Pi was framed in car vandalism incident, victims say

Published in the Lee Clarion.

Over a dozen vehicles were vandalized in the O’Bannon-Bowdle parking lot early Friday morning between 2-4 a.m. according to freshmen residents.

Car chalk was used on the windows of the vehicles to paint images of male genitalia, obscene words and the symbols of Lee University Greek club Pi Kappa Pi on a number of cars.

“Somebody was trying to make Pi look even worse than they do already,” Patrick Wright, a freshman psychology major, said. “I have a lot of friends in Pi. I’m not bias at all, but there’s no way that was Pi.”

Most of the vandalized vehicles belonged to the freshman residents of fourth floor O’Bannon Hall, although cars belonging to other residents, including the resident director’s wife, were also struck.

“That’s kind of weird that they did that,” freshman Nick Ridge said. “She wasn’t happy.”

Ridge said that the RD’s wife immediately called local law enforcement when she saw the crime.

Officials from the Office of Residential Life were unavailable and did not return calls for comment.

Shayn Fernandez, a freshman and Pi member, said he thought someone else was responsible for the attack.

“We’ve been blamed for a lot of crap…that kind of ticks me off,” he said. “People are just taking advantage of the situation we’re in right now.”

Wright said that he first spotted the prank when he went to his car to get money at around 4:30 a.m.

The crimes were likely committed by multiple perpetrators who were aiming to frame Pi, he said, noting the different colors of car chalk used.

“I have no clue who could have possibly done it,” he said. “I know for a fact it wasn’t anybody in Pi. Pi wouldn’t do that. It would be ridiculous.”

Freshman business major Brett Lowery said he believed the violators were fourth floor O’Bannon residents.

Jared Owen, the resident assistant for the fourth floor cluster, said that while a few of the guys on his floor were targeted, his own vehicle was preserved.

“I wasn’t surprised,” the junior pastoral ministry major said. “Stuff like this happens all the time … you just learn to take things in stride.”

Freshman Nick Ridge said his Mustang was among the desecrated.

“I had one big thing on my window,” he said. “It was all over the cars this morning. A lot of them have been cleaned up.”

Ridge said that the dorm fire alarm was pulled at approximately 4:30 a.m. His guess was that the perpetrator wanted residents to come outside and see the prank while it was fresh.

Only three cars belonging to fourth floor residents were left unscathed, Ridge said.

Ridge said he thought the perpetrator was likely a resident of the dorm who had a grudge against Pi.

“Pi wouldn’t do that; they’re not that dumb,” he said.

Mikey Mckellar, a freshman telecommunications major, said he also fell victim.

“All I know is that is that there’s a PI Kappa Pi [symbol] on the back of my truck,” he said. “But it would be stupid to put their greek club on there. We think it’s someone just joking around, doing their thing.”

Lee Clarion issue stolen from stands

Published in the Lee Clarion.

If you couldn’t find a copy of the April 17 issue of the Lee Clarion, chances are you weren’t the one who stole approximately 1,550 copies of Volume 63, Issue 12 from campus newsstands.

The newspapers were likely stolen because of an article regarding changes in Greek society since revisions in induction policy.

The article, “Two years later: Has Greek society changed,” discussed the contrast between new and old members during induction and mentioned a Pi Kappa Pi newsletter that discussed upcoming inductions. The newsletter was quoted, “We never put anyone in the hospital durin[g] induction…so I guess we should take this opportunity and try…”

Adam Marroquin, the president of Pi, said that one member of the club’s executive council was responsible for producing the newsletter, though he wouldn’t deny that it was the secretary’s job.

The copies were stolen off newsstands sometime between 5:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Friday, April 17. The managing editor contacted Lee University Campus Safety regarding the theft. The perpetrator of the crime remains unidentified.

Although it is not clear why the copies of the Lee Clarion were stolen, members of Pi Kappa Pi wrote on the Lee Clarion Facebook wall on the day the issue came out.

Themba Moyo, secretary of Pi, commented on a status update informing readers that a new issue of the newspaper had been distributed.

“This one isn’t that great…” he said. “Lookin’ forward to the next one.”

Pi member Maurice Huggins wrote the following comment on the wall regarding the author of the article:

“Harrison Keely is an idiot tell him to quote me on that!!”

The comment has since been removed due to a Lee Clarion policy that disallows personal attacks in comments.

Total damages are estimated at more than $300.

Mike Hiestand, a legal consultant to the Student Press Law Center, said newspaper theft is a form of censorship.

“Greek organizations, for example, have occasionally seen newspaper theft as the best way to kill a story that includes negative news about their fraternity or sorority (or one of their members) and have frequently sent out thieves en masse,” he wrote.

The SLPC notes that possible charges include petty theft, criminal mischief, grand larceny and destruction of property.

The April 17 theft isn’t the first of the Lee Clarion.

Campus Safety became involved after approximately 500 copies of old and new issues of the Lee Clarion were taken from three stands in the Dixon Center and student union March 25. The majority of those issues, however, were anonymously returned to the door of the Student Media lab in the PCSU March 31.

The Lee Clarion also reported that around 175 copies of Volume 63, Issue 9 might have been stolen from the library and the Dixon Center on February 27.

Kevin Trowbridge, faculty adviser to Lee University Student Media, issued a statement saying, “I am disappointed and disturbed that anyone would commit such an act of censorship. Theft is a crime and, more importantly, it is morally wrong.”

The Lee Clarion asks that responsible parties step forward and is seeking tips that lead to information about the person(s) responsible.

The issue can be viewed in its entirety at www.LeeClarion.com.

Two years later: Has Greek society changed?

Published in the Lee Clarion.
It’s been more than two years since President Paul Conn dramatically revamped Lee University’s Greek club induction process to remove the heavy emphasis on physicality.

While some Greeks have argued that inductions have ceased to be effective and challenging as a result, others in Lee’s Greek community say that the changes have actually helped clubs place more emphasis on their founding mission: growing spiritually and serving others.

Kristin Chumley, a member of Epsilon Lambda Phi, said that Greek clubs have definitely changed since the administration’s induction overhaul in October 2006.

“It’s a different breed of person who rushes clubs now,” the senior elementary education major said. “I don’t think members are as committed to the club as they were in the past … It’s few and far between that you find someone willing to sacrifice. There tended to be more of that person during the old induction.”

Chumley said she was in the second to last tap to endure the physical inductions prior to the change, noting that she was Epsilon’s induction chair when the overhaul took place.

Dean of Students Alan McClung said that he expected Greek guys to feel less dedicated as a result of the changes, because the physical inductions were so much more a part of their clubs.

Contrast is something older members of every Greek club talk about frequently, Chumley said, adding that turnover will soon chip away at those memories as members who remember the old induction graduate.

“We’re being weeded out … in every club,” she said. “You never talk about it with the new girls.”

Junior elementary education major and Epsilon member Jamie Reed said that she entered the club after the induction changes.

“At least with our club I don’t think there’s any disunity,” she said. “I think we’re still pretty close.”

Self-imposed changes

Reed said that she didn’t believe the induction changes had any effect on the club.

Jeremiah Argo, a junior pastoral ministries major in Tau Kappa Omega, said that TKO is moving away from the old induction system in a progressive manner.

“[We're] trying to get into a more brotherly sort of rushing system where we spend the whole semester actually hanging out with them and teaching them by example, rather than one weekend of inductions, shoving it all in your face,” he said.

Argo said that Greeks don’t often talk about inductions in general.

“We actually promise not to tell what happens for the simple fact that it could hurt someone else’s experience,” he said. “It could stop them from wanting to do it.”

TKO came to the conclusion that even the new induction system wasn’t working well, Argo said, noting that TKO thought it could get through to new members in a different way.

“We agree that the way inductions has been is very utilitarian and kind of sadistic, and so we’re trying to move away from that,” he said.

Chumley said that when inductions were reformatted in 2006 Epsilon “completely threw out” their previous process and started over, but she noted that there was little work to be done.

“[Dean of Students Alan] McClung will tell you Epsilon didn’t need to change at all because, come on, we’re girls,” she said.

McClung said that the induction process in most girls clubs was in very little need of change at the time, adding that it was more difficult for guys to make the transition.

“That’s just natural because of gender,” he said. “Guys tend to be more physical. They demand more.”

Chumley said that the changes encouraged the group to concentrate on what it stood for, stating that the new process is more mentally challenging, focusing mostly on team building and learning Biblical lessons.

“You want to put someone to their breaking point,” she said, stating that such a moment teaches new taps that they can’t do anything without God.

Chumley said that since the induction overhaul certain Greek clubs have received warnings about specific activities that too closely resembled old induction practices.

She said that no one is ever forced to do anything during an induction, “It’s what they choose to do.”

The first tap to experience the new inductions completely lost the “my induction was harder than yours attitude,” Chumley said.

Adam Marroquin, president of Pi Kappa Pi, said that the different attitude was likely isolated to Epsilon. While he stated that he understood that some Greeks may not feel as connected, he said the members of Pi felt unified.

“Every year we give back to the community,” the senior pastoral ministry major said. “We are social service organizations.”

Next spring Pi Kappa Pi plans to take its members on a cross cultural trip to help others in Cambodia, he said.

Marroquin said that all of Lee’s Greek clubs were based on Biblical principals and that the motive behind induction is to build people up.

“We’re not a national fraternity by any means,” he said. “Hazing is wrong. I agree with that … Lee University wouldn’t allow Greek clubs to be in existence if they thought they would be intentionally harming students.”

