letter shocked me many times (for instance when its author blames Lehigh as early as the first paragraph, although the investigation was conducted by the national chapter), but mostly by its author's unflinching defense of underage drinking, which appears to be what the author views as "strengthening those brotherly bonds" and "having fun", in the sentence: "[the charge of] "lying to the university" [on university property] in this instance is nothing more than an unavoidable and bureaucratic loophole meant to further indict any chapter unlucky enough to get caught having fun."
Another excerpt: "So, while the generous offer of "registered events" may seem like an adequate compromise, there is just something about paying $250 for event staff to be present at an exhausting and sweaty dance party twice a month that doesn't suffice for my entire social life in college. And it shouldn't. I don't feel guilty that I've hosted and enjoyed parties in college, and that I didn't pay for event staff to be present, as if I were being babysat by my parents in middle school."
Oh, and the author calls the administration "oppressive" and its policy "so tyrannical that fraternities no longer host parties on the hill", finds Safety Bulletins to be spam, and deplores the hypocrisy of alcohol policies because university officials, he says, did the same exact thing when they were in college.
In other words, he's really upset that DTD lost its charter after 137 years at Lehigh, and as the New Member Educator he might feel a tiny bit responsible for that, and his DTD brothers really, really should've stopped him from sending his letter to the Brown and White. It's hard to believe this is going to do any good to DTD's case were it to want to return to campus in 2014, or ever, after such an unabashed defense by the brother in charge of new member education of the culture he was promoting - with an emphasis on underage drinking - as well as a vague attack of the administration.
This makes me think of a teenager who is rebelling against the rules his parents have set for him, and does not inspire confidence in his ability to promote a culture that would prevent catastrophic events such as alcohol-related coma or death from happening in his fraternity, events that must be on the administration's mind.
I honestly don't know what the administration is thinking, about the Greek system in general or DTD in particular. I do know that Alice Gast spent a few years at MIT before coming here, and I was a grad student at MIT from 1999 to 2004. (I only met Alice Gast after she joined Lehigh.) When I arrived in Cambridge it had been 2 years since a freshman died of alcohol poisoning at a fraternity initiation event, and people still felt like they'd been hit by a freight train. Losing someone young is always a tragedy, but losing someone because of something so preventable should never happen. Until you've been through the aftermath (and I wasn't even there immediately after the teenager's death, but I was enrolled at MIT during the negotiations between the university and the family of the dead fraternity pledge), you can't begin to understand how badly people who've been through this never want to see it happen again.
I happen to like the Greek system (I think it is important to build a network during college, and the Greek system is a great way to develop strong connections with other people, especially in other majors). I also happen to be French, which means the issue of underage drinking was moot when I was in college, since I lived in France, where drinking before age 21 is perfectly legal. I also always drank responsibly; I've got to say I'm far from convinced that most US students in the 18-21 age group are able to do the same, and I would never tolerate underage drinking anywhere near me. You just never know what can happen.
The thing is, if DTD couldn't see the writing on the wall after five other fraternities lost their charter, then it was probably only a matter of time until it happened to them too. Comparing what's happening now to whatever Lehigh was like in the 1980s - before it became a research institution, before its identity changed substantially - is as unproductive as trying to convince a police officer not to give you a ticket for driving without your seatbelt, just because decades ago people did not wear seatbelts in their car.
And in case my readers are wondering, the writing on the wall says something like: times have changed, change too or face trouble. It does not say: the Greek system at Lehigh is doomed. Part of what makes Lehigh so special is the strong relationships alumni have with former classmates and their willingness to help current students; since at least one third of the undergraduate population is Greek, it seems obvious the Greek system has had an important role to play in that.
Hopefully it can still continue to do that while convincing the administration it can operate responsibly. (And yes, the letter writer will say that non-Greek students may drink too, and maybe they'll be the ones with alcohol poisoning one day. But that is out of your control. What you have control over is how your own organization is being perceived, and right now, it seems that you have some mending to do.)
The author, in his letter blaming Lehigh, does not talk a single time about any accountability procedure ("risk management procedure", in the words of the national office) that might indeed have been in place at DTD, or any good thing DTD was particularly proud of accomplishing, or anything positive that would allow people like me to feel positive toward the fraternity in its current struggle. If anything, the writer has only succeeded in convincing me it is a good thing that DTD lost its charter because the image of the fraternity that comes across through this letter is of a disaster waiting to happen.
