I just read this article on CNN about the Smiley Face Killers and it really hit close to home. Evidently, about 40 college men have been killed and their bodies have been thrown into rivers or lakes to make it look like they drowned. The men have all been good students, popular, and athletic. This really sounds like a lot of my friends in my fraternity. The fraternity house sits right in front of the canal in Indianapolis (it’s literally the back yard) and, although beautiful, it now has me worried about my fraternity brothers getting drugged and then drowned. The killings have primarily been in the Midwest. It doesn’t get much more Midwest than Indianapolis. It’s scary.

On Monday night, a student at Miami University student was found in his room at his fraternity house. He had died earlier that day, but they still don’t know the cause of death. His name was Cliff Alexander, and he was a Sigma Nu. That’s the fraternity that I belong to, so it got me thinking.

From what I can tell, Cliff was an awesome guy. When he was in high school, he organized a program where students could get backpacks and school supplies for free if they couldn’t afford to buy them. As a member of Sigma Nu, he was the Lt. Commander, which is the Vice President. He was expected to be elected Commander (President) of the chapter on Monday night. When he didn’t appear at the chapter meeting, they went looking for him.

A year ago, I was the Commander of my chapter. I can’t imagine what it is like for their Commander. He is having to lead during this horrible tragedy that is coinciding with the close of the semester. Moreover, he is having to lead when he just lost a great friend who was his right-hand-man. My thoughts are with Cliff’s family, friends, and fraternity brothers.

I went back to the fraternity this weekend. I had a great time. It was really nice to see everyone. They were hosting their annual Halloween party, “VooDoo.” It’s always the most well-attended party on campus. Last year we had almost 1,000 people come, which is about a quarter of the campus. As the president last year, I can tell you that I was pretty stressed out with all of those people partying in my house. You just never know what can go wrong. Luckily, nothing did.

We had a fairly intricate security system in place where we scanned everyone’s campus IDs when then got into the party and they got wristbands. One color for people 21 and over, and another color for the younguns. The software we created records the student ID number and their name, just by scanning the ID, so it works out great. We also had a member stationed at every door, making sure no one got in who wasn’t supposed to, and also that everyone left out the exit so that we could know exactly who was inside the house at any given moment. You had to have a student ID to get in, so if you weren’t a student at the university, you were out of luck. We didn’t want people to get in who were just random people from off the street. That would increase the risk of something bad happening. Also, if you were 21 or over and wanted to drink, you had to have a state-issued ID in addition to your university ID. Our third-party vendor who sold the alcohol really appreciated this.

We had three guys monitoring the dance floor at any given point, two guys on the back porch, two guys in each hallway, plus we hired several Indianapolis Police Department officers who were just there in case anything came up that we couldn’t handle. Finally, we had at least three guys on the front porch who were scanning IDs and keeping track of the line to get in, making sure no fights broke out and no one was drinking in the line or doing anything inappropriate.

This year there were a couple of bumps throughout the night, but nothing too major. Taryn and I dressed up like pirates. My pirate costume made me look more like Prince. I had all sorts of guesses. Prince, a pirate, a cater-waiter, an opera star, mozart, beethoven, awesome (that was my personal favorite), and a bunch more.

I am very frustrated at the moment. I went out last night with a few friends and I got a call from one of my brothers telling me that the police were at the house. I rushed home, but the police were gone. I learned that our security alarm had gone off and the guy in charge of the house had simply silenced the alarm, meaning that it was still going off but not making any noise, and then went to bed. He did not call the security company to find out why the alarm was going off, potentially putting twenty people in harm’s way.

I am frustrated because the guy knew what he was supposed to do, but didn’t do it. It’s called responsibility. If you can’t handle the job, give it to someone who can. GRRR!

