Monday, January 16, 1989
The Battalion
Page 11
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Pledge’s death spurs Greek reforms
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (AP)—
The Id newly pinned college frater
nity pledges, roused by the mem
bers’ speeches and their own desire
to belong, were led downstairs into
the darkened Lambda Chi Alpha
basement and lined up in front of
the bar.
On went the lights, revealing the ,
final stage of the pinning night.
There sat 200 “kamikazes,” a potent
vodka concoction.
They drank.
James Callahan of North Bergen
drank until he dropped dead.
The 18-year-old's alcohol death
last wintei at Rutgers University was
one of a string of scandals at frater
nity houses around the country that
have brought more pressure for re
forms of the Creek-letter brother
hoods.
With theii futures at stake, frater
nities are responding.
Bars in many fraternity houses
are being closed and advisers are re
turning. And the National Interfra
ternity Conference is considering a
total ban on pledging.
“It’s not easy to change the cul
ture, but until we do 1 think there
are going to he very had days ahead
for fraternities,” says John Creedon,
a Rutgers assistant provost. Since
Callahan's death, Creedon has led
the push for fraternity reforms at
Rutgers.
“Fraternities are under fire as
never before,” Eileen Stevens, a na
tional anti-hazing activist, says.
Stevens has traveled the country
since her son died 10 years ago after
drinking too much during a hazing
at Allred University in upstate New
York.
“Their very future is in jeopardy,”
Stevens says. “1 think we’ve come to
a point where the people who super
vise them realize the problems are
enormous, and they’re just not sure
what to do about it."
The problems boil down to two
hard-dying traditions — drinking
arid hazing.
Critics call fraternities an
anachronism.
“Fraternities have been engaged,
like the brontosaurus, in a futile
struggle against a changed climate,
Earl Smith, dean at Colby College,
wrote last year in the Chronicle of
11 igher Education.
Fraternities have been banned at
Colby since 11)84, when administra
tors decided they no longer fit in at
the college in Waterville, Maine.
Fraternity leaders say the scandals
are relatively few, that elitism
charges are unfounded and that the
positives such as friendship, lead
ership development and community
service far outweigh any negatives.
But over the past tw'O years, de
fenders of the fraternity system have
winced at a series of incidents. In ad
dition to the Rutgers death:
• Four members of the Univer
sity of Alabama chapter of Sigma Al
pha Epsilon, the largest national fra
ternity, were arrested on charges of
selling cocaine.
They were accused of making
some of the drug deals out of the
stately chapter house.
• At the University of Lowell in
Massachusetts, six fraternity mem
bers were charged under th^ state’s
tough anti-hazing law over a stunt
that sent a pledge to the hospital
with a body temperature of 109. I he
members had bundled the victim in
a sleeping bag and turned on heaters
nearby.
• A former University of Dela
ware student claimed in a lawsuit
that someone dumped caustic oven
Job gives windshield washer
second chance at career, life
ASBUR't PARK, N.J. (AP) —
The shortest job interview hotel
manager Robert Fredy evei con
ducted look plat e at a New '> ork
City intersection .is he waited at a
Hght.
Something in Stephen Pearman’s
voice moved Fiedv one cold dav last
February. Peatman had approached
Fredy’s cat to wash his windshield,
and, like many motorists who tiv to
fend off the usually insistent beg
gars, Fredv (lipped on the wipers to
indicate he wasn't interested.
Peatman leaned into the window .
“Come on, mistei . give: me a
break,” he said. "I need a job.
In the seconds before traffk
started moving again. 1* t edv. general
manager of the Bcrkelev ( arleret
Hotel here, handed Peatman a busi
ness card and told him to call il he
was set ions. uun
Two davs later, (lit* BO-vear-old
windshield washet appeared in the
lobbv of the fanev hotel in (his old
seaside resort. In the past year, he
has become a valued member of the
hotel staff, found an apartment and
married.
"I’ve gotten a second chance and
took advantage of it.” Peatman said
with a grin as he sal recentlv in ilte
hotel’s restaurant, eating an ome
lette on the house.