So what should people do now?
If you're DTD, I would suggest you get all the officers together and write a collective letter to the student newspaper that attempts to mitigate some of the damage done by the letter above (although I understand he's upset) and describes what you as a fraternity were about, even if it wasn't about the official values of DTD, in a positive light. It doesn't look like the underage-drinking type of culture is going to be tolerated at Lehigh any more (euphemism), and making it harder for your own fraternity to come back to campus in a few years doesn't serve any purpose. I can't write the letter for you, but I know what I would've wanted to read in the letter that appeared in the B&W, so email me if you want to know more.
If you're not DTD, it's time (in my own opinion) to admit Lehigh will go to great lengths to prevent the "party school" label from sticking (it has invested great amounts of money in becoming a research institution), and it will tolerate neither hazing nor underage drinking; whether you're happy about it or not does not matter. So you've got to think of ways where you can create a shared identity within your sorority/fraternity using ways that are neither illegal nor traumatizing. This is usually achieved through some defining experience, which used to be hazing; however, hazing nowadays is a big no. "Providing an identity-defining experience" doesn't have quite the same ring to it, but until marketing majors come to the rescue, that's what we're going to call it.
(Oh, and not only am I French and alcohol is legal in France before age 21, but I went through the "engineering school" route in the French higher education system and there was hazing there too. And I'm perfectly fine. Frankly I thought there had to be a better way to create an esprit de corps than to make us walk barefoot throughout Paris with trash bags over our clothes and asking random strangers for money, but this had happened every year in the Quartier Latin until then; people were very nice when they saw us come and gave us money. Other schools had more questionable hazing practices. The following year, the school put an end on hazing - I wouldn't have gotten involved anyway, I had better things to do, such as reading Russian novels on my couch while eating Nutella, which is my idea of an afternoon well spent. But I digress. - People I knew then got involved into hazing anyway and almost got kicked out.)
So anyway, I get the point of creating an esprit de corps, and there might not be real differences between the different fraternities, in the same way that there were not any differences between the engineering schools, except that you had been admitted to one and that was your school now. But hazing is not the way of creating a shared bond that will make people go out of their way to lend you a hand if you need them ten or fifteen years from now.
I remember going to the DTD fraternity for a faculty-student cocktail one year; the brothers were all very nice and proud members of the Lehigh community. I'm sure DTD can recover from this setback and hopefully it will return to the Hill at some point. In the meantime, other fraternities and sororities should work to make sure they won't meet the same fate.
Big LOL.
He mad. He very mad. :P
Funny that I was in sub-free my first three years at Lehigh, and in fact, after there were photos of me at a party on facebook in my junior year during winter break having fun the morning after a little bit of drinking, I remember two officers leaped down my throat about it--right before everyone else at Brodhead decided that heading out to the Tally Ho every so often wasn't the root of all evil.
The [name edited - AT] does have a point about bureaucracy though. I realize that the risk of someone dying of alcohol overdose is certainly there, but a little bit of alcohol consumed in a responsible manner won't kill anyone.
Of course, I remember a few years back when some bozo ran a BAC of .47 and nearly died from it. So somehow, the words "responsible" and "little bit" do not exactly come up as words associated with 18-21 year olds that get to drink alcohol for the first time, especially knowing that it's illegal before that age.
In my opinion, however, the idea of the drinking age being 21 in this country as opposed to 18 (or even younger) is also a weebit ridiculous. In my opinion, part of the reason that you have the occasional bumpkin running a ridiculous BAC is that "hey, I'm doing something *ILLEGAL*, this is so *AWESOME!*". Follow by someone either puking or worse yet, having to get rushed to the hospital. If there wasn't such a ridiculous amount of notions attached to drinking for the first time in college, we probably would not be having these issues.
But yeah...you're French, and French people enjoy their alcoholic beverages (so do most Europeans for that matter) since they're kids, and they generally turn out a lot better mentally (and a lot better looking physically) than people on the other side of the Atlantic over here :P. So yeah, Lehigh's house, Lehigh's rules, but the whole idea of alcohol in this country is a weebit screwed up anyway!