I got back on Wednesday evening from my fraternity conference in Lexington, VA. I was a facilitator for a bunch of leadership workshops and things like that, and it was really encouraging to see all of the undergraduate members of the fraternity who were really working to make their chapters better. I hate it that fraternities have such a bad reputation. The truth is, fraternities and sororities offer leadership programs that are not offered in any other venue, they raise tens of millions of dollars each year for philanthropic organizations, they offer young college students a supportive atmosphere that helps relieve the stress of college, they provide educational opportunities to learn about how to manage risk (alcohol abuse, abstinence and safe sex education, fire safety, etc.), and much, much more.

True, bad things happen. However, if you think of any setting where a group of college students are living together, something is bound to go wrong eventually. Even if it is in a dormitory, someone in the dorm will make a mistake. The difference is that in a fraternity or sorority, the person who messed up will have a support group of friends who will help him or her through that time. Additionally, in a fraternity or sorority, the odds of something bad happening are decreased because there are more people with a vested interest in making sure something doesn’t happen.

On another note, my chapter of Sigma Nu did extremely well. We won more awards than any other chapter! I was inducted into the Alpha Chapter (which is an honor only ten seniors per year can achieve), one of my best friends (Bryan) was named the Scholar of the Year, we won Excellence in LEAD Phase I, Excellence in LEAD Phase II, Excellence in LEAD Phase III, Excellence in All-Chapter LEAD, LEAD Chapter of the Year, the Increase in Manpower Award, and we were named among the top 10 Sigma Nu chapters in the world through Sigma Nu’s “Pursuit of Excellence” program.

If you’re wondering what all of the LEAD stuff is, it’s our membership development program. LEAD stands for Leadership, Ethics, Achievement and Development.

I’m living at the fraternity house this summer. It’s the last time I will ever live in a fraternity house, so I’m really trying to enjoy the perks, like having my friends all over the place, but I’m not enjoying some of the drawbacks. I have been asked to serve on the board for our house corporation, which is the group that actually owns the house. They charge our room and board and pay for maintenance and upkeep and things like that. Now, I am among those that help make those decisions. I attended my first meeting last friday.

I learned that our boiler is about 25 years old, and one of the alumni said that he was hoping it would last a couple more years before we would have to replace it. Well, three days after making that statement, our boiler has died. That means that our showers and sinks and toilets in an older part of the house do not work. Luckily, the bathroom by my bedroom is working just fine, but I’m most upset that our laundry facilities won’t work.

I’m going on a trip on Friday, and I was planning on doing my laundry tonight so that it can all be clean and packed for my trip. Now, I have a pile of dirty clothes and nowhere to wash them. At the fraternity, it’s only fifty cents to wash and fifty cents to dry, and I know I won’t be able to find it that cheap anywhere else. Now I’ve decided to drive to my parents’ house tonight and do my laundry there. Then I’ll either drive back in the morning or when I finish my laundry tonight. It’s about an hour and a half long drive, so it’s not that big of a deal, just kind of annoying.

At the fraternity, we can’t use the kitchen this summer because it is being remodeled. The house is getting a cook in the fall and so the kitchen needs renovated so that it can handle being heavily used every day. It needs new pipes, new appliances, everything. So, as of May 15, we haven’t been able to use the kitchen. There’s just one thing that annoys me: it’s been nearly a month and they haven’t even started yet!

Today, as I was getting ready to leave to go to work, I noticed two of our alumni were at the house. Normally this would mean spending several minutes walking around the house with them, which I am more than happy to do, but I told them I had to go and they said that was fine because they were meeting with the contractor about starting the kitchen. I hope it gets done soon!

I just received a call from the chapter’s alumni advisor. He said that one of the members of the House Corporation has decided that his time to serve is up, and he’d like me to be on the House Corp. It’s really not that big of a commitment. They only meet once a month, and it’s a good way to network more than anything. I said yes. We’re having a luncheon next Friday and Tom Lofton will be there. He’s the man in charge of the Eli Lilly Foundation. He’s kind of a big deal.