When admitted into a social fraternity, brothers in the greek system take an oath to always have a common brotherly bond with one another.

At Syracuse University, the house of the New York Alpha chapter of Sigma Phi Epsilon, a university and nationally recognized fraternity, could have had the strongest bond of brotherhood after spending years trying to fulfill national and university standards.

However, at the end of last semester, a division came to a head after months of internal conflict and external pressure from the university and national headquarters.

The brothers of Sigma Phi Epsilon, or SigEp, were all suspended by its national headquarters during the week of Dec. 5, which were followed by membership reviews of each person and ultimately the loss of nearly 60 percent of the fraternity’s brothers.

At the beginning of last semester, SigEp had about 56 members, 34 of which lived in a residence leased from the university on Comstock Avenue. Now, there are about 22, and 15 of them live in the house. Friendships have been broken, sides chosen and hundreds of thousands of dollars lost through paying the mortgage of the building that has a capacity to house about 44 brothers.

Several former SigEp brothers, the current president, an SU administrator and the SigEp regional director offered their experience from the fall semester in explaining this very complex problem.

Strife within the chapter from the late 1990s led up to the conflict that occurred last semester, said Justin Horowitz, a senior and former brother in the SigEp pledge class of spring 2003.

SigEp has been recognized on and off by the university for years before the last time it was re-recognized more than five years ago.

After winning back their status at SU, the brothers tried to get back their charter, or chapter status, throughout a two-year process where the brothers worked together with the university and national organizations, said Jason Kassoy, a former member of the SigEp pledge class of spring 2004.

Horowitz said he and a few of the men in his pledge class decided to try to get their charter back by keeping their grade point averages high and recruiting good, high quality and diverse members to their brotherhood.

‘We always prided ourselves in being a fraternity that did not take just one kind of kids,’ Kassoy said.

Horowitz said the brothers aggressively recruited what they said they felt were a group of men that all had a lot to offer the house, and they prided themselves in building a house of more than 60 brothers at the fraternity’s high point, Kassoy said.

Kassoy said SigEp’s membership was very large at that time and it had a good stance on campus with the Interfraternity Council and the university. Everything seemed to be going great for the brothers.

After much hard work, Horowitz said, the chapter received its charter back in spring 2005.

Conflict within the house

Soon after that, on March 23, 2005, former SigEp brother Brian T. Shaw was arrested and charged with the murder of Chiarra Seals, which Kassoy said was the beginning of the division within the house.

‘I’d say one of the major events was the Brian Shaw incident,’ he said, ‘because there was a major disagreement with how we should handle it as a house.’

Some of the brothers remained loyal friends to Shaw, but others wanted to disassociate him from the organization, Kassoy said.

Shaw is no longer a student at SU or a brother in SigEp. His trial begins Monday, Jan. 30.

‘Definitely we were all shocked when it happened,’ said Paul Hanus, current president of SigEp. ‘And we still have respect for the families involved.’

Kassoy said after that, small problems became a big deal.

‘There was no respect anymore,’ Horowitz said. ‘Little problems just got too big all the time.’

Jordan Matis, a former SigEp brother from the spring 2004 pledge class, said tensions cooled during the summer break and continued into the fall 2005 semester until another event triggered further division.

When Andrew Cheston, the president at the beginning of the school year resigned from his position for personal reasons, conflict broke out among the brothers again, Kassoy said.

A change in direction

A month into the fall 2005 semester, tensions were high, but attitudes within the fraternity had changed as well.

New president Hanus, along with SigEp brother and former IFC president Chris VanDeWeert and other members of SigEp, began working closely with the university and national headquarters.

‘SigEp is ultimately taking on a new direction, starting to enforce new regulations, starting to enforce higher standards,’ Hanus said. ‘And there was a general consensus among the leadership in the chapter to take on this direction. There was a lack of support from some individuals in the chapter.’

Hanus clarified the leadership in SigEp were those members who were dedicated to the new direction in which the fraternity was going.

Matis, who was on the executive board of SigEp in the fall, said he would offer his opinion, but because it was not one shared by other people, he was ignored and made to feel unwanted as a member.

‘A fraternity is different than a social club,’ said Joshua McIntosh, an SU administrator with Greek Life and Experiential Learning. ‘Fraternities are social, but also offer aspects such as educational outcomes, leadership development, healthy living, philanthropy and community service.’

McIntosh said the higher standards GLEL was putting upon the brothers of SigEp were non-negotiable things such as properly dealing with risk management issues and hazing.

‘You put a bunch of guys together from a bunch of different backgrounds, from all across the United States – different value systems, different beliefs, different styles of doing things – you put them all together in one room and you’re going to have your differences,’ Hanus said, ‘but the point of being in a fraternity is to get around these differences, agree to disagree and work toward a common ultimate goal.’

Matis, Kassoy and Horowitz all agreed a lot of the other brothers didn’t like the direction in which the fraternity was heading. They said they felt like their own brothers were ganging up against them because they refused to change.

‘Certain people in the house decided that we needed to make it a certain way,’ Horowitz said. ‘A good, clean image to look good to nationals and look good to the university. Anyone who didn’t fit this was looked down upon and are not good enough to be in the house.’

The former members of SigEp said they felt the ideas to improve the organization were not coming solely from within.

‘You could see there was some sort of outside influence, either from nationals or from the university itself,’ Horowitz said.

