Dartmouth alumni of Beta Theta Pi fraternity contend that current students hold misconceptions about the fraternity's history at the College, regarding the fraternity as a group of football-playing troublemakers and not the brotherhood committed to charity work and diversity that alumni maintain it once was. Beta, which was permanently derecognized by the College in 1996, will regain possession of its house on 6 Webster Avenue, currently occupied by Alpha Xi Delta sorority, this summer. Beta alumni will be allowed to host recruitment events this Fall term but neither the College nor the Beta national organization have officially agreed to re-recognize the chapter at Dartmouth.
The Beginning: Beta comes to Dartmouth
Dartmouth's chapter of Beta began as Sigma Delta Pi fraternity, which established a chapter at Dartmouth in 1858. The organization was renamed the Vitruvian Society in 1871 and eventually became the Alpha Omega Chapter of Beta Theta Pi in 1889. From its inception, Beta maintained its affiliation with the national organization, except for a brief period from 1961 to 1962.
Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Beta's membership included athletes, members of The Dartmouth and the Jack-O-Lantern, performers in the marching band and members of the College's glee club, according to Beta's chapter book from 1941.
The Glory Days: Beta turns 100
During the winter of 1953, Dartmouth's chapter of Beta and eight other Beta chapters in New England passed a resolution that condemned racial discrimination within the national fraternity and demanded that each chapter lift its membership restraints, according to the Manchester Union Leader from December of that year.
Further disagreement over racial discrimination in 1961 led Dartmouth's Beta chapter to disassociate from the national organization for two years, Dmitri Gerakaris '69, a member of Dartmouth Beta Board of Trustees, said in an interview. Several other national fraternities at the College went local at this time for similar reasons, according to Deb Carney, director of coed, fraternity and sorority administration.
"During the late '50s and early '60s, trustees made a statement that all of our fraternities must be open and inclusive to all," Carney said. "And some of our national frats had discrimination clauses -- those fraternities either changed or went local."
Dartmouth's Beta chapter, geographically isolated from the fraternity's national headquarters, had minimal ties to the national organization after reaffiliating in 1962, according to Gerakaris, who was president of both Beta and the InterFraternity Council during his senior year at the College.
The End is Near: Beta in the 1980s and 1990s
Following coeducation in 1972, women would often frequent Beta for its parties and comfortable atmosphere, Beta alumnus and board member Scott Sipple '84 said. As the number of female students at the College grew, women felt increasingly comfortable attending parties at Beta, according Frohman Anderson '84, an alumnus of Psi Upsilon fraternity.
Beta's members were active in community service during this time, organizing events such as the Beta Thanksgiving food drive, Sipple said. In the fall of 1984, members raised more than $4,000 to pack Thanksgiving baskets for 225 needy families in the Upper Valley, according to an article in the Nov. 20, 1984 Valley News.
"This is the early '80s, long before community service stuff was fashionable," Sipple said. "Whether it was distributing food or basically putting ourselves out to work to raise money to donate to the local community, we're always very proud of that, and it's something we enjoyed doing."
The fraternity's range of activities complemented its membership, Sipple said. Beta was never composed solely of football players, as some have suggested, Sipple said.
"We had a nice diverse mix of people in the house," he said. "When I was there, we had captains from five different athletic teams in the house, we had non-athletes, people of color, just a whole mix of people and backgrounds."
During the 1990s, however, Beta began to face accusations of discrimination and misconduct. In 1991, members allegedly tortured a member of Chi Gamma Epsilon fraternity.
Beta alumnus Taran Lent '96 recalled that the College reprimanded Beta for hazing during his sophomore year.
"One of the pledges had too much to drink, went back to his dorm and got sick in the bathroom," Lent said. "His undergraduate director heard him and reported it as a hazing incident."
The event came soon after the implementation of new College laws regarding hazing, and the infraction led to a year-long period of derecognition in 1994, Lent said.
