All around campus, the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity’s national recruiters are carrying flyers, pamphlets and applications, offering them to anyone interested in joining. The largest nationally recognized fraternity is coming to Georgetown-let’s hope it doesn’t stay.
SigEp’s recruiters expound upon the ideal of “The Balanced Man,” and unequivocally state that parties involving underage drinking are banned in their chapter houses. They claim that no stereotypical, Animal House-style pledging is required to join. SigEp boasts the highest average GPA of any nationally recognized fraternity (2.97), and asserts that its goal is improving its members’ physical and mental health. In the end, though, a fraternity is still a fraternity.
Sigma Phi Epsilon already has 14,000 members and 264 chapters and vast financial resources. Due to its size, SigEp is susceptible to oversights that invite trouble upon the fraternity and their universities. The fraternity’s chapter at the University of Florida is facing sanctions after an unregistered “pre-party” last semester. Underage drinking was involved and a 17 year-old girl claimed to have been sexually assaulted, according to the Independent Florida Alligator.
Last December, the chapter at North Carolina State University in Raleigh was banned until fall 2005. The explanation for the action, Raleigh’s News and Observer reported, was that the fraternity’s pledges were forced to run naked in and out of the school’s other fraternity and sorority houses.
SigEp’s national chapter suspended the NCSU chapter and will require the fraternity house to be alcohol-free once its rights are reinstated. However, a pattern can be seen. At Tufts University, the SigEp chapter, among other fraternities, may lose its housing license after repeated noise violations.
Georgetown University was founded upon certain Jesuit ideals. In the University’s standards for student organizations, hazing is specifically banned, along with any activity that threatens a student’s safety. The University has already made it clear that it will not recognize SigEp’s chapter.
Our Jesuit identity and lack of fraternities are a major draw for many students, and the relative non-existence of fraternities on campus is an integral part of that. Georgetown is not overrun during pledge week and first-years are not pressured to join each fall. Our clubs, whether religiously affiliated or oriented around sports and community service, serve the social role that fraternities would at any other university but in a more open, friendly way.
Besides harming the campus, a frat will hurt our local community. Off-Campus students already receive noise complaints and police visits to their parties. If a noisy frat house is established in Georgetown, town-gown relations would only deteriorate further, making it even more difficult for the University as a whole to accomplish its aims. Why invite this upon ourselves?
Sigma Phi Epsilon does not need another chapter at Georgetown. It would only threaten our identity and further harm neighborhood relations, not to mention the dangers of hazing and sexual harassment associated with fraternities. A new fraternity at Georgetown, not to mention the largest in the country, is not a positive development. Students should oppose the opening of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity and pass up the opportunity to join, in the interest of ensuring the independence and safety of the Georgetown community.
