By John Davidson
Opinions Editor
After 136 years at Hillsdale College, the Delta Tau Delta fraternity may be closing its doors for good. The fraternity was suspended in April amid controversy over pledge activities the administration claims involved physical hazing, and this fall, the house is empty and its members deactivated.

Although a membership review by the fraternity's national office is underway, it is unclear if the second-oldest Delta Tau Delta chapter in the country will be reconstituted at all. Garth Eberhart, assistant executive vice president of Delta Tau Delta International, said letters regarding the fraternity's future are being sent to members this week and a public announcement will be made next week.

Dean of Men Aaron Petersen said the college and the fraternity's national office made the decision to suspend the chapter in the spring after they confirmed reports of physical hazing during one the fraternity's pledgeship activities.

During a 24-hour period last spring, the administration learned of a series of incidents that involved kidnappings, public disturbances, physical injuries, a car accident and the use of an electronic taser gun. Provost Bob Blackstock said that although the college had no choice but to suspend the house after these incidents were confirmed, the administration has been dealing with problems in the house for years.

"What they did, the events leading up to their suspension, that was not the first time that had happened," President Larry Arnn said. "Some things happened in that fraternity which were dangerous and wrong."

And controversy over the house began long before the chapter's suspension in April. The college imposed a series of rules and restrictions on the fraternity throughout the school year, including mandatory weekday and weekend quiet hours, restricted access to the house kitchen, alumni supervision of all pledge activities, rules against swearing and smoking in the house and a moratorium on house parties.

In an interview with the Collegian, the members of the then-executive board of the fraternity said their troubles began in October 2002 when the college hired Lydia Esten as the fraternity's new house director. Board members said Esten interfered with the life of the house and exercised a greater direct involvement in day-to-day activities than previous house directors had.

"She interfered with our rituals and got the dean involved in them, which she was not supposed to do," said Ross Haan, president of the DTD executive board. "The position the dean wanted her to fill was not the position we interviewed for."

Petersen denied these charges and said there was not a change in the job description for house director.
"I wasn't trying to reform the house," Petersen said. "I had made an attempt to move away from part-time involvement."

The new rules, Petersen said, were introduced as a result of disruptive behavior, episodic disturbances and repeated physical damage to the house throughout the fall semester of 2002. The house was fined and put on probation for the last week of the semester.

Esten, who declined to comment, worked with Petersen and DTD alumni over winter break to formulate a set of temporary house rules for the remainder of the year. When members returned in January, the alumni informed them of the new rules.
"We agreed to these rules in order to get through the semester," Paul Harrell, ex-vice president of the executive board said. "All the members agreed. We tried to follow the rules and we did, as far as they were outlined to us. But gradually they evolved and expanded into something else."

By the end of March house members felt that the new rules and guidelines were not working. The house had been unable to proceed with their pledgeship activities on schedule and had only one pledge activity all year. Just before Spring Break another incident, unrelated to pledgeship, resulted in the suspension of a member until the end of the semester and heavy fines for the house.

"That was the last straw," former executive board member John Paulun said. "We couldn't allow members to be arbitrarily kicked out via letter with no deliberations and no consultation. The penalties were not fitting the written guidelines."
At this time the executive board decided they could no longer work with Petersen and unanimously agreed to resign.

"As vice president of the house I had no say whatsoever except to hand out fines that the dean would give me," Harrell said. "We all decided, since we couldn't do our jobs, that something we could do that would make the administration see that this was a serious problem was to write a letter to the Collegian and resign."
"We were no longer leaders of the house, we were just followers of the administration," Haan said. "We felt we had completely exhausted all other options and had no other recourse but to resign."

But Petersen said there was not a satisfactory effort from the house to follow the new rules and work with the administration.
"I'm the last person who will say that the Delts were victims," Petersen said. "I don't think they were victims at all."

The executive board's letter of resignation appeared on the editorial page of the April 3 issue of the Collegian, and laid out the house's grievance with Petersen and Esten:
"With the blessing of Mr. Petersen, Ms. Esten, our House Warden, has been given absolute power in DTD," the letter stated.

The administration immediately took issue with the tone and substance of the letter. The timing and the atmosphere made discussion impossible, Arnn said, and the fraternity was told that if they would undo the letter by way of public apology, the administration would have more latitude to work with them. Arnn directed the fraternity members to work with Blackstock in the drafting of a letter.

Over the next two weeks, two letters appeared in the Collegian, one addressed to Arnn (April 10) and another open letter of apology and retraction on the editorial page (April 17).

