SigEp Becomes First Fraternity To Completely Dissolve Pledging By Way Of Undergraduate Vote
Yesterday, at Sigma Phi Epsilon’s 54th Grand Chapter Conclave, undergraduate brothers passed a resolution to replace the pledging process nationwide with the “Balanced Man Program.” The BMP was first introduced back in 1990, and by the end of the 2014-2015 school year, 215 of the 228 active SigEp chapters had already adopted the program, but Thursday’s decision made the fraternity the first to officially abolish pledging by way of undergraduate vote rather than a top-down mandate.
From SigEp.org:
“The modern fraternity world is broken,” [Max] Fowler [South Carolina ’15] said. “Hazing allegations, mortalities, substance abuse and a number of other serious issues riddle fraternity chapters across the country. Society needs to see that the American college fraternity is still relevant, and we have to show them SigEp is leading the charge.”
New members will have full rights the day they accept their bid: chapter, ritual, intramurals, etc. Anything a four-year brother can do on behalf of the letters, so can some punk who just walked out of high school.
Unfortunately, I fear this is exactly where all fraternities will eventually go over the next few decades, adapting to the modern social climate. My unborn kid will most likely never have the opportunity to go through the pledging process, which I still stand by as the best experience I’d never want to do again. And that’s a damn shame..
[via SigEp.org]
Well boys this is the beginning of the end.
10 years ago at 10:32 amSure was fun while it lasted.
10 years ago at 11:28 amI want to blame SAE for this domino effect of completely abolishing pledgeship, but deep down, I know it’s not their fault. The sense of entitlement, the pussification of these young men (I know I’m sounding like an old man here, but hear me out) and most importantly, the lack of work ethic. Pledgeship is something that I actually enjoyed because it was an integral part of my fraternity experience. Seeing it being stripped away, by vote nonetheless, is making me wonder what the hell is actually going on. It’s funny, in a sad and humiliating way, that it has to end like this.
tl;dr
10 years ago at 11:33 amActually it is mostly their fault because they handled risk management so poorly that eventually no insurance company would cover them but really it could have happened to any national fraternity so I wont pin all the blame on them. You only need one push for the dominoes to fall.
10 years ago at 12:00 pmActually SigEp proposed this ideal with the BMP long before SAE even had it on their radar with their True Gentlemen program.
10 years ago at 2:36 pmSAE undergrads didn’t vote for it. SigEp did.
10 years ago at 10:12 pmRegardless of if a chapter doesn’t haze, has light hazing, or hazes hard, the pledgeship is THE vital part of turning 18 year olds who are just trying to look and act cool into fraternity men. Truly disappointing.
10 years ago at 10:33 amThis is what really changed me. It was a pivotal experience and one that I can’t imagine not going through. It still irks me that my fraternity abolished pledging because the new members just don’t get it as much and come in seeming entitled and thinking they don’t have to work.
10 years ago at 11:29 amPro-tip: Don’t recruit members who act entitled and who will think they don’t have to work.
10 years ago at 4:01 pmNot sure how other balanced man chapters are but at mine full initiation takes nearly two years at full speed. We split it into three levels with each challenge taking at least a semester to complete. After each challenge you go through the next part of the ritual. After the third one you are eligible for alumni status because you’ve been through the full ritual. We consider not keeping up with your challenges to be grounds for expulsion from the fraternity. That’s how we avoid getting entitled guys, because they have to earn it.
10 years ago at 5:52 pmI may be nit picking but I can’t for the life of me understand why these bozos will give kids they barely know FULL RIGHTS to the RITUAL. A lot of people on this site have made very strong arguments why pledging is important and I absolutely agree with them but I if I went through my ritual WITHOUT an intensive pledge period – I would not have understood it or, more importantly, appreciated the one thing I wanted the most … to experience the ritual. I earned that. That’s why I wore my letter proudly because others realized [to a degree] that my chapter simply did not give out our letters to any fuckin’ troll off the street.
10 years ago at 11:42 amI could go on but I will get off my soapbox.
Actually the article is wrong. As a member of a balanced man chapter, unless it’s different in different chapters but I’m pretty sure it’s not, a new member isn’t allowed to see ritual. There are three “challenges” in the BMP and it takes a year to complete all three. With each one more ritual is “unlocked.” So after a semester you get to see and learn about half of ritual, then after 2 semesters, as long as you complete the challenges, you get to see and learn about all of the ritual.
10 years ago at 4:11 pmThe Chapter on my campus is green-carding Potentials and going ahead and making them full members. And it’s honestly pathetic. There are so many aspects of the Fraternity life and experience that these Potentials are missing out on.
10 years ago at 9:33 pmI couldn’t agree more. I know that I would have a difficult time calling someone brother for the rest of my life simply because they signed a bid card. If that’s the way it’s going to go, the recruitment process is going to have to become a whole lot more involved than the “meet him, make him a friend, introduce him to your friends, introduce him to your fraternity, ask him to join” that was preached to everyone at one time or another.
10 years ago at 8:15 pmThe BMP does not give new members the Ritual… Instead, it gives a new way of formation up to the ritual. They still have to wait a long time to see the ritual.
10 years ago at 9:02 amThis is all just nomenclature at this point. You can call it pledging or use a new name that looks better natiaonly. I am an alumnus of a traditional chapter of Sig Ep, and frankly there are far worse things that many ‘BMP’ chapters do than we did. Do you really think that this is going to substantially change anything? Good chapter will mold their members into better men and bad chapter will continue to do stupid shit. Additionally, pledeship at this point fraternity wide does have a bad connatation countless deaths etc because some retards decided they wanted to haze the hardest. Frankly put this is a way for a national organization to get in better graces of the school and have more definitive guidelines that are bars for disbanding the organization. Lastly first semsster joinees are only allowed certain priveledges and like everyone else has to go through a process. The right to the ritual is not just given to them. Blatantly saying this is unfactual and you clearly do not have factual information. Frankly do some research. Really the only initiated portion is that someone can vote on issues.
10 years ago at 2:49 pmPledging is what separates fraternities from being social clubs. When you take away pledging, you take away the difficulty of joining, tradition, and important life lessons that you can only learn through pledging (like that you have to earn everything that’s given to you). Take that away, and your left with a campus club that anyone can join and ruin the whole chemistry of the fraternity. You end up not having brothers, only other members. Joining a fraternity isn’t a right it’s a privilege. Earn it.
10 years ago at 7:17 amThanks Obama
10 years ago at 10:33 amBring up your undergrads in such a way that this doesn’t happen. This is the brainwashing of a system that gets them to believe pledgeship is unnecessary.
10 years ago at 10:34 amThe Wussification of America has begun! Soon you won’t even need to go to Basic Training to join the military because that might be too harsh an environment for people to handle…
10 years ago at 10:35 amIt began a while ago and it’s only going to continue to get worse.
10 years ago at 10:39 amFor the most part this is just face saving. My fraternity would sometimes”regulate” itself if the school became aware of something. It’s just away to keep them from intruding. How can they punish you if your organization is clearly “taking care of it” on its own.
10 years ago at 10:35 amIf there are chapters out there who are truly fine with this system then more power to them, I guess. But if you impose a more PC regulation on yourself instead of waiting for the outside community to demand it of you then you look better in their eyes.
“Oh look, they’re trying to change. Maybe not all frats are *stereotype*”
as opposed to
“Look, something has to be done about this. Let’s make them *whatever* “
I still find it hard to believe that a school will stay out of your business simply because you “abolished pledgeship”. Nationals may benefit from this, but I don’t see any good coming from it for individual chapters. Very surprised this came from undergrads.
10 years ago at 10:43 amTheir nationals probably got a pretty nice break from their insurance company by getting rid of pledging.
10 years ago at 11:16 amIts all semantics really. I doubt there will be any reduction in the premiums paid! The same ol shit can and will still happen. No actual reduction in risk.
Just like how calling a pledge an associate member doesn’t make a difference
10 years ago at 3:30 pmThis is what liberalism has done to America. Wanting everything to be nice and anything that causes the slightest discomfort is automatically banned. I fear for our country.
10 years ago at 10:36 amPledgeship created an amazing bond between my brothers and I that could never be achieved by sitting around a camp fire singing fucking Kumbaya. The fact that we had mental and physical challenges to persevere through together made us realize each others strengths and weaknesses on which we could improve on. Now that’s a fucking “balanced man”
10 years ago at 10:38 am“Welcome to Club SigEp. Heres youre transgender letters
10 years ago at 10:02 am13 chapters had the right idea
10 years ago at 10:39 amI’m not an SPE. But a few thoughts:
1. From what I’ve heard from friends, Fowler is a complete fuckboy who hazed has hard as anyone and is now just covering his ass.
2. Apparently there were only five chapters that voted against mandatory Balanced Man. Unbelievable. The worst part is that I know that there are Balanced Man chapters in name only, but they didn’t even vote against this legislation.
3. This changes nothing for SPE. The Balanced Man chapters that don’t suck are going to continue their underground pledging. Hiding stuff from Nationals is easy, as long as no one squeals. Assuming you bid good men, you shouldn’t need to worry about someone calling home to mommy and daddy.
4. This might change a lot for other fraternities. We’re up to at least three that auto-initiate. I’m worried about the precedent that this sets.
10 years ago at 10:39 amDo you have any insight to how many of these chapters actually follow the Balanced Man program? The chapter at my school technically is Balanced Man but still has one of the most, if not the most, intensive processes of any chapter.
10 years ago at 11:26 amNo real insight. Would be curious to hear from any SPEs on here that have been to any of the national conventions.
And yeah, I know what you mean. The SPE chapter at my school is considered bottom-tier, but they still haze balls.
10 years ago at 11:39 amIm a spe from a sec school with a tradition chapter. I have been to several of our conventions and basically what is happening is all the chapters that don’t follow a balanced man program (initiating once you receive a bid) are being taken into rooms at these conventions and are basically told if you don’t begin to implement or support this ideology they will take our charter. The sad thing is, is that most of these none pledging chapters have terrible alumni relations and begin to suffer tremendously because many of the alumni went through a traditional pledge experience and feel that there chapter isn’t the same one that they went through so they don’t support there chapter or give money.
10 years ago at 12:05 pmA lot more than five of us voted against it. Even myself coming from a balanced man chapter voted against it. It creates a disconnect from alum who went through pledging. I think it was a bad idea.
10 years ago at 4:26 pm