Dartmouth alumni of Beta Theta Pi fraternity addressed questions from male students, including men who are currently members of other fraternities, and a few undergraduate women at the final information session concerning Beta's return to campus, held on Friday afternoon. Students' concerns focused on membership diversity, alcohol policies and the Dartmouth chapter's relationship with Beta national fraternity.
Scott Sipple '84, a Beta alumnus who conducted the information session, said the new organization values diversity, and noted that when he was an undergraduate Beta's members had diverse interests and activities.
"We hope to get diversity through a collection of individuals," Sipple said. "It extends to ethnicity and other elements. For us, it's kind of natural -- it's just the way we always were."
Some women in the audience pressed the alumni about how they will ensure the membership diversity they promise.
"I'm honestly a little disappointed," Case Hathaway-Zepeda '09 said in an interview with the Dartmouth. "I see a lot of athletic allegiances coming together. I think everyone in this room is straight."
Sipple stressed that the future members of Dartmouth's Beta chapter must hold each other accountable for upholding Beta's principles.
"I can't be here on campus every day to check on the activities of everybody," Sipple said. "It's the responsibility of those members to say if somebody gets out of line -- that's their responsibility to help intercede."
It was a lack of accountability on the part of Beta's members that caused the house to be derecognized by the College in 1996, according to Beta alumnus Bob Bartles '64, who helped conduct Friday's session.
"One of the reasons that I personally believe Beta was closed was because the mentality was to circle the wagons and take collective blame for problems with, I felt, a nave view that they would go away behind a united front," Bartles said. "That kind of circling of the wagons to support a brother is certainly notable for good things, but not for bad."
Beta alumni will visit Dartmouth a few times per year to advise Beta's new members in order to restore Beta's good standing on campus and with its national organization, Bartles said.
"We'll be showing up more than once or twice a year, maybe to give you help or assistance in things you might need it in -- whether it's career questions, whether it's how to deal with a problem," he said.
In accordance with College policy, Beta will not have any alcohol within its physical plant for its first few terms on campus, Sipple said, and therefore Beta will return to campus as a dry fraternity. Members will be able to sponsor parties outside of the house, limiting "wear and tear" on the house, Sipple said.
College policy also mandates that new Greek organizations be affiliated with a national organization. Beta alumni are still in conversations with the national organization, Sipple said, adding that the group plans to move forward with Beta's return to Dartmouth regardless of its status with the national organization.
"We're still working with [national] and negotiating -- it's a long, complex story that won't get resolved real quickly," Sipple said. "They're very interested too."
The upperclassmen who join Beta will likely control the recruitment process, Sipple said, although alumni have not thoroughly looked into recruitment yet. The alumni discourage hazing in the pledge process, Sipple added.
"It's a little stunning to us -- this notion of hazing," Sipple said. "There's nothing we did where you felt forced to drink, where you felt there was this huge time commitment that would take away from your studies."
Alumni in attendance stressed that Beta will be an organization new members can mold.
"We represent what it has been, but you're the ones who are going to take it forward," Sipple said. "If I was to put a sales spin on this, the attraction of our organization ... is that you get to be entrepreneurial. You're the ones who are going to get to build this."
Steve Morris '11, a member of the football team who attended Friday's session, said Beta has become his first choice for next year's rush.
"I don't really know how the rush process is going to work, but if I can get in, I'm definitely going to pledge Beta," Morris said. "All the other frats on campus seem to be the same kind of deal."