“You know. 1 could have just
come here a while, eaten up and
left,” he said. “But there ain’t no fu
ture in washing windows."
Fredv paid lot Peatman's bus
ticket from New York to Asbuiv
Park and put him up in a motel Me
fed him three meals a dav and
loaned him pocket monev while
training him to he a banquet house
man.
Peatman now works lull lime, set
ting up the hotel s banquet rooms lot
conventions and business meetings.
Neither man would sav how much
Peatman is paid, hut he said he is
saving up for a cat.
Fredy acknowledged that there is
a shortage of lah.ot lot sue It blue-col
lar jobs. "I didn’t bite him lot that
reason,” he said. ' l itis was put elv
impulsive. A lot of pec>ple hate to get
involved. New Yorkers tend to look
the other wav and sav . 1 hat s not
my problem.
“But being with the public all the
time, I have a good sense of what
people are all about he said. It
gives me good judgment hi tout peo
ple.”
Peatman often works 12 to 11
hours a day, Fredv said.
“He was w illing to work hard and
listen," the manager said. "I nevet
had any problem whatsoever."
In November, he was named em
ployee of the month.
In December, he married Helena
White, an 18-year-old housekeeper
at the hotel. Fredv gave them a
champagne reception and the bridal
suite.
Ironically, it was Peatman who
had doubts about Fredv s sincerity.
“Mv friends told me he was just
pulling mv leg when he handed me
the card.' Peat man said. ' Bin I said.
‘No. he’s a businessman. I need to
give it a shot. II there's a chance, 1
should take if ”
Peatman has since returned to
New York several times to hand out
$5 hills and sweatshirts to his old
street buddies.
cleaner caver his head during a fra
ternity “Hell Night ’’
But nothing stirred an outcry like
Callahan’s death at Rutgers. It
inspired nearly a dozen bills in the
New Jersey Legislature and is cited
by fraternity critics nationally.
“That probably had more impact
on us than any othet hazing inci
dent," Jonathan Brant, director of
the National Interfraternity Confer
ence, says.
The reprisals against Lambda Chi
Alpha were swift and harsh. T he
Rutgers chapter was disbanded and
the house doors slammed shut.
T he 29 other fraternities were or
dered to pull out their basement
bars, which had become standard
equipment at Rutgers fraternities,
and make other reforms.
It could have been worse.
In recent years, more than a
dozen colleges have banned Creek-
letter organizations. Besides Colby
University, fraternities are passe at
Amherst College and the University
of Lowell, both in Massachusetts,
and Franklin and Marshall College
in Lancaster, Pa.
At the Pennsylvania college, “the
trustees felt the fraternities had been
reduced in many ways to underage
drinking clubs,” college spokesman
Patti Lawson says.
The mounting pressure against
fraternities threatens what has been
a steadily rising membership.
Undergraduate fraternity mem
bership has climbed to 400,000,
according to the interfraternity con
ference. 1 hat’s more than double
the 1970 Figures and a 170.000 in
crease since 1980.
Unlike the Greek system’s golden
age of the 1950s, this heyday has
come in a relatively unsupervised
environment, campus administra
tors note. Gone are the housemoth
ers, strict rules and other formalities
that once characterized fraternity
life.
But some college administrations
are slatting to reintroduce the su
pervision. It’s met with resistance
from many fraternity chapters, but
some are starting to respond.
Resident advisers have moved
into chapter houses on the Univer
sity of Southern California’s frater
nity row. Fraternities have 'gone
completely dry at Indiana Univer
sity, home to one of the strongest
Greek systems in the country.
The fraternities’ national mag
azines abound with denunciations ot
alcohol abuse, sexism and racism.
A recent edition of Alpha Tan
Omega’s publication chronicles that
fraternity’s efforts to halt a national
liquor promotion geared to male col
lege st uderits.
The governing body of Zeta Beta
Tau voted in September to end
pledging, an idea being studied by
the national Greek council.
