The Delta Sigma Phi fraternity could move back into their house at 139 Hillsdale St. as soon as next fall semester, but what the men need to do to make that happen is still unclear.
“These guys need to earn it back,” Dean of Men Aaron Petersen said. “There’s a real possibility they miss the mark, but if there’s ever been a group of young men to take that hill, it’s these guys.”
DSP lost its fraternity house, occupied from 1977 until January 2012, after the Hillsdale College administration grew concerned about the party culture that the house seemed to permit and encourage.
“These guys had a shift in culture, and their big block to improving was the negative traditions and distractions that the house itself fostered,” Petersen said.
Senior Joe Snyder, DSP president, agreed and lamented the effect losing the house has had on DSP.
“There were a lot of years leading up to it. Lots of guys acting like ‘Animal House’ — we’re kinda paying the price for that,” Snyder said.
Snyder said that the lack of a permanent home has been hard on the fraternity, making it harder to grow together as a group as well as impacting recruitment. DSP picked up 10 new pledges this year, which is less than in previous years. It also makes fraternity events hard to hold, like the annual haunted house.
“The fact that we have a central location to hang out, to eat meals with your brothers — that’s how you get closer to people as a team, as a family,” Snyder said. “It was just kinda an escape, a place where you could go and hang out with each other. Now we’re spread out all over campus.”
According to Petersen, DSP was removed partly so the fraternity could focus on the foundations of their brotherhood.
“I took away the food, the place, the party, and said ‘what are you guys about?’” Petersen said. “Delta Sigma Phi’s Achilles’ heel is that they don’t take fraternity seriously.”
Snyder claimed they’re well on their way to living up to Petersen’s challenge.
“The focus was just setting a good foundation. Over the past two years we’ve done a lot to bring this chapter back,” he said.
Exactly what standard the fraternity will need to surpass to move back in — and even then only on a yearly basis, with no kitchen at first — is undecided.
DSP will receive a preliminary review by its national organization in December, which will be the first indication if they’ve managed to surpass minimum national standards. The national fraternity looks at campus involvement, academics, philanthropy, and other factors to determine a score out of 100 for each chapter.
“When it started out, I didn’t know how they’d get it back. I originally said three to five years and that nearly gave them a heart attack,” Petersen said. “I’ve always been firm that we’ve got to give them time away. That’s what they need.”
In the past three years, the fraternity has been improving their score: a zero three years ago became a 44 and then a 72. A score of 80 is the minimum, but Petersen says he wants more than the minimum from the chapter.
“My expectation to all my chapters here is to be exemplary chapters, to our standards and to their national fraternity,” Petersen said. “They have not been exemplary.”
After ousting DSP, the college renovated the house to restore it to the school’s standards for housing, said Chief Administrative Officer Rich Péwé in an email. The college spent more than $100,000 fixing structural damage including electrical problems, hardwood flooring, and carpeting, repairing the exterior wood ornamentation and landscaping, and purchasing furniture.
The house was made into a men’s dormitory, the Watkins house, to keep revenue flowing and the house occupied.
The college’s involvement with Greek housing began and grew in the 1920s under President William Spencer, who started the policy of college-provided and maintained residences.
The John Cook house was purchased by the college in 1977 for DSP as a way of preserving the historic building, built in 1863 by wealthy local banker John Cook for his large family. The debt to the college was assumed by the fraternity, as was the case with the five other Greek residences owned by the college.
Among other uncertainties is what will happen to the men currently living in the Watkins house.
“What I haven’t been able to figure out is that in July, the coming summer, they’re going to hear back, and I’m going to have already assigned guys to the Watkins house,” Petersen said. “I don’t want to punish all the guys who live in the Watkins house.”
Current resident assistants of the Watkins house declined to comment. Sophomore Will Gage moved into the house this year and says that he understood the temporary status of the dorm when he moved in.
“I love the guys that are there right now, but I came there with the understanding that it’s a kind of temporary thing while DSP is not living there,” he said. “I’m okay with and understand what they’re doing.”
