The newly-minted BMP chapter now boasts 54 men with
a
3.4 GPA, the highest on campus.
Like a lot of
guys who end
up joining
fraternities,
I never saw
myself going
Greek. I had a
full ride with an
Army ROTC scholarship,
and I knew I’d be plenty busy
with class.
Towards the end of my first semester,
I started to feel like something was
missing, and wondered what it would
be like to join a fraternity. Still, I was
worried that any distraction could cost
me my scholarship, and it was no secret
that fraternities at the University
of South Carolina offered plenty of
distractions.
Even today, anyone who spends a
few weeks on my campus can see that
lots of fraternities are actively hazing
pledges and partying harder than
non-Greeks. It’s the heart of SEC “frat”
culture.
Then I met the guys at SigEp. Things
seemed to be different. They told me they didn’t put up with hazing. Even
though they were a pledge model
chapter, they talked about brotherhood,
equal rights and continuous development.
So a few weeks later, along with
my best friend Zach Knight, ’14, I
accepted an invitation to pledge the
South Carolina Alpha Chapter.
Life as a pledge
As soon as I signed my bid card, things
started to change. Zach and I became
second-class citizens.
There were endless requests to run
errands (never at a reasonable hour of
the day), and my pledge brothers and
I were the constant target of insults.
It was like the stuff you read about in
psychology textbooks. Guys who had
been welcoming and friendly just days
before now treated us like dirt. The
strangest part was how much they
seemed to enjoy it.
I remember texting Zach to see if he
was as weirded out by the whole thing
as I was.
“Is this what you thought we signed
up for?” I asked.
“Not at all,” he responded. “Maybe it
will get better … but we need to see it
through.”
That hope that things would improve
never came true.
Pledge meetings were regular
excuses for older guys in the chapter to
take out their aggression on pledges.
I hated these meetings, but I was able
to zone out and keep my cool, reminding
myself that the loudest guys were
typically overcompensating for some
personal shortcoming. The irony of
listening to some junior with a 2.0 GPA
and a beer belly yell at us about SigEp’s
history and values wasn’t lost on Zach
and me.
One night, after hours of listening to
constant insults and repeating fraternity
trivia, we were informed that the
evening would only be getting worse.
“Go home. Get a t-shirt, gym shorts,
and something to use as a blindfold,” an
older member of the chapter told us. He
gave us the address of an off-campus
house and told us to be there in 30
minutes.
Against our better judgment, Zach
and I followed the directions. For the
next four hours, behind locked doors in
an obscure location where no one would
find us, we went through the worst
hazing I could have imagined.
I won’t go into all the details, but it
was a bastardized version of old school
military hazing—the kind of stuff you
imagine poorly trained militias in third
world countries still use.
The ideas of “tradition” and “team
building” went out the window in the
first five minutes. They said this would
bring us together and pointed to the military as proof. Having spent my fair
share of time in Army training, I knew
that that was a stretch.
In the Army, you’re pushed to the
limit physically and mentally in preparation
for life or death situations. Your
drill sergeants are experts, trained to
keep you safe.
This was different. This was another
excuse for college kids with low selfesteem
to enforce a power structure
that put them at the top.
The brothers with demanding course
loads, other campus responsibilities
and girlfriends were too busy to spend their evening hazing us. We were left
with the guys who really didn’t have
anything better to do.
South Carolina Brothers Max Fowler (left) and Zach Knight saw their chapter cease operations, helped it
regroup and
watched it flourish. Now, they want their story to inspire other chapters on the brink.
Looking around the room at my
pledge brothers, I didn’t see anyone
growing closer—they were only enduring.
What I did see were guys who
intended to call me “brother” in a few
short weeks destroying the confidence
and self-esteem of my pledge brothers
for their own emotional gain.
The night finally came to an end, as
did the semester. I was initiated, but
things didn’t change. A new group of innocent young men was now experiencing
the same ridicule I had experienced.
I could no longer tune it out.
I tried to decide if I should talk to
someone about what was going on in
the chapter. I didn’t know if I could
trust anyone—least of all the executive
board. My head was a mess, and I was
still weighing my options when I got a
text from Zach.
“It’s over,” he texted me. I couldn’t
comprehend what he was saying.
“What do you mean?” I wrote back.
“The chapter’s closed. We’re getting
kicked off campus. It’s all over.”
The aftermath
The next few months were a blur. We
weren’t actually kicked off campus, but
everything was locked down. Nothing
was happening.
I was constantly sick to my stomach
thinking, “Did I go through this for
nothing?” and “Why didn’t I say something
sooner?” I couldn’t imagine what
it felt like for our alumni who had just
built a new $3 million chapter home.
Whatever they were feeling, they
seemed eager to fix things.
A membership review team
interviewed each of our 130 members—
pledges and initiates—to ask us about
our willingness to put the chapter back
on track.
After the interviews, Zach and I were
among the 20 members who stayed
with the chapter. Unfortunately, it
wasn’t long before 20 became two. In the end, it was just Zach and me from
the original 130.
It was almost laughable. We had
started out together because something
was missing in our college experience.
It felt like we were back where we
started; only now we were worn out
and felt betrayed by guys who had been
our friends.
Despite the overwhelming odds,
we felt we owed it to ourselves and
to our alumni and volunteers to try
and rebuild. We still had people who
believed in us and wanted to see South
Carolina Alpha succeed. So with a lot of
help, and five brand new members, we
set out to establish something unheard
of on our campus: a fraternity that actually
wanted to be different.
Rebuilding a chapter
The past two-and-a-half years have not
been easy, but we have built something
that really is special. Our pitch isn’t that
different than the one we heard when
we first met SigEp, but now we’re actually
walking the talk.
We adopted the Balanced Man
Program and, with the help of our
volunteers, built a fraternity experience
that is giving students at South
Carolina an opportunity to become
better men, students and leaders.
We stand out on campus, and we’re
proud of that fact. We have recruited
varsity athletes, campus leaders and
guys who are landing internships at
Fortune 500 companies.
Last year I could count the manpower
of our chapter on one hand. Today
we’re at 54 men, and we’re recruiting
more every month. Our 3.4 chapter GPA
is the highest on campus, and we were
awarded a Scholastic Excellence Cup
and a Recruitment Excelsior Award
at this year’s Carlson Leadership
Academy. But that’s not all—our next
chapter president was selected to go on
the 2015 Tragos Quest to Greece, and
I had the honor and privilege of being
named a Zollinger Outstanding Senior.
Why I’m sharing my story
You might be wondering what would
make me share all of this. Despite the
awesome moments of recent semesters,
these aren’t all positive memories. I’ve
made my fair share of mistakes, and I’ve
lost a lot of friends along the way.
Still, the hardest thing wasn’t losing
friends, it was living with the knowledge
that I didn’t say something sooner.
My parents and the Army taught me
to stand up for my beliefs and to lead
others, but for the better part of a
semester, I didn’t do that.
I’m sharing my story in hopes that it
can help other SigEps who might be in
a similar place.
If your chapter isn’t living up to your
values and you want to see change,
it has to start with you. More than
anything, you must find the courage
to ask for help. There are thousands of
volunteers and alumni who understand
what this is like. When I finally had the courage to reach out, I couldn’t believe
how many people were standing by
ready to jump in.
The right path isn’t always the easy
path. That much is clear. But as SigEps,
we don’t take an oath to just do the easy
thing—we vow upon our honor to live
SigEp’s values day in and day out, no
matter how high the stakes might be.
That’s what it means to be a SigEp.
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