OT: 5 more UM fraternities & sororities suspended
So, media outlets are reporting that in addition to Sigma Alpha Mu, the 5 additional fraternities and sororities involved in damage to ski resorts have been suspended by their National Organizations.
Pi Kappa and Chi Psi fraternities and Sigma Delta Tau, Alpha Phi and Delata Gamma sororities were placed on suspension by their national offices over the weekend, joining Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity, which was suspended last week.
The fraternities and sororities inflicted tens of thousands of dollars in damages on scores of rooms rented Jan. 16-17 at Treetops Resort in Gaylord and Boyne Highlands in Harbor Springs, according to UM officials.
"These incidents simply do not reflect the University of Michigan's values or its expectations," said E. Royster Harper, vice president for student life. "The behaviors are a contradiction of what it means to be in and of a community, and we do not believe that being away from campus is a license to act in destructive and irresponsible ways."
Note: you would think that the newspaper could get the names right. Pi Kappa? Delata Gamma? It shouldn't be that hard to have an editor figure that out. FTR, the Freep got the names of the frats and sororities right, but they aren't quoted or referenced on this website.
January 27th, 2015 at 1:31 PM ^
Possibly a record for longest delay in a double post.
January 27th, 2015 at 4:20 PM ^
January 27th, 2015 at 10:29 AM ^
First they have to pay for friends and now they have to pay for this! bummer.....
January 27th, 2015 at 10:39 AM ^
January 27th, 2015 at 10:46 AM ^
There it is. This is why this is a story in the news.
January 27th, 2015 at 12:57 PM ^
I guarantee you if another group of this size had done this damage it would be in the news too. For example, if the Michigan Marching Band did this it would also be all over the news and probably ESPN as well. This isn't in the news just because they're frats. Though they did do a great disservice to the decent frats and sororities around by heavily reinforcing the frat stereotype
January 27th, 2015 at 2:32 PM ^
I'm going to hazard a guess that "100+ people cause over $50k in damages to a popular hotel" is going to be a headline anywhere and everywhere, regardless of who those 100+ people are.
But yeah, that's totally where they should draw the line on "newsworthy". Now if you excuse me, I'm going to go back and read up on the REAL news this week...Tom Brady's deflated balls.
January 27th, 2015 at 10:29 AM ^
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January 27th, 2015 at 10:33 AM ^
There doesn't need to be evidence. They are responsible for the rooms and condos they rented. Period.
January 27th, 2015 at 11:08 AM ^
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January 27th, 2015 at 10:36 AM ^
According to MLive, the group of 4 did 25k worth of damage and Sammy/SDT did 50k worth of damage.
Either way that's a lot of damage.
January 27th, 2015 at 10:35 AM ^
January 27th, 2015 at 11:05 AM ^
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January 27th, 2015 at 11:31 AM ^
It's a vast GDI conspiracy!
January 27th, 2015 at 10:38 AM ^
January 27th, 2015 at 10:43 AM ^
There is no way the damage was equally done by all 6 fraternities/sororities.
That, plus it was likely only a small group overly destructive people at all 6 places combined. There are more members of those houses who didn't do anything and are being punished for it (and derided by the ignorant portion of the public).
It is definitely guilt by proximity for the vast majority of the kids at those houses.
I really hope only the ones involved have to pay up or do community service.
January 27th, 2015 at 10:49 AM ^
Probably a good lesson for anyone considering joining the Greek system.
January 27th, 2015 at 1:02 PM ^
but it's very true for anything. Even if they weren't actively destroying, a lot of the kids being punished now are in trouble by association. 100% fair? Probably not. But now you know what 'guilty by association' means. When people start committing a crime, you should leave unless you want to get dragged into it too
January 28th, 2015 at 10:47 AM ^
How about trying to stop the crime? Or reporting it?
You're right of course that leaving is the minimum required to avoid "getting dragged into it," but maybe it isn't unreasonable to expect a bit more out of people.
January 27th, 2015 at 2:37 PM ^
January 27th, 2015 at 11:15 AM ^
you believe that the fraternity brothers present that did nothing to stop their brothers from doing all this damage are innocent? That they were just merely near what happened and could do nothing to stop this?
If this is true, then couldn't the Fraternity just turn over those few responsible for all the damage and ensure that they are properly punished? I haven't heard any of the Fraternities provide names of who did the damage and publicly dismiss them from the Frat.
It sounds like you are involved in one of these Frats and are more worried about how this will affect you than the victims.
EDIT:StephenRCass provided a message on one of the Fraternities website, which states they are going to work with authorities to identify the culprits. If this is so, then this will go away soon, and the members not involved will be able to move on. I still think that they could have stopped this, so having a small punishment from the national and university for not stopping this seems like it is well within what the proper punishment should be.
