Southwest Province and Epsilon Upsilon News

First, the bad news as Bill Scott our Grand Praetor officially
released it to the Southwest Province Consul’s and Chapter Advisors
this evening:

“Brothers,

It is with deep sadness that I report to you the suspension of the
charter at 1855 Sigma Chi Rd. The Beta Xi chapter faced repeated
charges relating to behavior and drinking. The EC felt there had been
to many violations in the last few years and that the chapter
ultimately violated its probation sufficiently to justify suspension.
I ultimately agreed.
I know that Kyle and the brothers would appreciate hearing from you.
In their way (the Beta Xi way) they are a great group of Sigma Chi’s
and have always treated me with the utmost courtesy and respect, and
brotherhood. I for one will miss those cocky jerks. Shit, workshop is
going to be so quiet.”

Now for some background… With the unbelievable increase in the
insurance cost that each of the houses has to bear (the Epsi Upsi
share has gone from around $3,000.00-$4,000.00/year just a few years
ago to a whopping premium of $17,000.00/year Headquarters is not
wanting to take any chances with Chapters that are “marginal” in
their treatment of Risk Management issues. In this regard the only
way to ensure that our Chapters are going to be able to weather these
storms is through close monitoring of trends that we see developing
within our chapters (which is a sad observation in my opinion) and to
“nip it in the bud” as Deputy Fife would say.

Case in point: Two years ago Bill and I and a number of other Alumni
brothers made numerous trips (especially Bill) up to NAU to conduct
Alumni Interviews of the Actives and Pledges (the dreaded and
so-called Sigquistion). It was through this process and our jumping
through every single hoop that the Administration threw at us that
the Active Chapter was able to remain on Campus and limp through
their period of Probation. For example the Administration wanted the
Active Chapter to have a Resident Advisor that was a Sig and not from
that Chapter. NAU is a small school to begin with and now we had to
get a Sig as a graduate student willing to live and go to school in
Flagstaff and be willing to live in a dry dorm! Well we found our man
(he actually wanted to come to ASU for graduate school, he was
following his girlfriend out from Florida, and had called me about a
Resident Advisor position at Epsi Upsi) and he performed wonderfully
and that Chapter has been given an opportunity to continue its existence.

Last year Beta Xi had a terrible incident that I will not go into,
suffice it to say that it was far worse than anything that the ZO
Chapter did or was accused of up at NAU. The Beta Xi Chapter and
their Alums decided to fight the University on the sanctions and the
University’s threat to kick the Chapter from campus. Well, Beta Xi
won the battle but lost the war. Their Alums have know been bitten
for their efforts on behalf of the Active Chapter. I feel that if
they had followed the path as forged just the year before by The
Actives at NAU that this action would not have been taken nor needed.

There is another Chapter (not us) in our Province that I have been
told has a 50-50 chance of following Beta Xi by next Fall Semester
because their Alums decided to fight sanctions rather than deal with
the Active Chapter problems. Hopefully Bill will be able to salvage
this Chapter but he has been forced into a Reactive posture and is
not finding it an easy task to get his footing to take the initiative
from their University and our Headquarters on this matter. Here is
wishing him luck (I as well as others have already volunteered to
help him as needed).

At Epsi Upsi we have had some recent wisps of smoke (vandalism by
some members breaking doors and windows along with blatant use of Pot
and financial delinquency) and the House Corp under the direction of
Dan Clements is going to come down hard to make sure we can get in
front of any possible issues so that we don’t have a fire. Part of
the reason we are going to need to be aggressive in this regard is
the traditionally bad relations that Epsi Upsi has had with
Headquarters. They make Elephants look like they suffer from severe
memory loss. Whereas Epsi Upsi has kept its nose clean for years with
just one minor University discipline issue in the last 4-5 years we
still have a somewhat bad reputation in Evanston that took decades to
build and which will not change without the continued effort of the
Active Chapter. Not surprisingly the same “brothers” that tend to be
a problem in one area are more often than not a problem in at least
one other area too. These same problem “brothers” don’t attend
Chapter meetings and/or leave Chapter Meetings early and have not
fullfilled their Ritual obligation to be able to wear their badge and
vote in Chapter . I bet if you reflect back on your years you can
emember “brothers” that lived down to that sorry Standard. Dan and I
are planning on making an example out of these “brothers” so as to
jar that portion of the house out of its complacency which has been
bread by its tremendous success these past 4-5 years. The first
example is that one of these “Out of house Brothers” was by the other
day and busted out the large window on the ground floor bedroom that
faces the parking lot. When confronted about the damage he said to
“add it to his House Bill”. I have directed the House Manager (a guy
who is doing a fantastic job in his office) to get a quote on the
damage and to contact this sorry excuse for a brother to tell him to
bring payment by the next day or the police will be called. Many of
the guys have put forth some really tremendous effort on the Property
to show their pride and we as a House Corp are going to make sure we
are there to support them too. The Current JI class has really
stepped up and there is a strong cadre of leaders emerging from that
class and I can assure you that they are very interested in building
relations with their Alums. As this semester winds down I am looking
forward with renewed vigor, optimism and hope for the future. When we
have a house warming in the fall following the purchase of the
property and some of the planned renovations I hope that many of you
will have an opportunity to visit the House and meet the great group
of guys that are carrying the torch.

In hoc

Dave Riddle