DATE: Tuesday, April 15, 1997               TAG: 9704150256

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LORRAINE EATON, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   98 lines

FRATERNITY MOVES TOWARD ALCOHOL-FREE HOUSE W&M AND WESLEYAN BROTHERS UNSURE HOW TO IMPLEMENT EDICT.

After years of faithful service, the basement bar at the Sigma Nu frat house will be retired May 10 and converted into a weight room.

Weekend house parties with alcohol will be only a memory. And the drinking of beer in bedrooms will cease.

``The brotherhood thought it was a good idea, not just for insurance reasons but to set an example,'' said Chris Fillmore, 20, an ODU sophomore and a resident of the Sigma Nu house on Colonial Avenue in the Ghent section of Norfolk.

Teetotaling by the year 2000.

That's the edict for Sigma Nu brothers at Old Dominion University, Virginia Wesleyan College and the College of William and Mary, whose national office recently announced that their fraternity houses must be free of alcohol by then.

The brothers at William and Mary are balking and the brothers at Wesleyan are scratching their heads. But the brothers at ODU aren't waiting for the turn of the century.

``The general sentiment here is opposition to the policy,'' said William and Mary senior Joshua Wenderoff, 21, who lives in the Sigma Nu house. Wenderoff said that members plan to lobby alumni to have the national policy changed. ``We are a law-abiding house . . . and we don't understand why brothers who are 21 will not be able to drink in the house.''

Sigma Nu is joined in its efforts by another of the nation's largest fraternities, Phi Delta Theta, which has no local chapters. Leaders say that reasons for the new policy range from the rising cost of house repairs and insurance premiums to the rising number of lawsuits. They also want to get back to their original mission of developing leaders, not drinkers.

Fourteen of Sigma Nu's 210 chapters are now alcohol-free, said Sigma Nu's executive director Maurice E. Littlefield. Most will gradually move into compliance by first banning alcohol at every other function, then at all functions, then in public parts of the house, and then in private rooms.

The Virginia Wesleyan College chapter will wait until next year to develop a plan, said Sigma Nu member William Harrell, 22, a senior. The Sigma Nu ``house'' at Wesleyan is actually on a ``Greek hall'' in one of the residence dorms and is shared with members of two other fraternities.

Students and school officials are not sure how the policy will be put in place at VWC. Sigma Nu chapter president, Matt Smith, 21, believes that the entire Greek hall will have to go dry to be in compliance. Because of this he expects that the VWC chapter will be one of the last to be in compliance with the policy.

``It's going to be tough for us,'' he said.

Sigma Nu and Phi Delta Theta took the lead in the movement to clean up the reputation and reality of fraternity life when they announced the twin policies in March, but the effort really started in 1984.

Student behavior used to be regulated under a policy of in loco parentis, a Latin term for ``in place of parents.'' Deans of men and women were in charge of fraternities and sororities for decades, but that system ended with the protest years of the 1960s and ``by 1970, students were in charge of the chapter houses,'' Littlefield said. ``The fraternity community had become the campus pub.''

Open parties were the norm and the condition of the houses deteriorated. At campuses across the country there were fires, deaths and date rapes. Fraternity brothers, once high-achieving campus leaders, were losing those roles and grades were dropping. Liability insurance began to rise.

``We realized that fraternities could not achieve their purpose and unless we made a significant effort to control behavior we would be out of business,'' Littlefield said.

Under Sigma Nu's 1984 ``risk reduction policy,'' kegs were banned at fraternity houses across the nation and strict rules for parties were adopted. Some rules include guest lists, ID checks and security. Other fraternities did the same. But those measures weren't enough. A Harvard School of Public Health study found that 85 percent of fraternity members in the early 1990s were binge drinkers.

About 80 percent of Sigma Nu leaders voted in favor of the ban at their August convention. Others said it would hurt recruitment.

Wesleyan's Harrell disagrees. ``Our (hall) parties will be more social'' since people will be talking and interacting instead of drinking, he said. ``The emphasis won't be on beer. I think that's a good thing.''

And Fillmore points out that there will still be parties that are not dry.

``They won't be at the house,'' Fillmore said. ``We'll probably rent out one side of `44','' the nearby 4400 Club across the street from the ODU campus. That way a third party is responsible for serving alcohol, checking IDs and the frat house won't get trashed.

The Sigma Nu and Phi Delta Theta brotherhood is split on whether the new policy will curb drinking or just displace it from the house to bars or other spots. Leaders believe it will improve the image of fraternity life. The frats have encouraged other organizations to follow suit.

At ODU neither of the other two fraternities with houses is following Sigma Nu's lead yet, said Cub S. Berrian, coordinator for student organizations at ODU.

``They will be watching Sigma Nu to see how it affects them,'' Berrian said. ``Somewhere down the road this could be the norm.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo byTAMARA VONINSKI/The Virginian-Pilot

From left, Jeremy Lucy, Darren Musico, Patrick Shea, Chris

Fillmore, Michael Kelly and Jason Byrum chat in the bar at ODU's

Sigma Nu fraternity house. The bar will become a weight room in

May. KEYWORDS: FRATERNITY ALCOHOL-FREE

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu