Don’t paint Greek Life with single stroke
By Ana Altchek | Columnist
February 6, 2018
I distinctly remember my first night at college, standing awkwardly in the basement of an off-campus house packed with strangers. Lost in a trance, watching drunken mobs of people make fools of themselves, I was brought back to reality when I was aggressively shoved by an incoherent stranger who spil...
Hold Greek Life to a higher standard
By Neena Hagen, Columnist
January 30, 2018
From Penn State to Florida State, colleges across the country have been joining an ever-lengthening list of schools with recent high-profile fraternity fatalities tarnishing their records. Pitt nearly fell into the same trap last week. A member of the Sigma Chi fraternity chapter on campus was hospi...
Student safe after drinking ‘excessive amounts of alcohol’ at Sigma Chi event
By John Hamilton / Managing Editor
January 25, 2018
After a week of sparse details about a Greek life function that left a student hospitalized, Pitt released a statement Thursday with some information about the Sigma Chi alcohol incident. At a Sigma Chi function last Thursday, a student was taken to a hospital by his friends after drinking “excessive amounts of alcohol,” a statement from Pitt spokesperson Joe Miksch said. The student is n...
Greek life social probation came after student hospitalization
January 19, 2018
Dean of Students Kenyon Bonner put Greek life on modified social probation after a “serious alcohol incident,” he stated in a letter to both fraternity and sorority presidents Friday. The incident resulted in a student being hospitalized. The student’s family has been notified, University spo...
Don’t let groupthink ruin Greek life
By Vaibhavi Patria | For The Pitt News
October 30, 2017
As Maxwell Gruver, a first-year at Louisiana State University, was wheeled into the hospital last month, his blood alcohol concentration was eight times the legal limit — nearly 0.5. Gruver, who was a pledge for Phi Delta Theta, died in the aftermath of a hazing incident at his fraternity. Brothers...
Piazza case should be a lesson: to be an adult, be accountable
By Anne Marie Yurik | For The Pitt News
September 14, 2017
Imagine you’re an average college student at a fraternity party. It’s cold — February in central Pennsylvania always is. Suddenly, someone falls down the stairs. They’re drunk enough that they don’t wake up when they hit the floor of the basement. Through the rest of the night, you see ...
Column: Greek life promotes dangerous, elitist culture
By Christian Snyder, Opinions Editor
July 4, 2017
At Penn State’s fraternity Beta Theta Pi’s Bid Night, on a cold February night in State College, Timothy Piazza fractured his skull and ruptured his spleen when he fell down a flight of stairs. His fraternity brothers called an ambulance nearly 12 hours later after slapping him, sitting on him ...
Ladies of steel: Sorority group address female self-esteem
By Andrew O'Brien / Staff Writer
March 29, 2017
Glance at the cover of “Glamour” or “Cosmo” magazines, and chances are your eyes will meet the baby blues or emerald greens of a smirking model with flawless skin. Her face is smooth and airbrushed, her every imperfection obscured with foundation and Photoshop. But when that model looks in t...