Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 11, 1992 TAG: 9202110335
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG HIGHER EDUCATION WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
BARRED W&L FRATERNITY APPEALS
A Washington and Lee fraternity, kicked off campus last month for vandalizing its own house and breaking probation, has filed an appeal in hopes of overturning a five-year suspension.Members of Delta Tau Delta fraternity, who were moving out of the house in December because it was scheduled for nearly $600,000 in renovations, say the punishment determined by a student affairs committee was too harsh.
The committee, made up of students and faculty members, voted 9-0 in favor of suspending the fraternity's charter for five years. There was one abstention.
"The chapter and myself believe it is unfair for us to be treated in this manner," Robert Wilson, president of the fraternity, said Monday. "It was unusually harsh punishment for damage inflicted on the house."
W&L has taken tough measures against students who have committed vandalism in recent months after the university started what is known as the fraternity renaissance program.
Through the program, the university takes over ownership of fraternity houses in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars of renovations to them. After renovation, the houses are leased back to the student-run fraternities. The school plans to spend $12 million to $13 million on the project.
The idea is to upgrade the houses, and therefore, the manners of the students who live in them.
"I won't sit here and tell you we haven't had problems or minor destruction in some of the houses since we started the program," Buddy Atkins, associate dean of students, said recently. "But if you look at behavior four years ago as opposed to how students are behaving now, it's improved greatly."
Atkins said he believes that the renaissance program is responsible for at least part of the change. Since W&L's dining hall can feed about 500 to 600 people and the school can promise dormitory housing only to freshmen, fraternities are essential, Atkins said. More than 80 percent of the school's 1,050 male undergraduates are members of fraternities.
The fraternity's national organization and its housing corporation, a group of alumni that oversees house maintainence, had placed the chapter on probation in October for violating the university's alcohol policy and abusing the house. And before moving out, the students had been warned to leave the house in good shape, Atkins said.
The university had not yet taken over the Delta Tau Delta house when the vandalism occured.
But after the fraternity moved out, windows were broken, loft-style beds in rooms were ripped down and the bar was destroyed.
"It wasn't systematic destruction, though, like some people have been calling it," Wilson said. "They were random acts of vandalism by a small number of individuals."
The university and the fraternity have dealt with the individuals involved, he said. The fraternity imposed community service hours on two of the students and expelled a third from the organization.
Now, he said, the brothers will have to wait and see what happens.
"We're trying to be good fraternity members so the committee will consider that when they consider reinstating us - or at least mitigating the suspension to a probation," Wilson said.
The university's president is expected to act on the appeal sometime in the next two weeks. His options include reopening the discussion with the student affairs committee and recommending a different punishment.