By Ashley Malin
Following interviews with all Sigma Chi chapter members by the Dean of Students Staff and Sigma Chi Fraternity International Headquarters staff, the two bodies have concluded investigations into the incident of bias hate that was reported on January 26.
“There are a number of these guys who had three interviews, two with Sigma Chi and one with us,” Dean Mike Segawa said. “[Assistant Dean Sarah Shives and Director of Student Contact Frank Cirioni] have done all of what has turned out to be twenty four interviews altogether. We interviewed some students going in who we knew going in were not at all involved with it, but their perspective, or if the student wanted to talk to us, would be useful for us to hear.”
“I think their goal was to ensure that there were no underlying cultural issues that they would need to address as part of the big picture,” Director of Greek Life and Leadership Moe Stephens said. “They [Sigma Chi Fraternity International Headquarters] found the same violations that we found.”
Sigma Chi Fraternity International Headquarters past international president, Mike Greenberg led the on-campus investigation. “They had an interview team come in for the week prior to that [which] consisted of local alumni, so eight days total,” Stephens said.
“We recently learned of a situation involving our chapter at the University of Puget Sound where individual members of the chapter were alleged to have made discriminatory statements and/or promoted discriminatory behavior during isolated events that occurred in the chapter house,” Executive Director of Sigma Chi Fraternity International Michael Church said in a statement released to The Trail within 24 hours of publication of The Trail’s first article covering the incident.
This is not the first time Sigma Chi Fraternity International Headquarters has been involved at the University. Last year, Puget Sound’s Sigma Chi chapter was found responsible for alcohol violations, resulting in their probation for the violation.
An upcoming campus community email will be released addressing resolutions from the investigation.
“Mike Segawa is putting together an all-campus email that I don’t think will get into detail, but it will basically say this is the resolution that we have come to, this is what we’ve found of the investigation and ask everybody to keep an open mind and let’s move forward. I don’t know how public any of the sanctions will be,” Stephens said.
On Tuesday, Feb. 16, Stephens, Segawa, Shives and Cirioni met with Sigma Chi chapter leaders to start the mediation process. Some of the sanctions will involve education and facilitated discussions.
“We hope to come to an agreement on different sanctions that can be applied for the next year, year and a half,” Stephens said. “The general sense from the leadership of the chapter is that there are some members that they’ve been very surprised have stepped up and have said we need to change the culture. I think this has brought the chapter closer together and not in a defensive way, but more in a way of ‘ok, what do we need to do to heal and move forward?’ They have had several internal discussions about ‘how do our Jewish members feel about all of this, how do our non-Jewish members feel about all of this? How do members that identify with the LGBTQ community feel in this chapter?’ They have already started going down that road.”