In 1995, members were caught reading a racist poem degrading Native Americans at one fraternity meeting. Members were also cited for shouting racist comments at passersby and attacking a Sigma Nu fraternity member on the nearby lawn of the Tabard co-ed fraternity. The College eventially derecognized Beta on Dec. 6, 1996 after a Coed Fraternity Sorority Council judiciary committee found the fraternity guilty of six violations of College and national fraternity policies.
Many Beta alumni interviewed by The Dartmouth stressed that the actions leading to Beta's derecognition were perpetrated by a small group of Beta's membership, and that Beta has historically been a respectable fraternity, dating back more 150 years.
"Beta was always considered one of those leading organizations," Sipple said. "It was always a house that was characterized by people who were viewed as leaders on campus."
Lent, who graduated from the College just before Beta was derecognized the following fall, said members never felt supported by the administration and often got in trouble for incidences that were highly blown out of proportion.
"Maybe we weren't holding up our end of the bargain, but we felt like any time we took a misstep, you were going to get treated pretty harshly," he said. "Looking back," he added later, "there's a fine line between hazing, and when you get drinking involved, it complicates everything. We didn't deny it. We said, 'Yeah, we had a party and we drank.' But the school treated that as a major, major incident and they threw the book at us for it."
There were other, legitimate cases when sanction by the school was justified, Lent said. While Beta as an organization does hold some accountability for this behavior, he said, it is important to make a distinction between the individual and the group.
"If we all went back in time, I'm sure there are things we'd do differently as a group," he said. "But to really sum up the answer, I think for the most part the members [of Beta] were great people -- they did well in school, in their extracurriculars, whether sports or otherwise, and all these people have gone on and are all good husbands, they're all good fathers."
Back to the Future: Beta's Return
Despite its "permanent" derecognition in 1996, Beta's alumni corporation maintained ownership of the house, Dean of Residential Life Martin Redman said in an open meeting with students last Winter term. This possession allows Beta to operate independently of the College if it chooses to do so, according to Redman.
Led by a "labor of love," according to Gerakaris, Beta Board members have worked with the College to facilitate Beta's return to campus. Trustees are also in conversation with the national Beta Theta Pi organization, Sipple said, about rerecognition of Dartmouth's Beta chapter. On Jan. 1, the College agreed to allow Beta's alumni to participate in Fall 2008 rush.
The Beta Board has held three information sessions over the past two terms in preparation for the organization's return to Dartmouth. The board considered reinstating Beta as a coeducational organization, Gerakaris said, but decided after speaking with students that Beta would serve the campus better as a male fraternity.
"I spoke with men and women who are in frats and sororities who said they very much enjoy having a time where they can get together with members of the same sex and be really relaxed and not feel like they have to perform socially as you invariably do when you have a mixed group," he said.
This view is not universally held by students on campus.
"There was quite a bit of interest from Dartmouth women in making this a coed institution, and it was blatantly ignored," Case Hathaway-Zepeda '09 said in an interview. "If they really wanted to pursue being a coeducational group, then they would have solicited women's input, and I was never at any point solicited for information -- all their information addressed men directly."
AZD has leased from Beta for the past 10 years. Upon its return, Beta will displace AZD until the College provides new space for the sorority.
News of AZD's forced abandonment of the property prompted a student march for parity of gendered social spaces on Jan. 17, as more than 200 individuals petitioned the College to establish more female-controlled and gender-neutral social spaces on campus. To address these concerns, the Office of Residential Life has considered purchasing houses on East Wheelock Street, North Park Street and South Park Street, Dean of Residential Life Martin Redman said in a previous interview. These houses would be made available to AZD and Alpha Phi sorority, which also has no physical plant.
The College has yet to re-recognize Beta, but has allowed alumni to coordinate rush in the fall. Alumni hope to recruit male sophomores, juniors and seniors, according to Sipple. Trustees are negotiating the chapter's re-establishment at the College with the national organization, he said. However, Jud Horras, Beta national's executive director, said in a previous interview with The Dartmouth that there is a 95 percent chance the national organization will not support Beta's return to Dartmouth. According to College policy, new Greek organizations must be affiliated with a national organization to establish a chapter at the College.
