Word: sigep
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Dates: during 2006-2006
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Oregon State's is among the 256 SigEp chapters nationwide that have adopted the Balanced Man Program, an intensive four-year fraternity experience created 13 years ago by concerned SigEp leaders to shift the center of life in the houses from beer-soaked blowouts to activities that promote healthy living and self-respect. To eliminate hazing, the program does away with the pledge system--all recruits are equal members from Day One. Alcohol is allowed, but booze-free activities are encouraged. The George Washington University chapter does yoga together. At Miami University in Ohio, fraternity brothers learn how to salsa...
Today the chapter, reorganized under the Balanced Man Program, has rebounded. Membership is almost back to prepurge levels, and last summer the chapter won a national SigEp award that placed it in the top 15% in academics and community service of all chapters in the country...
...frat makeovers have their detractors. In the rush to save fraternity life, some say, SigEp and the Balanced Man Program may be ruining it. "Some of my best experiences in college were stupid things I did with my friends, usually involving alcohol," says Kevin Stange, whose SigEp chapter at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was frequently in trouble with the national organization when he was a student in the late 1990s and which eventually closed for several years. "We never went too far, though," says Stange. "And the real reason people join frats is to have fun. Balanced Man doesn...
Still, after membership declined throughout the '90s, the number of new SigEp recruits has increased 11% since 1999. Insurance premiums, which have a habit of rising when frat boys burn down their houses or fall off their balconies, have gone down the past two years. The average GPA for SigEp's members has reached the 3.0 mark, which the organization boasts is the highest of all fraternities...
Following SigEp's lead, other national fraternities have rolled out similar programs, from Sigma Alpha Epsilon's True Gentleman to Beta Theta Pi's Men of Principle. According to some members, there's an unexpected bonus from all these reforms: women seem to like them. "They can go to 21 other fraternities to get drunk," says Oregon State SigEp member Cameron Saffer. "Here you find respectful young...