Posted by: Ilyaquant.wordpress.com | April 09, 2011 at 06:11 PM
While I understand that you are defending the institution that employs you and allows you to live what I am sure is quite a nice life, unless you are of the LUPD, OFSA or DTD itself, You really have no idea what you are talking about. You are doing exactly what you claim this student has done to DTD to Lehigh's engineering department and your own credibility. Congrats.
Posted by: biggin pison | April 17, 2011 at 10:33 PM
Biggin Pison, while I usually prefer more constructive criticism, I decided to publish your comment since it has a Lehigh ID associated to it and there is indeed someone with that last name among Lehigh's Delta Tau Delta brothers. You'd make a stronger case if you left the personal attacks out of the way, though.
Posted by: Aurelie Thiele | April 18, 2011 at 09:36 AM
As members of a university community, students are held to a higher standard. That's why it makes headlines when a Lehigh student is accused of a crime or acts in a way that does not reflect well on the university (or worse, is a liability). But like employment in the real world, membership in the community, and the privileges that go along with it, are issued at will by administrators. Learning to work with adminstrators, understand their expectations and concerns, and operate with compassion and partnership, serves many other chapters well.
In this case, though, the decision-maker was actually the international organization, and the university simply respected the organization's wishes, just as it has done in the past.
Posted by: 2cheese.blogspot.com | April 19, 2011 at 09:58 AM
Hi Megan,
You make a great point about learning to work with administrators and understanding their expectations and concerns. Here is DTD's accreditation report for 2009-2010: http://www.lehigh.edu/~indost/greek/PDFs/Accreditation0910/Delta%20Tau%20Delta%202010.pdf
I was particularly impressed by DTD's silver rating in Scholarship and its members' strong academic performance, which was also pointed out to me a few days ago. In Leadership, DTD was rated bronze, which also reflects a good standing; however, the report writers raised concerns several times ("the committee did not feel that there was any understanding expressed by the chapter members on lessons learned in other organizations and how that knowledge was brought back to DTD.")
In addition, you can learn from the report that DTD was on disciplinary probation until May 2011 (the report documents the reasons) and its conduct in the area of Citizenship had been judged unacceptable. In the areas of Partnership and Stewardship, DTD had been rated poor. Overall, the issues (as described by the report writers, which might or might not be how DTD would describe them) seemed to be fixable with coaching and a willingness to listen, and the report suggested that DTD develop a plan with the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs to address these issues.
It is possible that DTD did take some steps since the report was released last year. Also, maybe OFSA misperceived members' genuine efforts to change and understand. Maybe there was significant effort from DTD to improve that was not communicated properly. Also, without a good coach, it might be more difficult to help college students (especially students who excel academically, and thus have proven success methods in a part of their life) realize they might need to change in other areas. I also think that the perception OFSA is "out to get the fraternities & sororities" is not helping, because mistrust issues might make the students more reluctant to listen to the message. But if OFSA feels it isn't getting its message across, I can see how it would need to up the ante in a significant way. It's a pity it had to come to this, though.
The accreditation report does provide valuable ideas for improvement and hopefully will provide a roadmap for the students who decide to bring DTD back to campus in 2014 or beyond.
Thanks for commenting!
Posted by: Aurelie Thiele | April 20, 2011 at 01:27 PM
Professor Thiele,
My name is Brian and I was the New Member Educator for Delta Tau Delta. I recently came across your personal blog entry with your reaction to my fraternity losing its charter as well as your thoughts about me. While I completely respect and encourage your right to your opinions – as the submission of my own letter to the editor suggests, I am a big proponent of candor, even at the risk of being controversial – I would nonetheless like to address some of the points that you bring up in your entry.
