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The University of Maine will soon have one more fraternity chapter and one less sorority house on campus.
If things go as expected, an interest group led by Benjamin Madore will become the first members of Delta Tau Delta fraternity at UMaine since 1997. According to Madore, the new Delta Tau is going to be “a brand new type of fraternity.”
Delta Tau Delta was kicked off campus six years ago when they “lost recognition for violating university and national policies,” EJ Roach, director of Greek life, said.
This is not the first attempt to reinstate the former fraternity. In 1999, an interest group made a similar attempt and nearly succeeded, but “the national chapter pulled the plug,” Roach said. “They thought it was too soon.”
The new DTD says it won’t have to worry about losing recognition again, as it plans on being a fraternity “unlike any other.”
“Me and some friends wanted to join a frat and we didn’t like any of the ones we saw, so we decided to start our own,” Ben Madore, a sophomore new media major and president of the interest group, said.
In October of last year, the group started building the fraternity, and this Friday, representatives from the national DTD chapter will conduct a pledge ceremony making the men “colony pledges.”
This pledge status allows them limited rights in the organization and prepares them to become fully active brothers, which they expect to become by early December of 2003.
Madore says the new DTD will emphasize a balance between social and academic life, especially to break the association between fraternities and partying and between alcohol with recruiting new members.
“Our goal as a fraternity is to create a better image of what a frat could be. We want to build the Greek community into a bigger and better thing,” Madore said.
While news of the return of DTD has sparked discussion in the UMaine community, for the sisters of Pi Beta Phi, the fraternity’s return is not necessarily a good thing.
Pi Phi calls the original DTD chapter house on College Avenue home. Although the fraternity moved out, the national DTD chapter maintained ownership of the house and has leased it to Pi Beta Phi since the fall of 2000.
Now that DTD is being revitalized it’s only a matter of time before possession of the house will change hands again.
“The house is a big part around here at Pi Phi, but house or no house, we’ll still be a fully functioning sorority,” Pi Beta Phi President Jessica Allen, a second-year psychology major, said.
“We’re committed to building the Greek system as a whole, and the bigger the better,” Christina Weston, a third-year mass communication major, said.
But Weston, president of the Panhellenic council, still would rather keep the house.
“We don’t want to lose our house. We love our house, but at the same time, we know it’s not ours,” she said.
The DTD national chapter has yet to give a date for when the fraternity will move back in, but Weston expects Pi Phi to be able to renew their lease this summer, allowing them to remain in the house until the fall of 2004.
