Students who attempted to revive this university’s chapter of Sigma Alpha Mu failed to bring the fraternity back to the campus after their national organization revoked its affiliation and removed its recently achieved colony status.
Though the fraternity was recognized as a colony — a probationary group looking to receive full chapter recognition — by its national organization in February, Director of Fraternity and Sorority Life Matt Supple said the university has not formally acknowledged any Sigma Alpha Mu group; not since revoking the chapter’s charter in 2006 for risk management violations and failure to comply with expectations and policies of the university.
The group was registered separately with the Student Activities Reporting System.
After Supple and Office of Student Conduct officials reported repeated allegations of underage drinking and hazing to Sigma Alpha Mu’s national body last semester, it dropped the group once again and ran an ad in The Diamondback on Nov. 30 to make the split clear to students.
“We wanted a clean break with this group,” Sigma Alpha Mu Executive Director Leland Manders said. “We wanted them to stop operating, and the student body needs to know they’re not a legitimate group … so play at your own risk.”
Colony members said they did not anticipate their termination.
“I was definitely shocked when my national gave me a call and told me we were going to be disbanded,” said the group’s president Adam Friedman, a junior physiology and neurobiology major. “There were no talks.”
Complaints against the colony included underground pledging, underage drinking — which allegedly resulted in students being transported to the hospital on one occasion — and verbal and physical hazing, Supple said.
But Friedman said none of the allegations are true.
“All the stories start out the same way: ‘Matt Supple called me and told me this,’ or ‘Matt Supple told me this.’ I’ve never gotten any other details … so it’s very sketchy and it’s unfortunate,” he said.
Friedman said there was only one incident in which they broke their national organization’s rules. Last semester, Sigma Alpha Mu members hosted a party and distributed alcohol from cases of beer instead of having a bartender, which violates the fraternity’s rules for social events. However, he said the issue was resolved and he was under the impression the group was still on track to become a chapter.
Office of Student Conduct Director Andrea Goodwin said she also received an unconfirmed, anonymous report in late September that group members were drinking underage and pressuring others to carry out “menial tasks” for them.
“Kind of servitude, I would say, was definitely part of it. Compulsory servitude, like forcing people to do things,” she said. “For example, come and clean my house, do my homework. … If there’s consequences if you don’t do it, then that would be considered hazing.”
The group is under review, but Student Conduct has not taken judicial action against members.
Sigma Alpha Mu has been a registered student group with STARS since Sept. 14. Campus Programs Assistant Director Joe Calizo said he hopes to communicate with the group about its status, and Friedman said he and his friends may form a philanthropy or sports club under a different name.
Supple said he had received anonymous phone calls about an underground Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity for years, leading him to believe the current group was connected to the one that was disbanded in 2006.
“We believed this was kind of an uninterrupted group of men who weren’t following the policies or procedures of the university or their own national’s policy,” Supple said.
Friedman said the colony’s 36 members were not affiliated with the old Sigma Alpha Mu chapter; about half were from his floor in Elkton Hall and the rest were recruited from other dorms, he said.
“When I had a meeting with Matt Supple, he tried to connect the dots to see, ‘Oh, this person and this person know each other,’ but that obviously wasn’t the case,” he said.
University Police have not conducted hazing investigations against the group or broken up any of its parties, spokesman Capt. Marc Limansky said, noting they can only investigate hazing that involves a clear criminal violation, such as bodily injury.
Friedman also said DFSL emailed Pan-Hellenic Association sorority members discouraging them from attending Sigma Alpha Mu events.
“The school has personally been trying not to let us come back by not letting girls hang out with us and making it difficult for us to hold philanthropy events and just busting our balls, so to say,” Friedman said.
Marie LaMonica, president of the PHA executive board that governs 14 university sorority chapters, said each sorority has its own rules for whether members can participate in organized events with unregistered groups such as Sigma Alpha Mu. She emailed chapters telling them to check those guidelines.
“Had they had philanthropic events, we absolutely would have encouraged women to participate,” said LaMonica, a senior communication major. “That wasn’t really the way things were playing out. [Sigma Alpha Mu members] weren’t upholding the values of their organizations or the values our women stand for.”
Last week’s ad alleged the group was still operating “on the fringes of the university community,” but noted the organization hopes to return to the campus one day with support from the university.
lurye@umdbk.com