Callahan’s death came a few days
after more than 40 Princeton stu
dents were treated for alcohol poi
soning following a drinking binge at
tw r o private social clubs.
Fifteen Lambda Chi Alpha mem
bers were charged with aggravated
hazing in Callahan’s death. They
have yet to come to trial, but a con
viction would carry a maximum pen
alty of 18 months in jail and a $7,500
fine.
“five had calls from all across the
country,” James. Meisel, a Hacken
sack lawyer who is representing Cal
lahan's mother, says. “Among the
people I’ve talked to — university
people, crusader groups — there’s a
consensus that as a general matter
drinking is way out of hand on col
lege campuses.”
Joseph Discenza, a lawyer for
Lambda Chi’s board of trustees, ac
knowledges there was “peer pres
sure” for the pledges to drink. But
Discenza contends that nobody was
forced.
He says Callahan’s own reckless
behavior was to blame for his death,
which an autopsy attributed to 23
ounces of alcohol and a .434 percent
blood alcohol content — more titan
four times the legal limit.
“This one isolated incident says
nothing,” says Discenza, an alumnus
of the Rutgers Lambda Chi Alpha
chapter. “It says if someone really
wants to drink a lot they can. It could
have happened just as easily in my
basement.”
Michael Steinbruck, a Delta Phi
member, is leading a fight against
the Rutgers administration’s latest
proposal for reform — a require
ment that each chapter have an
adult, live-in adviser.
Steinbruck, 23, has a scrapbook
full of press dippings about his
chapter’s work raising money for
New Brunswick homeless shelters
and othet causes. He believes the
university has ignored the good
works of fraternities and acted in a
reactionary fashion to Callahan’s
death.
“People are so fed up with con
stantly being on the defensive about
hazing, they're willing to try lots of
different plans if they feel they have
a reasonable chance of succeeding,”
Patrick Blown, president of the na
tional fraternity council, says.
t he goal, lit own says, is to re
inforce the founding purposes of
friendship and scholarship and elim
inate “the basic irresponsibility,
whether it is alcohol abuse, hazing,
poor scholarship.”
Deaths from
heart disease
down sharply
MONTEREY, Calif. (AP) —-
Deaths from heart and blood ves
sel disease dropped 24 percent
over the past decade, but it re
mains by far the nation’s biggest
killer, taking a life every 32 sec
onds, the American Heart Asset
ciation said Sunday.
“The good news is that we con
tinue to see an improvement in
the death rate from the biggest
killer of our population,” said Dr.
Bernadine Mealy of the Cleve
land Clinic Foundation, who is
president of the heart association.
“Those trends are dramatic
and don’t seem to be reversing,
she said. “The bad news is that
heart disease is still killing almost
1 million Americans a year, and
we’ve got a long way to go."
Experts attribute the decline in
death rates to a combination of
healthier living habits, including
fewer cigarettes and better food,
and improved medical treatment.
“The public ought to appre
ciate the progress that has been
made in heart disease over the
past 20 years,” said Dr. Myron L.
Weisfeldt of Johns Hopkins Uni
versity. “It’s almost unbelievable.
There is almost no form of heat t
disease that we can’t approach
with meaningf ul treatment.”
However, Weisfeldt, who is
president-elect of the heart asso
ciation, also cautioned that much
work remains, both in improving
care and encouraging people to
take better care of then health.
“I believe we can prevent at
least 50 percent of the ischemic
heart disease in the United States
by the year 2000 if we stop smok
ing, get cholesterol treated if it’s
above 220, and identify and treat
hypertension,” he said.
Ischemic heart disease is the
clogging of blood vessels that
feed the heart. It underlies most
heart attacks, the single most le
thal heart ailment.
Association figures indicated
that in 1986 — the most recent
year for which there are statistics
— an estimated 978,500 Amei i
cans died from heart attacks,
strokes and other diseases of the
heart and blood vessels.
Between 1976 and 1986, the"
death rate from all forms ol car
diovascular disease fell 24 pet-
cent. It declined 28 pet c ent fot
heart attacks and 40 percent fot
strokes.
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