January 27th, 2015 at 11:10 AM ^
You are most likely correct about the idea it was a small subset of people engaging in destruction, but that doesn't excuse the whole group from liability. Unless the frats and sororities involved come forward to throw fellow members under the bus the only way to dole out effective punishment is to apply it to the whole group.
Basically if there is no one in a position of leadership in that group who can dissuade this extreme level of bad behavior then the punishment, and public indignation, should apply to all the members.
January 27th, 2015 at 11:15 AM ^
Punish the whole group unless they turn over some members to be punished? In what world is that justice?
Somebody needs to watch the final scenes from Scent of a Woman.
January 27th, 2015 at 11:19 AM ^
in Scent of a Woman only one kid, who was not involved in any way, was going to get all of the punishment and the guilty parties were going to walk free. In this instance, either the Fraternity sticks together and takes the punishment as a whole, or they can identify those few who did all the damage. I think you should go watch the movie again.
January 27th, 2015 at 11:29 AM ^
is extremely common in the world we live in. For example: in the military, the whole unit doing pushups because of one guy's mistake. Or the whole football team running wind sprints after one or a handful of players made a mistake. When I played HS football, whenever the defense sacked the QB in practice, the offensive line had to run a lap of the field. Is that fair to the 4 linemen who were blocking their guy when only one guy biffed? No, but that's the way it's done.
January 27th, 2015 at 1:15 PM ^
Fuck Scent of a Woman. Go watch Full Metal Jacket. Or The Purge. (wait...never mind.)
I once cost my 4th grade class a recess because I put non-flushable paper towels in the toilet and didn't fess up to it. Boy were my 30-something classmates pissed.
If these frats want to get back on the right side of history, they can start by identifying the culprits.
January 27th, 2015 at 11:58 AM ^
Good call. We should definitely get our views of civil society from an Al Pacino movie.
January 27th, 2015 at 10:35 AM ^
The only way for them to get out of this is to pull an even zanier prank.
January 27th, 2015 at 10:49 AM ^
Why does it have to be zany?
January 27th, 2015 at 10:38 AM ^
Who is that? There is a Pi Kappa alpha and a Pi kappa phi, plus Pi kappa beta which is an honors fraternity. That last Greek letter kinda makes a big difference.
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January 27th, 2015 at 10:54 AM ^
January 27th, 2015 at 10:43 AM ^
Were couches burned? I thought not. Move on.
January 27th, 2015 at 10:43 AM ^
is yet to drop, but i expect it will in otsego for the tree tops debacle. the cops haven't turned the paperwork over to the prosecutor yet, but i have little doubt that will happen sometime soon.
January 27th, 2015 at 10:47 AM ^
of booze or whatever and too much free time. Interesting that the actual details have not been disclosed. Why did destruction occur in 2 different locations? Thats kind of odd, usually see a few get out of hand or a fight develops then the mayhem happens but why in 2 separate locals? Were these all frat/sorority people or were outsiders drawn into it? The devils in the details and certainly the greek organizations are ultimately reponsible but wondering how it all went down. Really strange that it got this out of hand. Saw the figure 100K in total damages which is quite a bit of destruction attributed to partying.
January 27th, 2015 at 10:49 AM ^
I miss the DG's.
January 27th, 2015 at 10:53 AM ^
to be brought on violation of the of the student code of conduct. What allegedly occured violated the values of the University and they should face a punishment accordingly.
January 27th, 2015 at 10:57 AM ^
January 27th, 2015 at 2:53 PM ^
Peter Klima's logic. That's what your missing
January 27th, 2015 at 10:58 AM ^
They could be seriously inflated. The Greek system responsible can be on the hook for the actual property damages AND the loss of income of not having those rooms available for use rent in the prime season
January 27th, 2015 at 11:05 AM ^
January 27th, 2015 at 11:05 AM ^
- Fratbro from last frat thread
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January 27th, 2015 at 11:10 AM ^
I don't know when, but the Sammie website at UofM has been changed. They took down all the pics and the "We are on a Roll!!" stuff, and have a somewhat contrite message:
LINK: http://www.michigansammy.com/
We are embarrassed and ashamed of the behavior of a few of our chapter members at Treetops Resort over the weekend of January 17-18. This behavior is inconsistent with the values, policies, and practices of this organization. Our chapter accepts full responsibility for this incident and we will be working with the management of the resort to pay for all damages and cleaning costs. We will work within our own organization and with university officials to hold those who are responsible accountable for their actions.
This is consistent with the statement from their prior (president?) Joshua Kaplan. The question I have is, what constitutes "a few?" That is more than one, more than a couple, but about how many? If there were 60 guys, and 60 girls, "a few" would seem to be 3, maybe 4 or 5 guys. Out of 120 people there. Which raises even more questions. What was up with the other 110 - 115 people who weren't destroying stuff? Or, does "a few" mean more like 10, 20 guys? Too many questions yet unanswered.
