OT: Email from SAM about recent scandal

Submitted by MikeCohodes on

I woke up this morning to an email that had come in to all alums of the UM Sigma Alpha Mu chapter (Sigma Iota in internal SAM nomenclature) in light of the recent scandal about the damages at the hotel in upper Michigan. The email came in at 1 AM, so apparently they took a page from the Dave Brandon playbook.  As this has been a topic on the boards lately, and people have been asking me if I have heard anything from SAM yet, I thought I would share with you the email I received. The email is from Alan Greenberg, who is an alumni advisor to the chapter at UM.  Sorry in advance for the long text box.

By now, you have probably heard or seen the bad publicity about Sigma Iota and their ski weekend event in Gaylord, Michigan. Most of it, but not all of it, is true. There were 115 Sammies and about 100 SDT’s on this weekend trip. On Saturday night, things got way out of hand. I am not at liberty to describe what was going on at that time, and also I was not there (obviously). So I do not know exactly what took place. The end result was a lot of damage. The local TV station picked up the story and ran with it, eventually distributing it to every news outlet known to man.

The National immediately took action by placing the chapter on probation and ordering that they cease all regular activities until further notice. That includes social events, fundraisers, taking in pledges, athletics, etc. They also issued an apology on behalf of the National HQ. They have also kept in close touch with our Prior and with me, offering their guidance as to how things should be done. The Prior issued a press release a week ago offering his apologies on behalf of the Chapter. It reads:

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.

More recently, the chapter has sent a $25,000 good faith deposit to the hotel. The Prior has placed calls to the hotel manager and the mayor of the City. By doing so, he has established a line of communication should either one of these men want to reach out to the chapter. He followed that up with emails of apology to both men, and offered that the brothers were more than willing to come back up there and perform community service for the city of Gaylord. The U of M is conducting an investigation and will turn the information over to a disciplinary panel made up of officers from fraternities and sororities. We don’t know anything further about how the University will handle this or what else they will do.

Needless to say, this is a very serious issue. I have been in charge of the chapter since 2005, and we have had zero problems like this until now. This is a big one. Obviously, we hope that it does not result in our chapter being banned. It is more than ironic that this thing happened among a group of guys who were responsible for winning 3 Founders Cups in a row. The chapter has won the Cup 5 out of the past 7 years and was a close 2nd the other 2 years, one of which we should have been first, but the judges made a scoring error! Going all the way back to 1913 when the 1st Cup was awarded, this 7 year string of success is totally unprecedented.

And then there is academics. Every year the chapter has the highest GPA on campus! The guys have put in a countless number of hours for philanthropic fund raisers, and they have raised 100’s of 1,000’s of dollars. It is really a shame that a small quantity of guys created such a mess for everyone; the National HQ, the other brothers, our House Corporation, and themselves. Things were going great, and then this turned everything around 180 in an instant.

We shall see where the investigation goes and how it will work. I will try to keep you posted.

Fraternally, Alan Greenberg

So, that is what they said. If you want me to not share any further updates I receive from either national or UM SAM in the future, let me know, and I will not post these emails. I only am posting this as I have been asked if I had received anything yet.

OccaM

January 28th, 2015 at 9:27 AM ^

I don't expect Nationals/Unversity to boot Michigan's SAM off campus. I think Michigan is their largest/most successful chapter in the country.

This is also their "first" offense if that counts for anything lol. 

MikeCohodes

January 28th, 2015 at 9:29 AM ^

if they booted the chapter for that, considering some of the other things that fraternities have been booted off campuses for both at UM and other schools. I definitely think that they should boot all members that were specifically responsible for the damages though. Those guys should not be in SAM.

Hail-Storm

January 28th, 2015 at 10:02 AM ^

It does look like a few people have made it hard for other members and especially alumni.  It looks like the chapter has made a good fast response with the good faith and the community service to the city of Gaylord.  

I'm guessing there will still be a couple of suspensions of the members who actually did the damage, who may still have to (and should) face legal consequences.  

After that, I'd hope the fraternity gets reinstated quickly with a probabtion period (that it sounds like they'd have no problem getting through).  

Good lesson in PR.  Get in front, be proactive, take responsibility, apoligize, and move on. 

