2008 Woodie Awards
Phi Kappa Tau: Reviewed and in question
Joe Beninati
Issue date: 9/13/07 Section: News
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With Recruitment Week 2007 just concluding, members of the College community will have noticed that Phi Kappa Tau was not able to accept new members this semester. This is due to an incident that occurred late last semester. One of the brothers was selling marijuana for two years while he living at the Phi Tau on-campus house; a house deemed substance free. As a result of this, drug dealing criminals from Allentown entered the house and committed an assault and robbery on the brother.
In the weeks following, extra security had to be brought in to help secure the safety of the brothers and it was determined that the fraternity had lost touch with its ideals laid forth by Nationals. Thus, the Judicial Board initially chose to expel the specific brother and indefinitely suspend the fraternity. The brothers of the fraternity appealed this decision, but the sanction was kept, which forced the brothers to appeal the decision to President Helm. The last appeal to Helm yielded different results, as the President thought the new ideas brought forth from the brothers clearly indicated that they wanted to change the way they up kept the internal rules of the fraternity. The result of the various appeals, cooperation of PKT members, and the decisions of their Nationals resulted in stipulations that must be upheld by Phi Kappa Tau or they risk being kicked off campus permanently.
The first of these sanctions is one of two things; either all brothers who have purchased marijuana must give themselves up and report to the College's Judicial Process or all brothers will be open to random drug testing through the end of 2009. The cost of all these tests will be covered by the brothers themselves. The next set of consequences was actually decided upon by the brothers themselves. They first decided to pay back some of the costs of the extra security that was needed last year. They volunteered to cancel their Fall 2007 recruitment so that they can refocus on the fraternities' ideals. They chose to subject themselves to a membership review as well as having a live-in Residential Consultant, approved by Chris Jachimowicz, the Director of Student Leadership Development & Greek Affairs, to provide an example of leadership in the house. The public areas inside the house will also be subject to random searches at least twice each semester until the end of 2009. There are several more items imposed against PKT, all designed to council and guide the fraternity in the right direction, such as leadership development and a new policy for the use of controlled substances at off-campus locations.
In the weeks following, extra security had to be brought in to help secure the safety of the brothers and it was determined that the fraternity had lost touch with its ideals laid forth by Nationals. Thus, the Judicial Board initially chose to expel the specific brother and indefinitely suspend the fraternity. The brothers of the fraternity appealed this decision, but the sanction was kept, which forced the brothers to appeal the decision to President Helm. The last appeal to Helm yielded different results, as the President thought the new ideas brought forth from the brothers clearly indicated that they wanted to change the way they up kept the internal rules of the fraternity. The result of the various appeals, cooperation of PKT members, and the decisions of their Nationals resulted in stipulations that must be upheld by Phi Kappa Tau or they risk being kicked off campus permanently.
The first of these sanctions is one of two things; either all brothers who have purchased marijuana must give themselves up and report to the College's Judicial Process or all brothers will be open to random drug testing through the end of 2009. The cost of all these tests will be covered by the brothers themselves. The next set of consequences was actually decided upon by the brothers themselves. They first decided to pay back some of the costs of the extra security that was needed last year. They volunteered to cancel their Fall 2007 recruitment so that they can refocus on the fraternities' ideals. They chose to subject themselves to a membership review as well as having a live-in Residential Consultant, approved by Chris Jachimowicz, the Director of Student Leadership Development & Greek Affairs, to provide an example of leadership in the house. The public areas inside the house will also be subject to random searches at least twice each semester until the end of 2009. There are several more items imposed against PKT, all designed to council and guide the fraternity in the right direction, such as leadership development and a new policy for the use of controlled substances at off-campus locations.