You wrote, “The letter shocked me many times (for instance when its author blames Lehigh as early as the first paragraph, although the investigation was conducted by the national chapter), but mostly by its author's unflinching defense of underage drinking, which appears to be what the author views as ‘strengthening those brotherly bonds’ and ‘having fun’…” The investigation was not conducted by our national headquarters; the investigation was conducted by Lehigh University. It was only after the investigation was completed that the national office made any decisions. And in terms of underage drinking, I ask you to consider this issue from a student’s perspective. Students at this university, and any other university in the country, will invariably drink alcohol. And like I said in my letter, I am not writing to discuss the legal implications. We can all take on an approach of absolutes and simply condemn any minor who consumes alcohol underage as a villain, however that would ignore the actual issue here (the issue being that students do drink underage and will drink underage regardless of how strict the policies are, and given this fact, emphasis should be placed on safety rather than retroactive discipline). That being said, you do allude to the fact that underage drinking may facilitate “catastrophic events such as alcohol-related coma or death…” The alcohol consumption that occurred at Delta Tau Delta was always done in a safe and reasonable manner; to assume that 18-21 year-olds drinking alcohol will inevitably facilitate a “catastrophic event” is unfounded. In fact, although I did not mention this in my article because I did not feel it was necessary to be overly detailed, we have a strict “no hard alcohol” policy in place during new member education to further ensure the safety of our new members. Consider also the culture of Greek life, which I’m sure you can appreciate being much more profound than a non-Greek could readily understand as an outside observer. On that same token, I’m sure there are aspects of French culture that Americans – as outside observers – would have trouble understanding (and as I’m sure you read in your link to the Class of 2011 website, I will be moving to France following graduation to teach English, so I do appreciate the idea of deep-rooted cultural differences). And so, while you voice concerns about my individual accountability regarding the underage drinking, there are other factors at play. For instance, this phenomenon did not begin with me personally. Rather, the culture of Greek life is based on tradition, and while it is nearly impossible for one person, such as myself, to simply end underage drinking in a heartbeat, it is possible to mitigate the prevalence of its occurrence, which I was able to do (hence the new “no hard alcohol” policy, for example). Again, it would be easy to condemn me for having the title of New Member Educator during the time that our charter was revoked, but I am simply offering a candid and realistic explanation. Even before the situation with my fraternity occurred, I have had extensive talks with administrators in the Office of Student Conduct, the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs, the LUPD, and the Deans and Associate Deans of Students regarding the social policy and underage drinking, and they all understand that it occurs on campus. It would be utterly futile to just demand it be stopped; it is simply an element of American culture that will not change. However, these offices do understand the importance of mitigating its risks, as do I. And I can assure you that safety is always paramount when alcohol is present. So to bring up an anecdote of an alcohol-related death in your entry, then, is misleading given Delta Tau Delta’s circumstances.
You also seem to believe that Delta Tau Delta was unwilling to change with the times, whereas the rest of the Greek organizations on campus have accepted it. Again, I can’t expect you to know this as a non-Greek, but that isn’t the case. Even the OFSA is well-aware that there are minors in every last fraternity and sorority that are guilty of underage drinking, no more or less than DTD. And I do agree that times are changing. However, that doesn’t mean that students are abstaining from alcohol consumption. Rather, they are taking steps internally to mitigate the risk of alcohol abuse, or are just moving their parties off-campus so as not to get caught. University officials are also well-aware of these facts, which is an entirely other issue of safety that I won’t go into at this point. My fraternity also took these steps, but we were just unlucky enough to get caught with alcohol at one point. Within the Greek community, something that I’ve heard more times than I can count is “it could have been anyone.” The fact is that more than one-third of the population is Greek at Lehigh, and speaking as one of those students, balancing school work with a social life is important to us. And for nearly all of those students – the majority of which are not over the age of 21 – alcohol is a large part of that social life. After having spent four years at Lehigh and in the Greek system, I can assure you that this is not a baseless opinion. And beyond that, it’s an element of American culture that simply will not change; most college students will always drink alcohol, regardless of the minimum drinking age. That being said, I believe that Lehigh should take a more safety-based approach to deal with this inevitable occurrence so as not to alienate such a sizeable and influential portion of the student body. So in terms of my “unflinching defense of underage drinking, which appears to be what [I] view as ‘strengthening those brotherly bonds’ and ‘having fun’,” it can be and is a major component in having fun. Although perhaps not to you or maybe even not to some non-Greek students, I at least know that Greek students do consider it a significant factor in social situations.
