Letter from the Undergrads about current chapter situation.
Dear Graduate Brother,
The purpose of this letter is to inform you of the current status of the chapter. In our twenty-year history as a chapter, we aimed for excellence in all points of Greek life at Tennessee Technological University. Today's active chapter still strives for this.
During the 2004 Spring Recruitment, the Chapter pledged four quality men who are progressing very well in the program. We continue to compete well in intramural sports - wrestling, basketball, and softball. The most significant accomplishment came at the end of the Fall Semester 2003; we ranked first-of-eleven in academics.
During the month of November, 2003, several brothers were involved in a kidnapping incident. The University notified the chapter that this activity is considered "hazing." As a result of this determination, the chapter has been placed under the following sanction: the undergraduate chapter cannot sponsor any social or philanthropic activities until November 20th, 2004. Therefore, the active chapter will be unable to host the Frank Norris Pig Dinner in 2004.
The chapter's focus for the remainder of 2004 will be on three areas: 1. Fall Recruitment, 2. Achieving 3.0 chapter average, 3. Increasing organized graduate participation. In future correspondences from myself and TFI President, you will receive further information regarding a graduate event to be held this summer.
We look forward to seeing you in the future. Please visit us at the chapter house when you are passing through Cookeville.
Fraternally,
Mohamad Elbeitam
President
You can help or your brothers can help you.
Hopefully there will be a number of brothers dropping by this board. If you're looking for a job or can help anopther brother, please drop me a line. If there's nothing today, please drop by in 1 week to see if there's anything new that you can do to help.
The best way to reach me is by email at (my first name) AT 2 the top design (with no spaces) dot com.
There's currently 1 brother that I know of that's looking for a job. You can help him by checking out the post from January 22.
Thanks to David Speight for speaking up that his company might have an opening. I've already forwarded info to hook them up.
Ross
The recent TFI email had a comment that was a bit of a concern.
Sometime during Fall 2003, there was some horseplay that snowballed.
The story that I heard was that it was a pretty tame incident but it was on campus, inside a residence hall. Apparently, nobody got hurt but some non-Fiji heard some yelling & screaming (as college guys can do sometimes) & the incident attracted attention.
The chapter apparently self-imposed some restrictions on activities right after the incident to show that they understood the gravity of the situation.
I'm not familiar with anything beyond that point. The last I heard, a few months ago, was that it was hopefully to be resolved shortly. As the resolution was still in question, I was asked to help keep a low profile on the incident. Sounded reasonable.
But no communication on the event for several months is another matter. And a year of probation (no hosted events) was a big surprise to me. I would think that it should have been a priority to let the grads know about the probation asap. Many of us regularly make plans to be at Pig &/or Homecoming. Advance notice that these events are either in jeopardy or cancelled would have been nice. Instead, a slip in an email alerts most to this less than a month before Pig time.
Despite the lack of communication, I agree with what Brent pointed out in his second email: the chapter really is strong. The probation certainly doesn't help but I'm confident that we'll emerge as the strongest house on campus.
If you want to know more, I'd suggest the best option is to make it to the summer grad weekend.