SAE faces cease-and-desist orders from WMU, Kalamazoo

By Tyler Evans
Western Herald

After receiving a noise citation Sept. 27, Western Michigan University’s Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity has been issued a cease-and-desist order from both the City of Kalamazoo and the Office of Student Activities at WMU.

The fraternity has been suspended from holding fraternity-related events at 919 Short Road. In addition the fraternity is to being required to remove or cover the exterior letters, according to the order issued by the city.

“Public safety is going to have a zero tolerance policy with SAE,” said Jeff Chamberlain-director of community planning and development for the City of Kalamazoo.  “Public Safety officers have been notified they can arrest next time a similar event occurs instead of issuing fines,.

The Office of Student Activities at WMU issued a separate cease-and-desist order on Sept. 29, a day before the city issued an order Oct. 1.

“This has been going on for a number of years, in terms of public safety responding to noise complaints,” Bob Miller, WMU associate vice president for community outreach, said. “The two citations written last weekend were the latest in a long series of issues.”

WMU has initiated a judicial process defined by the RSO handbook giving the fraternity a chance to argue their actions in an RSO conference.

“An RSO conference for review of allegations will give members of the organization an opportunity to talk about any information there may be relative to the incident that occurred,” Associate Dean of Students Suzie Nagel said.

“It gives faculty their perspective on what occurred and is taking place at a date that has yet to be determined.”

Any information is welcomed during this meeting from witnesses, involved public safety officers, police reports and residents of the neighborhood.

Many residents of the Short Road   assert that this has been an ongoing problem despite numerous letters to campus.

“We were near a riot,” said Karel Sabek, a Short Road resident. “It’s inevitable that there are going to be people ejected on the street. They start fights in the parking lot just to argue. We’ve had enough.”
Based on the findings of the RSO conference, SAE can face 11 possible sanctions as defined by the RSO handbook for the alleged offenses.

These range from least severe, being a warning, to reprimand of behavior, discretionary sanctions, probation, and the most severe being expulsion.

An investigation independent of the university and city will be conducted by the regional staff of SAE, said Director of Communications for Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Brandon Weghorst.

“We will look at the circumstances regarding the event and will work with the chapter to determine what movement will take place in the future,” Weghorst said. “We don’t have any issues on file for the last five years. We will look and see if this is an isolated case or if it is an ongoing problem.”

Based on the citation issued on the morning of Sept. 27, the issuing officers wrote that they could hear loud voices and music coming from the fraternity house which stands on the corner of Grant and Short.

Members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon declined to comment on the allegations.

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Posted by HeraldAdmin on Oct 7 2008. Filed under Local, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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