Cali Wolverine

January 28th, 2015 at 11:23 AM ^

...they took over the Triangle fraternity and I think they got that frat suspended or kicked off camps too. So this is not a first offense.

PS - am I the only one that thought this was about a Sam Webb article on the Mattison in-home debacle?

1989 UM GRAD

January 28th, 2015 at 9:29 AM ^

It was great up to "it is more than ironic..." I realize that this is an internal note but Alan has to know that this will get passed around. Founders Cups and GPAs and all the other stuff is irrelevant to the damage and misbehavior on the part of the Sammies.

MikeCohodes

January 28th, 2015 at 9:41 AM ^

that Alan expected it to get posted to mgoblog, but yeah, he should've assumed that it would get out. And if any current SAMs are on here (which there has to be at least one, I'd imagine), I'd love it if they weighed in too. And if any current or former SAMs are mad at me for posting this internal email, well they can hit me up on twitter to bitch if they want, but I frankly don't care if they are upset.

vablue

January 28th, 2015 at 10:26 AM ^

It's actually pretty relevant, he's making the point to his alumni that the chapter has been functioning well until this huge failure. He'd already made the point that he apologized, multiple times, to the people that needed apologies. It's a good letter for what it is for, which is not MGOBLOG. I would actually not be to pleased with the OP if I was i was the originator of the message or a member of SAM. But as a person who frequents them gobo are, I am quite happy.

imafreak1

January 28th, 2015 at 11:30 AM ^

Really? Either things have changed dramatically or we went to very different parties.

I went to college and graduate school in the 90s. I went to a MAC school for undergrad and pretty much never saw drugs of any kind--which was probably a little odd because I saw a lot in HS. When I was a grad student at Michigan, I would see people even faculty smoking weed at parties but that was it. I'm sure the med students were doing other drugs but not out in the open.

I am not some kind of monk but I have never been aware of anyone doing coke anywhere that I was.

It is funny how divergent people's experiences at the same university can be.

03 Blue 07

January 28th, 2015 at 11:44 AM ^

I went to college/grad school at U of M from the late 90's to the mid-aughts, and it seemed like during that time Coke increased in prominence; by 2006, it was far more prominent than it had been in, say, 1998 (though I admit that maybe the parties I attended evolved as well themselves- i.e., as an 18 year old, I wasn't getting invites to the types of parties I was when I was older and knew more people). Also, though, people almost always tried to be somewhat discreet about it, so it's highly possible that you were at parties where people were taking a bump here or a bump there but doing so during trips to the bathroom, clandestine trips to another room, etc. 

jdon

January 28th, 2015 at 12:26 PM ^

first off, anyone with over 5000 points in two months probably talk too much...

second, if you were at parties with coke and everything that comes with it, you should understand that things can get out of hand... I expect better out of you.

jdon

 

The_Mad Hatter

January 28th, 2015 at 1:32 PM ^

is not PCP.  It doesn't make you crazy.

And as long as we're expecting better of each other, I'd like you to take an ESL class at your local community college.  I'm assuming that you're not a native speaker, instead of assuming that you're stupid.

SeattleWolverine

January 28th, 2015 at 11:23 AM ^

Indeed. Fail email, even if it was ostensibly internal in nature. Comes off as very immature. Brandon-esque. He seems more upset about the judges scoring in the Founders Cup that one year than he is about the destruction. Also, GPAs? That's lovely but not exactly on topic. Accountability is mentioned and yet the email itself has very little of it. We have blame passed to all media organizations that ran with the story, statements about how it was just a few bad apples, diversonary rah rah BS about how good they are in every other way. You take responsibility, you say you are investigating, you apologize, period.

LSAClassOf2000

January 28th, 2015 at 9:43 AM ^

If it comes to that, it is entirely possible that PeterKlima will not have any points left inside a week or so. I actually thought about making that adjustment myself yesterday, but he promised to be done after what he seemed to believe would be a number of posts sufficient to illustrate his point, whatever that point was (I honestly have no clue). 

As a general note, hopefully people keep the Greek bashing or marginalization of the behavior or anything that has created tension in similar threads in the past week out of it entirely (ideally) or at worst to a minimum. It's news, it reflects on Michigan, but most of the threads on this topic have been painful reads because of some ill-conceived remarks.