The fraternity house at 727 Comstock Ave. screams of transition.

Inside it’s quiet. Most of the rooms are empty-only a dozen people live there now. Cables run across the hardwood floors. The hallway walls are blank.

The first wave of brothers from next-door neighbor Sigma Alpha Mu is caught up in the move-in process into their new home, dragging in fans and other supplies. The Internet’s down. The front door code can still be a mystery.

The outside of the house is a problem, too.

While Sammy’s purple letters were posted up on the white shingles last Saturday, the symbols of the old tenants are still there, white paint etched into the brick chimney.

But Zeta Psi’s letters don’t mean much on this campus anymore-at least not for a while.

Zeta Psi is gone.

*

In the past two years, the fraternity racked up a variety of offenses at SU: illegal pledges, unregistered social events, alcohol-related incidents and a September 2006 assault that sent a victim into University Hospital.

Following the spring 2007 semester, the Zeta Psi Fraternity of North America, the house’s national chapter, closed down the SU chapter. The brothers still in the chapter were made into alumni.

In July, Roy Baker, former director of fraternity and sorority affairs at SU, announced to the fraternity presidents at SU in an e-mail obtained by The Daily Orange that the fraternity would be ‘closed for an indefinite period of time.’

The national chapter’s reasoning, however, is an issue of contention.

‘There were violations of national fraternity policy that the university was aware of,’ said Juanita Williams, who replaced Baker as interim director of fraternity and sorority affairs. ‘And the national organization made several attempts to work with Zeta Psi to overcome some of the behaviors that were causing the violations. And, in their own words, the attempts were unsuccessful.’

Nick Martin, the last president of the house, had a different take.

The fraternity, he said, was in line for suspension again this fall and would be unable to rush for the third consecutive semester since the fight.

Only 31 brothers remain in the house and a group planned to go abroad in the spring, Martin said. With fewer brothers living in the house on Comstock and no new pledges to fill the void, the national organization and their representatives in the Syracuse area felt it wasn’t economically feasible for the house to stay open.

‘We wouldn’t have the members,’ Martin said.

Attempts to reach representatives from the national organization were unsuccessful.

*

The police arrived at the house just past midnight on Sept. 9, 2006.

Zeta Psi had already been fined $2,000 by the the Interfraternity Council for rushing freshman illegally in the fall of 2005, said Jeff Lipschutz, one of those illegal pledges and the former treasurer for the house. He, Martin, junior Jay Blick and five others rushed illegally.

Baker and the IFC were in the process of cracking down on this practice. Zeta Psi was now on his radar.

The events of Sept. 9 would help place them there for his duration at SU (Baker left to take a similar job at Penn State on Aug. 17 of this year).

Syracuse City Police arrived at the Zeta Psi house in response to an assault complaint, according to a police report, as reported in The D.O.

The house held a closed function that night with the Alpha Phi sorority, said Blick, former social chair at Zeta Psi.

An uninvited couple arrived at the house, Blick said, whereupon the girl began dancing with a brother in the house. The boyfriend stepped in.

There are different sides to what happened next:

According to the police report, the victim said he was ‘jumped.’

According to Martin, Blick and Lipschutz, the victim threw the first punch.

‘Being in a fraternity, it would be like someone coming into your apartment, throwing a punch at your roommate and expecting your two roommates not to try and restrain him,’ Martin said. ‘It shouldn’t have gotten into a huge altercation, but the kid should have been restrained properly.’

Either way, the victim’s injuries were severe, Blick said.

Brothers at the house called in the complaint and took the victim to the hospital, Lipschutz said.

‘I think he might have had his eye socket broken possibly,’ said Lipschutz, pointing at his eye and whirling his finger. ‘I don’t know that for a fact. I know that it was not good.’

The police reported damage to both of the victim’s eyes. The left was severely cut and bruised, the right swollen, according to the report.

The two brothers, both seniors, arrested by police that night for involvement in the assault were kicked out of the fraternity soon after, the brothers said.

The university suspended Zeta Psi soon after for that incident and another fight in which they were involved.

They have not had a pledge class since.

The IFC also implemented a chapter development plan for the house, a 15-step program towards reinstating them on campus.

The plan, former brothers said, included risk management counseling, AlcoholEdu classes and re-writing the fraternity constitution. The brothers said they only had one step remaining in the plan.

IFC President Michael Schottenstein confirmed that Zeta Psi worked to complete steps of the plan but did not finish it.

Though Schottenstein said there were suspicions that the fraternity violated terms of its suspension during the 2006-2007 school year, he could not confirm the specific violations.

Similarly, Martin said Baker told him that he had evidence of the fraternity holding social events at its house which would violate its suspension.

They also were accused, Martin said, of having an illegal formal. The former president contends that it was simply brothers from the fraternity traveling to Montreal with dates.

‘We’re not in jail here,’ he said. ‘We’re all adults. We’re allowed to do what we want off of campus. We can leave the campus if we choose. Just because we’re all friends and we’re in a fraternity that’s on suspension doesn’t mean they can say that we can’t go up there.’

In the spring, 14 of 18 fraternity representatives in the IFC voted for Zeta Psi’s dismissal from campus, Schottenstein said. However, as the decision was not unanimous, the chapter was allowed to stay on campus and be fined instead.

Lipschutz said the house was charged $9,000 in fines by the IFC, which they elected not to pay before the spring semester ended.

The end came soon after.

On May 30, Lipschutz said he and other brothers received an e-mail announcing the national organization’s decision to cease operations.

Martin, Blick and Lipschutz maintained that they tried to do what they could to fulfill the chapter development program. Blick said the social events they held during their suspension met the requirements allowed by the IFC, one party guest per brother living in the house.

‘It just seems like they have a whole different set of standards,’ Martin said. ‘They were almost gunning for us.’

Meanwhile, Sigma Alpha Mu plans to move into the new house for good in the spring of 2008. Sigma Chi will be taking over its house.

And while their letters still rest on the white house on Comstock, the former brothers had to scramble to find residences. Lipschutz and others lucked out and found places throughout Campus Hill.

But the damage has been done.

Said Dean Williams, ‘It takes a lot to pull a charter.’

Published on August 28, 2007 at 12:00 pm