If I was in any of those fraternities or sororities, I would really be happy if I stayed behind in AA or went home for the weekend.
January 27th, 2015 at 11:43 AM ^
Yes, in SAM terminology, prior = chapter president
January 27th, 2015 at 12:08 PM ^
So, as a former Sammie, what communication has been put out to alums? Have they explained this in more detail to you? What is the house planning to do with those directly involved? What punishment is on the table? What force do alums like yourself have in the matter? And was SDT just along for the ride (what I'd assume,) or were they actually involved too? I didn't realize until it was mentioned in one of the accounts that SDT was a sorority with "Jewish heritage," whatever that means. Is there specific damage control from SAM & SDT given their heritage?
January 27th, 2015 at 12:46 PM ^
I have not gotten any emails from either the chapter or the national SAM organizations pertaining to this incident, unless they were caught in my email's spam filter and automatically deleted. I'm actually disappointed that they have not sent out any sort of missive pertaining to this incident. I'm also not very active in the fraternity alum association, having distanced myself from national after they basically hosed our group of brothers. My dad, who used to be on the national executive board for SAM, also has distanced himself from the frat and he hasn't heard anything either. We're both still on their mailing list, but it's been total silence thus far.
In case you're curious, the reason that my dad and I pretty much have cut ties with the frat is because of the way they treated our group of members. Our house had burned down through no fault of our own (it was summer and we weren't there), and they would not help us to get a new house, despite all our best efforts to convince national to help. We wound up folding my sophomore year because of the fact that it's pretty hard to get pledges if you have no house. My senior year at UM, national decided to recolonize the fraternity, bought the new kids the house they have now, and didn't reach out to us in any way to see if we wanted to be involved in the relaunch. That ticked off my dad royally, and he immediately stopped sending them $ as an alum.
As to the SDTs, I doubt they did anything in terms of the damages, this strikes me as more something that the guys did. I am glad that all 6 frats and sororities are getting punished by their national organizations, but they all, SAM especially, need to take more steps to make this right than they have done so far.
January 27th, 2015 at 1:29 PM ^
Was the old SAM house at the corner of Hill and State, where Weill Hall currently sits? The house history page is currently offline. If so, knowing the property-hoarding ways of the University, it wouldn't surprise me if there was pressure on the national organization to just let it go. Of course, not helping the chapter find a new house elsewhere, that's a different story. But really, how many properties near campus would be suitable for that use and available?
January 27th, 2015 at 3:46 PM ^
I don't remember, unfortunately. It burned down the summer right before my freshman year. I pledged the house based on the frat promising us pledges that national was going to find us a house for soph year. That didn't materialize, and we had to sell that same story to the following year's pledges. Those kids were smarter than us, and we had a tiny pledge class. National yanked us around, and we ultimately folded. On the plus side, I instead lived with the girl that would become my wife for junior and senior year, instead of with a bunch of frat bros.
January 27th, 2015 at 6:06 PM ^
I can't remember offhand what fraternity it was, but I'm sure that wasn't SAM. In a way, I guess it would have made sense, because the building next door is the Chabad house. My understanding is that Chabad is a kind of Jewish community center serving the Jewish community with different classes, lectures, workshops, etc.
Anyway, that was a nice fraternity house, and it was too bad it burned down.
January 27th, 2015 at 11:21 AM ^
As a Chapter Advisor for a Fraternity at the University of Michigan, I feel I can speak to this more than most. As a mentor to these men, I completely agree with the University sanctions and would stand by them 100% if it were my Fraternity that had been the damaging party. To the point that only a handful were the ones that did the damage, I would argue that in a Fraternity, like a team, you are always representative of the name on the front moreso than the name on the back. We choose who we decide to initiate into our Fraternity, thus we have vouched for their character. Any negative action committed by them is directly reflected on our character, both individually and as a unut.
We had an issue about a year ago where a small group of brothers did large amounts of damage to the chapter house. Long story short, those brothers are no longer in good standing with the Fraternity and have been sent to collections for an amount equivalent to the damage done. What bothers me isn't the fact that occasionaly damage happens, it's the lack of accountability by those that do the damage. If you break, something, fix it or pay to have it fixed, appologize, accept the fact that there are negative consequences and move on.
I only ask that all of you don't judge the entire Greek system by what you see in the news. Greeks do many great things that go unnoticed. Honestly, most of us are good human beings who care about each other, our school, and our community. Don't let the actions of a few drunked idiots change the perception of the entire system.
January 27th, 2015 at 11:32 AM ^