Kappa Sigma fraternity will be reinstated to its former location at 1035 Campus Drive for the 2012-13 academic year, announced Deborah Golder, Dean of Residential Education (ResEd) Friday afternoon.
Golder’s decision came nine months after ResEd removed Kappa Sigma from the house, following two years of behavior that Golder called “dangerous,” in an interview with The Daily in March.
“They have more work to do and they’re not done yet, but we were very impressed with the amount of work they’ve done and want to show good faith in their projected trajectory,” said Golder. “We were really looking for a profound shift in attitude and culture.”
ResEd gave the fraternity a year-long hiatus in March 2011, along with a list of seven criteria for improvement, including “vision and organizational identity, shared accountability and responsibility, responsible citizenship and the role of alcohol in the house and organization,” according to a ResEd document.
ResEd, with help from an advisory panel of faculty, administrators and students, judged Kappa Sigma based on a rubric of these criteria, in addition to a two-hour “formal relevancy presentation” that 10 members of the fraternity gave Thursday night.
The review panel consisted of ResEd staff, Robinson House Resident Fellow Rod Taylor, Angela Exson, assistant dean of the Office of Sexual Assault and Relationship Abuse (SARA) Education and Response, and student representatives from the Greek community.
“The guys have put in a lot of work over the past couple of months,” said incoming Kappa Sigma president Malcolm McGregor ‘13. “We’ve been taking a critical look at ourselves and creating an organization that reflects what we want as members of the fraternity and what the campus wants from us.”
While the group had reason to celebrate, Golder warned Kappa Sigma members that they should not take her decision lightly.
“I explained to them that on the one hand, it feels great to be the guys who got the house back, but that it is with very clear expectations and zero tolerance for any of the behaviors that got them removed from the house in the first place,” Golder said.
“It’s a decision we’ve worked hard for,” said Brian Barnes ‘ 12, who served as president of the fraternity starting January 2011 and is transitioning out of the position. “We’re happy to be back.”
“We needed to prove our worth to the University and prove we could turn things around. We have been working hard on that for the last few months–apparently to the University’s satisfaction,” McGregor said.
ResEd will be working with Kappa Sigma over the coming months to identify benchmarks that evidence the fraternity is meeting its standards.
Golder said ResEd will develop a supplemental process to hire student residential staff to live in the house next year.
-Kristian Davis Bailey