The former brothers didn’t just have a problem with the direction the fraternity was headed in, like Matis; they said they also felt like the more they disagreed with the new direction, the more unwanted they were among their brothers.

‘It just didn’t seem like we were even going to be asked to be a part of it,’ Horowitz said. ‘So it made no sense in our minds to try and go back to a house that we had been driven out of.’

Suspension and the membership review process

The national headquarters, which has the legal right to suspend any of its members at any time, had been in contact with the Syracuse chapter several times throughout the semester to help work with the brothers to restructure the organization, Hanus said.

Christopher McCaw, a representative with the national headquarters, stopped by the chapter house a few times throughout the semester, Hanus said.

Horowitz and Kassoy said some of their brothers were talking to McCaw ‘under the radar’ and not informing the whole fraternity what was happening.

Hanus said the whole house knew about all of the changes taking place.

‘I can’t speak to the types of communication he had with other brothers,’ Hanus said. ‘But I know he was open to communication.’

Then, on Monday, Dec. 5, 2005, every member of SigEp was suspended by nationals through an e-mail.

‘When the suspension came from nationals, at that point I did not want to put any more time into the house,’ Horowitz said. ‘There had already been rebuilding, and I didn’t want to go through another rebuilding.’

In the days that followed, classes ended and students began preparing for final exams.

On Tuesday, Dec. 6, McCaw, who had been speaking at the Cornell University SigEp chapter the week before, came to the SU chapter to speak with the brothers. McCaw informed the fraternity if each brother wished to stay in the house, he had to go through a membership review interview.

‘They had actually been at Cornell the week before doing the exact same thing they were doing at our house,’ Kassoy said.

On Wednesday, Dec. 7 and Thursday, Dec. 8, McCaw and fellow national representative Richard Proud conducted membership review interviews with all of the brothers.

‘Essentially it was a process and it was in interview in which we sat down at talk to one of the national officials,’ Hanus said.

The two men asked each of the brothers about his ideals, goals and if he wanted to stay in the fraternity, Horowitz said. When he went to his meeting with McCaw, he simply told McCaw he didn’t want to be a part of SigEp anymore.

Some of the brothers met with McCaw and Proud to remain in the fraternity and get taken off suspension. Others simply wanted to be released of their mandatory $4,000 lease, Kassoy said. If a brother accepted his suspension from the fraternity, he would remain suspended until graduation and then would be reinstated to alumni status with the organization.

Each brother was notified of his status in the fraternity on Saturday, Dec. 10, Kassoy, Matis and Horowitz said.

However, Hanus said a decision was reached for each of the brothers on Friday night.

Adam Akst, a former SigEp brother from the spring 2005 pledge class, was planning on returning, and told the SigEp national representatives he wanted to stay in the house. However, he was not asked to return because his ‘ideals were not in line with the fraternity,’ he said, quoting the e-mail he received.

Akst, a sophomore, lived in the house and had to find new housing for spring 2006 during winter break. He now lives in Washington Arms.

Matis, Horowitz and Kassoy said they think Akst was not asked back because he was studying with another suspended member for a statistics final in the library of the house.

Akst said he doesn’t want to speculate on it, but the others said there’s no other reason why he wouldn’t be asked back to the chapter.

While all of the brothers were on suspension, Akst said, none were allowed to come to the house if they didn’t live there. His study companion did not live there, and when some other brothers saw them, a conflict ensued.

‘It’s not like we were being loud and bothering somebody,’ Akst said. ‘We were studying.’

He said he didn’t know the suspension rule at the time.

Kassoy said he thinks two of the brothers talked to McCaw and told him about the incident, and that is why Akst wasn’t invited back.

‘So basically the decision as to who stayed was not made by the brothers,’ Horowitz said. ‘It was made by two employees of the national Sigma Phi Epsilon who knew most of the people they were making the decisions on for like 15 minutes in the interviews.’

Akst said he no longer wants to be a member of SigEp, but there is one additional member who was turned away who objected to the decision, Hanus added separately.

‘Every brother has the right to appeal to get back in if they choose,’ Hanus said.

No longer brothers

After all members and former members of the fraternity had been notified of the nationals’ decision, an incident occurred that broke apart the fraternity even further.

Several former brothers, who, according to nationals, are still considered suspended members and cannot associate with members of the house, were invited to the house to say goodbye for the semester.

When the suspended brothers arrived, other members of the house were very upset and an argument began, Matis said. Several minutes later, the Syracuse Police Department was called by members of the house.

‘The kids they called the cops on, two weeks before they were calling their brother, and they made an oath that no matter what, these are your brothers for life,’ Horowitz said.

Horowitz said even though it was an emotional time and tensions were high, no one was in any physical harm, and when the police arrived, there was nothing they needed to break up.

‘There was nothing going on that needed the cops to handle,’ Kassoy said.

Matis, Horowitz, Kassoy and Akst all said they feel sad and upset that they were pushed out of the fraternity they loved being a part of, but they will move on from the situation.

Hanus said the people who were not accepted back into the house didn’t have the right attitude to be in a fraternity and it is too bad, but was necessary to rebuild the organization.

‘We joined the house for certain reasons,’ Horowitz said. ‘There’s only so much you could fight it and now our only other option is to leave.’

Published on January 26, 2006 at 12:00 pm