In December 2013, Bloomberg News called Sigma Alpha Epsilon the deadliest fraternity in the nation.

Since 2006, nine people have died in events related to SAE across the nation, including the hazing process that takes place after recruitment.

The Supreme Council for SAE has decided to address the hazing problems that many SAE chapters have faced across the country. On March 9, SAE eliminated the pledging process and the term “pledge” from its vernacular. Once recruits are initiated, they are deemed “new members.” These members must be initiated within 96 hours of receiving their bids.

The new initiative is called the True Gentleman Experience and includes instructions for SAE chapters to educate new members “about the Fraternity’s values, mission, creed and history and develop personally over the course of their collegiate tenure,” according to the SAE True Gentleman Experience website.

“This returns the membership experience to what our founding fathers envisioned,” said Brandon Weghorst, the associate executive director of communications for SAE. “When we were founded in 1856 and then for about 70 or 80 years after that, this is how it was whenever you joined SAE. There was no pledging, there was no concept of pledges or the pledge process.”

Nationally, since 2005, more than 60 fraternity-related deaths have occurred. Of those 60, SAE accounts for nine of them. In an article published in December of 2013, Bloomberg recounted the stories of a former SAE pledge from Salisbury University in Maryland. The student’s pledging process allegedly involved confinement in a basement, excessive drinking and beatings.

“We look at some of the unfortunate incidents or negative exposure that Sigma Alpha Epsilon has had over the last couple of years, many of those instances, not all of them, but many of them were in somehow way shape or form related to the pledge process or to the concept of the brother versus pledge,” Weghorst said.

Syracuse University has a strict no-hazing policy. Five fraternities are currently on semester suspension or probation for hazing, according to Syracuse University’s Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs, but Sigma Alpha Epsilon is not one of those chapters.

Though in 2006, SAE came under fire for “kidnapping” a pledge as part of spring rush. A student witnessed some SAE brothers kidnapping a pledge and called the police thinking it was suspicious behavior. After extensive review from the Interfraternity Council’s Peer Review Board, the fraternity was found guilty of hazing. Theta Chi fraternity was also found guilty for hazing in a separate incident in 2006.

Roy Baker, SU’s associate dean of students in 2006, said in a Daily Orange article from that year the definition of hazing can encompass acts as minor as asking a pledge to wear a pin, “pouring liquor down (pledges’) throats, walking on their stomachs, requiring them to perform exercises, depriving them of sleep, running errands for members in the middle of the night and other useless behaviors.”

Officials from the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs at Syracuse declined to comment, and requests for comment to Syracuse SAE brothers and its president were not immediately returned.

Weghorst said that the True Gentleman Experience will help bring in potential members who would have previously avoided SAE due to fear of hazing. He said some SAE chapters are currently handing out bids too readily and using the pledge process, instead of the recruitment process, to decide who will make a good brother. The initiative also helps to ensure the members are educated throughout their four years at school, he said.

The pledge process was not the only way to find new brothers for the fraternity, Weghorst added. He said that in recruitment, the brothers should focus on choosing people based on the connections they make with the potential members. Each brother should look to find a man to replace himself in the recruitment process after he graduates, he said.

“There’s no need to have that sort of classification in our undergraduate members. There’s no need for anybody to prove his worth to Sigma Alpha Epsilon through some sort of probationary period or ordeal and so that’s why they decided to go with this versus some of the other options out there,” Weghorst said.

Any chapter that doesn’t comply with the True Gentleman Experience will be closed.

“Each chapter and its members will need to make a decision: do they embrace this change and accept the challenge, or do they wish to deviate from the policies and expectations spelled out by the national organization?” the SAE webpage implores members.

Weghorst added that he knows the change will be difficult for the chapters. He said the change is major, but encouraged the chapters to embrace it because “it’s the right thing to do.”

Weghorst said that some chapters and members have expressed concern that they were not consulted when the change was made. The decision was based on feedback from a sample of people associated with SAE, including current undergraduate brothers.

The SAE website offers answers to some of the biggest questions people may have about the change. One such question addresses whether chapters will lose donors who can no longer relate to the members’ experience. A Salisbury University alumnus withdrew a $2 million donation for a new stadium at the school as a result of Salisbury’s suspension and probation of its SAE chapter because of damaging reports about pledging, according to the Bloomberg article.

The SAE national website said the chapter firmly believes the new initiative will re-engage alumni who haven’t been involved because of their negative impression of the pledge process.

Some other concerns the website addresses include fears that members will not want to join, concern that recruitment will be more challenging, trepidation that new members will not be able to prove their worth to the brotherhood and will not be properly educated in the rituals and an overall worry that the process will make their fraternity “different” from others, which will lead to declining enrollment.

Weghorst pointed out that despite the “perceived notion” that society has, fraternities offer many benefits to society.

Said Weghorst: “We regret that many people may have a negative perception of Sigma Alpha Epsilon because of the bad press or the bad exposure, because we realize all the good stuff people do everyday that just doesn’t get attention, because obviously the bad overshadows the good.”

Published on March 27, 2014 at 1:24 am

Contact: clmoran@syr.edu