During the spring semester of 2016, the Indiana Delta chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) said good-bye to DePauw University. Two years later, the chapter is attempting to make a return.
After that year’s formal recruitment, the chapter was told by their national organization that all of the bids given out were to be invalidated, a cease-and-desist order would be issued and the entire chapter would undergo a membership review. This was due to allegations of marijuana use in the chapter house, intentional damage to the chapter house and the playing of drinking games. These reasons were outlined in an email sent to the brothers of SAE by the Executive Director of Finance and Housing for the national organization at the time.
As a result of the disagreements between the brothers and the national organization, on April 18, 2016, all members of SAE at the time were officially expelled from the national fraternity. An email was sent by Mike Murphy of the Indiana Delta Alumni Commission to the brothers at the time, on behalf of the INDE Alumni Commission chair.
The email read as follows: “Based on recent actions and/or behavior following your suspension from the Indiana Delta Chapter, the Indiana Delta Alumni Commission has found you to be in violation of Fraternity Law, specifically conduct unbecoming of a gentleman and conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline. With such, the Alumni Commission has moved to expel you from Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity… .Therefore your membership rights in Sigma Alpha Epsilon have been EXPELLED indefinitely.”
In an article published by The DePauw in the fall of 2016 describing how the former SAE house would be used as a cultural resource center, it stated that attempts to recolonize at DePauw would begin in the fall semester of 2018.
When asked about the recolonization of DePauw by SAE, Johnny Sao, director of communications for SAE’s national organization, said, “The Fraternity Service Center of Sigma Alpha Epsilon continues to work with DePauw University administration regarding the chapter returning to campus...We remain optimistic that the group can be reestablished with new members who exemplify our beliefs and serve as leaders on campus and in the Greencastle community.”
According to Sao, no official date has been set for recolonization, but there have already been talks of recolonization and the formation of an expansion committee.
“With the way that the expansion process works for IFC is that an expansion committee gets together and is composed of non-affiliated students, students within the councils, [CLCD members], faculty, but also an advisor, and gets together and has a meeting to talk about what the potential would be if we did bring another organization back onto campus. They would bring in the organization to come present to the expansion committee to kind of see if we like where they’re headed, where their ideas are and such,” said Destiny Deaton, a Campus Living and Community Development coordinator. “After that, the expansion committee would come together and vote on that process. No vote has taken place yet, so it is not yet official that SAE is coming back.”
The possibility of the house returning has been raising some concerns in the eyes of some students.
“There was a lot of speculation [before the departure of SAE], much as most DePauw things are until a decision gets officially made. We all sort of knew, based off of what details we had about what was happening, that they were going to get kicked off, because it was drug-related, and we all knew that SAE was the drug house,” said senior Erin Wiemels. “There is definitely a population of the student body that is against Greek life for various reasons, primarily what it does to include or exclude certain parties...it’s sort of like the popularity contests in high school, just put over an official weekend.”
In Wiemels’ opinion, SAE coming back when the campus is already heavily saturated with Greek life would make it difficult for the organization to recolonize because first-years would not have the established house to familiarize themselves with during first semester before formal recruitment, arguably one of the biggest aspects of recruitment for DePauw.
For sophomore Noah Boyce, one of the student members of the expansion committee, now is not the best time for another house to establish itself on DePauw’s campus.
“With the current campus climate, I’m having a huge issue seeing the validity of another Greek chapter being added [on campus] because we’d had issues recently with diversity and inclusion, not just with race, but also with gender and sexuality, red dot situations. Those are all things that are really near and dear to my heart, and I feel like [those issues] are currently not adequately addressed [in Greek life], so why should we add another [fraternity] to the mix?” Boyce said.’
According to Boyce, SAE’s presentation was given under the idea that “we’re SAE men, and we hold ourselves accountable regarding diversity and inclusion.” His concern, however, is that this is a seemingly cookie-cutter statement given by many fraternities. In Boyce’s opinion, the men giving the presentation were all professional and respectable, but he is skeptical that the colony would be able to overcome the stigma surrounding the house.
“Sure, they could probably get a good group of guys to start this colony and really get things going…” Boyce said, “but who’s to say that in five, ten years, it’s not just gonna go [back to the way it was]? You messed up, why should I give you a second chance?”