With regard to “any good thing DTD was particularly proud of accomplishing, or anything positive that would allow people like [you] to feel positive toward the fraternity in its current struggle,” this letter was simply not the appropriate platform to outline our accomplishments. The purpose of the letter was not to give an overview of Delta Tau Delta, but rather to defend it given the charges on which the chapter was judged without having the opportunity to defend itself. But to give an idea of what this fraternity has accomplished: Delta Tau Delta had the highest GPA among chapters in the fall 2009 semester, placing us above the All Greek, All Undergraduate, All Men and All Fraternity averages, and was ranked fourth among chapters in the spring 2010 semester, again putting the chapter above the All Men, All Fraternity and All Greek averages. DTD sent several chapter members to the Undergraduate Interfraternity Institute as well as the International Fraternity’s Convention. We are also consistently well-representatives at our Eastern Divisional Conference. We frequently partner with other Greek and non-Greek organizations to raise money for philanthropic endeavors (we hold a car wash every fall with the women of Alpha Omicron Pi, sponsored the Fitness Center’s “Work Out a Cure for Muscular Dystrophy” campaign, and host a late-night food sale with the women of Pi Beta Phi, to briefly name a few) and participate in community service events (we volunteer regularly at the Boys & Girls Club of Bethlehem and have participated in the Southside Cleanup). And during this past fall semester, DTD participated in Lehigh’s newly reestablished Greek Week. We teamed with another fraternity and a sorority to win Greek Week, while raising over $5,000 for Turning Point, a local shelter for abuse victims. I’d also like to note that I was the Greek Week Chairman representing Delta Tau Delta.
The brothers of Delta Tau Delta are, in my opinion at least, still “all very nice and proud members of the Lehigh community,” just as they were when you were invited to the faculty-student cocktail. In fact, the brothers of this chapter are known as some of the most respectful and intelligent fraternity men at Lehigh. However, like every past generation of Delts at Lehigh (including the ones that did leave a positive impression on you), they engaged in underage drinking, as well. It should not affect how the quality of their character is perceived. I hope, then, that you can at least understand (even if you don’t agree with) my frustration that despite our accomplishments, despite our willingness to change as the university continues to enforce a stricter social policy, and despite the fact that nothing out of the ordinary occurs at Delta Tau Delta that doesn’t occur anywhere else, we had our charter revoked.
Thank you for taking the time to read my response. At the very least, I’m glad that my letter was able to spur at least some type of reaction from readers.
-Brian
Posted by: Brian | April 21, 2011 at 01:06 AM
I find myself shaking my head at so many of the responses. Just because a lot of people do it does not make it correct, legal, or what have you.
Basically, as in Las Vegas: their house, their rules. You can claim the rules [are annoying] all you want, but the moment you violate them, you're liable to face the consequences.
Now of course, I myself can't stand unnecessary bureaucracy, but I remember a couple of articles during my time at Lehigh (which was not so long ago, graduated less than two years ago), talking about how during some sort of hazing schemes, some kids ran BACs that were very near-fatal.
That stuff *DOES* happen, and Greek members can express all the outrage they want over how such a thing will never happen at *their* fraternity/sorority, but the moment it does, you have a disaster of epic proportions on your hands.
I don't think Lehigh (or any other school for that matter) would want to have their administrators explaining why it is exactly that their regulations weren't strict enough to prevent somebody's child from going *way* over the limit and dying of alcohol intoxication.
The majority of students will know when to stop, *BUT*, it only takes one disaster for all of that not to really matter.
I really hope it isn't too much to ask for some Greek members to put themselves into the shoes of administrators of a university responsible for about 1,500 students who are part of Greek life, and that it has an obligation to protect each and every one of those 1,500 students, and if making an example of a frat/sorority that may not have been the most deserving of that axe, well, so be it, if it'll save even one more life.
Posted by: Ilyaquant.wordpress.com | April 26, 2011 at 10:58 PM
For more food for thought regarding fraternities (and some gross over-generalizations, as banning all of them seems extreme), this provocative discussion on the New York Times website offers additional insights: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/05/05/frat-guys-gone-wild-whats-the-solution
I found this contribution particularly interesting: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/05/05/frat-guys-gone-wild-whats-the-solution/the-role-of-frathouse-drinking The comments at the bottom of the page are also worth reading, for instance: comment #5 by AKS, comment #11 by CWB, comment #14 by hen3ry.
Posted by: Aurelie Thiele | May 06, 2011 at 11:02 PM