After the letters appeared, the fraternity members said they were hopeful they would be able to move forward with the administration and establish a normal situation in the house, without the new rules Petersen imposed in January. Blackstock, who had been brought into the conflict only weeks before, was working to solve the problem but needed more time.
"I came into this situation at a very busy time of year," Blackstock said. "I told them to just lay low for the remainder of the semester, only a few weeks, and that we would work something out over the spring and summer."

But the fraternity members' understanding was that they would have some of the rules and restrictions lifted upon issuing a public apology so they could conduct their usual pledge activities and end the year on a high note. When these expectations were not met, the members felt like they were being brushed aside.

"We were crushed," Harrell said. "We had nothing. We were worse off than before and felt like we had been made to look like idiots by writing all these letters. We had been humiliated, and we were not operating as a house anymore."

As the academic year entered its final weeks, the fraternity and the administration were grid locked.
"By the end [of the semester] we were all so fed up with it we were all probably going to quit anyway," Paulun said.

Because the house had been able to conduct only one pledge event all semester on account of the new rules and restrictions, they decided to do one more event before the year ended. The event was to take place outside the house, so members thought it would not be a problem. The pledge activity itself, which took place over a 24-hour period, got out of control as pledges misunderstood the level of intensity with which the activity was to be conducted, members of the executive board said.

A series of incidents occurred during this activity, including injuries from wrestling, public disturbances, a car accident, and the use of an electronic taser gun. When the administration learned about these things the next day, they immediately contacted the fraternity's national office, which sent Executive Vice President Jim Russell to Hillsdale to consult with the administration.

Blackstock said evidence of physical hazing and repeated damage to the house forced the college, in cooperation with the Delta Tau Delta national office, to suspend the fraternity for the remainder of the year and shut down the house. All active members living in the house were compelled to move into college dormitories for the last week of classes and finals.

Although the administration stressed that the past year's problems were not the deciding factor in suspending the fraternity and evicting the members from their house, many school officials believe that the institution had been failing for a number of years.

"The conversation behind this has been going on since before I got here," Petersen said.

Petersen and Arnn also said that the house's pledge program had nothing to do with the national fraternity's pledge program, and that a series of traditions had developed in the house which were dangerous and out of step with the fraternity's creed.
"The house had been run for a long time in a way that it should not have been," Arnn said. "The institution was off the rails."

But the executive board members said they thought everything was fine at the beginning of last year. Members were optimistic, the house was clean and in good repair, the overall grade-point average was up and the executive board was organized and ready to lead the house.
"It was going to be the best year yet," board member Jeff Van Dalson said.

After the suspension was announced in April, nearly all members of the fraternity deactivated, and remain so today.

The entire saga of Hillsdale's Delta Tau Delta chapter underscores what the administration and many others see as a decline in the college's fraternity system. The suspension of Delta Tau Delta has coincided with new rules and regulations for all college fraternities as outlined in the Hillsdale College Fraternity Community standards, which go into effect this semester. Petersen said that the creation of the HCFC standards, which were drafted over the summer, was not done as a reaction to the suspension of Delta Tau Delta, but it did help to speed the process along and give it momentum.

"As far as the fraternity community as a whole, the numbers show we are getting worse," Petersen said. "In the last 20 years we've gone from nearly 60 percent [of the student body] with six chapters to 17 percent with three chapters. We've been getting worse for some time now. The frat system on this campus is not growing, and if it's not growing, it's declining...There is going to be a lot of growing pains in the next couple of years."

Although the college recognizes serious problems within Delta Tau Delta and the fraternity system as a whole, members of the administration say they are not trying to do away with certain houses, but that the college seeks to have a strong, healthy fraternity system.

"We don't want to get rid of any of our [fraternity] houses," Blackstock said. "If we wanted to do away with the Delt House, all we would have to do is let it run its course and die. We want it to be strong and committed to the high principles in its creed and the mission statement of the college."

As of the meeting with administration officials at Homecoming 1999 there is still no agreement as to whether the alumni will be allowed to attempt to recolonize as a TKE house or any other national fraternal organization. Discussion of the creation of another sort of organization with scholastics or leadership as a basis were also held. At this point the school's position is that it's not 2001 yet, so no decision needs to be made.

The male Greek system at Hillsdale is gaining some strength after several years of decline. The female houses remain strong with approx. 50% participation as compared to less than 40% for the males.

Many of the Brothers have requested to know about what the events were that led to the closing of the TKE Iota Nu chapter. Here, below, is the letter from Hillsdale College with the summary of transgressions prepared by the Dean of Men's office: