The wait seems to finally be over.
More than a month after Phi Delta Alpha fraternity filed an appeal against College derecognition, the administration is expected to announce its final decision on the appeal sometime early this week.
The Dean of the College's Office informed The Dartmouth on Friday that Dean of the College James Larimore could make the decision as early as today.
Phi Delt had filed a formal appeal against the loss of College recognition March 29 on the basis of information not present in the original case and procedural errors. The house also appealed for clemency.
Larimore is expected to finalize his decision on the clemency issue this week -- deciding on the fairness of the original sanctions. Dean of Residential Life Martin Redman said that if Larimore finds the initial sanctions against Phi Delt to be too severe, he may decide to lessen them -- an action that can overturn the College decision to derecognize. An appeal for clemency, however, does not require a new hearing.
According to College rules, Redman, as the hearing officer, was initially assigned the responsibility of hearing any appeals. While he considered the appeal on new information and procedural errors himself -- and found those both to be undeserving of a new hearing -- Redman asked Larimore to handle with the plea for clemency.
In a previous interview with The Dartmouth, Redman had said that as the person who originally decided the Phi Delt case, "I'm probably not the best person to deal with the clemency issue."
Redman said he considered the procedural errors point by point and the new information, but he felt "it wasn't enough" for the Phi Delt case to have a new hearing. He also added that he informed the fraternity members of this decision.
Regardless of the appeal decision, Phi Delt will not be allowed to host the band scheduled to perform there during Green Key weekend. The band will instead be hosted by Zeta Psi fraternity. Matt K. Nelson, president of Phi Delt, could not be reached for comment last night.
In an unrelated Greek house disciplinary incident, Gamma Delta Chi fraternity was found guilty of violating social event guidelines, after Redman heard a level-two hearing against the fraternity last Tuesday.
Redman informed The Dartmouth that the fraternity was issued a warning -- which is the lowest sanction in a level-two hearing if the house is found guilty -- and asked to revise its internal social event management system.
When allegations surfaced that Gamma Delt had failed to follow social event procedures and the College's alcohol policy, the hearing was shifted to level-two since the house was already on probation, following an alleged "panty raid" in Alpha Xi Delta and Kappa Delta Epsilon sororities by a group of its pledges in October.
Following the "panty raid," the house had been found guilty of breaking and entering, theft, damage to personal property and misuse of fire safety equipment in violation of College policy.
The president of Gamma Delt, Mike Weir '01, could not be reached for comment last night.