Marroquin acknowledged that Pi Kappa Pi “didn’t have the best reputation on campus” when he first joined three years ago but said that the club had dramatically changed since that time.

Induction Harm

Sophomore anthropology major Ryan Austin said he had always understood Greek clubs at Lee to be service-oriented and for the betterment of each individual, but a recent finding had called that attitude into question.

Austin said he received a copy of Pi Kappa Pi’s newsletter “The Not So Green Pages” from a student who found it in a hallway of the Humanities Center.

“They thought I would be interested and gave me a call,” he said. “From what I see in [the newsletter] there might be cause for concern.”

The four-page newsletter gave new members degrading nicknames, featured a degrading photo caption and discussed upcoming formal inductions:

“New guys..this will challenge you mentally, physically, and spiritually,” it read. “We never put anyone in the hospital durin[g] induction…so I guess we should take this opportunity and try…”

Marroquin said the statement was a joke that outsiders wouldn’t understand.
“We don’t do anything to anybody; we haven’t in a long time,” he said. “It’s never our intention to harm anybody, period … No Greek club harms anybody.”

Marroquin said the statement was meant to make fun of the old induction ways and incidents other clubs have had in the past.

One member of Pi Kappa Pi’s executive council was responsible for producing the newsletter, Marroquin said, though he wouldn’t deny that it was the secretary’s job.

“As president that’s not something that I worry about,” he said. “Anything else that’s in there, I don’t have a hand in it … I trust whoever’s writing it will do a good job.”

Marroquin said that he had been personally addressed about the issue by a member of the administration.

“I explained to them exactly what was going on,” he said. “That was it, period. Jokes like that shouldn’t be made because as you see they can be taken out of context.”

McClung said that when he saw a copy of the newsletter he took the hospital comment as a joke that reflects poorly on the whole club.

“Nobody should be joking like that,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if anybody sees it or not. It does not convey the mission of what their club represents, simple as that.”

McClung said he took the newsletter to the club’s head sponsor, Nate Tucker, and demanded action but left any discipline up to the the club itself.

The “Not So Green Pages” isn’t the first time that an inappropriate newsletter has been circulated in a Greek club at Lee, McClung said. He said that a different club dealt with a similar situation in much the same way around 15 years ago.

“You can do so much good and one thing can negate all the good you do,” he said.

“They know that if anyone goes to the hospital, we’re going to want to know why. There’s going to be a high level of accountability.”

Lee students have visited the hospital before during inductions, McClung said, but only because they couldn’t endure the physical requirements of the old induction process.

He said that the hospital visits was the impetus for the revisions.

“If they tap a couch potato, he’s not in shape, and you get him out there in the morning doing jumping jacks and stuff like that, it takes its toll,” he said.

McClung said Lee’s Greek clubs haven’t sent a student to the hospital in a long time.

“They don’t want to put anybody in the hospital because that’s the kind of attention they don’t want,” he said.

While Austin acknowledged that the physical safety of members was a concern, he said he thought the statement in the newsletter was simply a joke.

“Personally, I see this just as college students being college students,” he said. “We’re not the most thoughtful people.”

Austin said the language used in the newsletter seemed to harm individuals spiritually and emotionally.

“If the people who are leaders in this Greek club are using ‘sending someone to the ER’ euphemistically… what are they really going to do? What is the extent?” he asked. “It’s kind of worrisome to me.”

Greek clubs become a waste when they’re not used to build individuals up spiritually, he said.

Austin said he believes that Greek club leaders have put less emphasis on being role models in recent years and have instead focused on making friends by “joking around with people.”

Sowing good seed

Argo said that in his case, however, the brotherhood of TKO saved his life.

“If it wasn’t for TKO I would have committed suicide, literally committed suicide, at the end of my first semester at Lee,” he said.

TKO focuses on leading by example, he said, ensuring that each member is held accountable to the community covenant.

“I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t do any of that stuff,” Argo said. “I will fully admit that I have in the past, but I don’t, and my brothers keep me accountable.

Argo said that when he first joined TKO in spring 2007 he was shunned by another Greek club on campus because of TKO’s bad reputation at Lee. Members wouldn’t even talk to him until recently, he said.

“In the past certain clubs have had reputations….but that comes with envy and pride. Some of the clubs have been elitist.”

Greek clubs on campus have started a recovery effort though, he said, noting that the goal is to stop rumors, answer more questions, and be more honest and open.

Argo said that Greek clubs have become much more focused on their original missions in recent years.

“They’re focused a lot more on spiritual inner-edification than they were,” he said. “If we ever came down to only having one guy [rush] in a semester, we would ask him to wait until next semester. We refuse to put someone in by themselves. We refer to ourselves as the brotherhood… You can’t get through life alone.”

Reed said that her Greek club has become more concerned about helping the community.

“I think that something we need to work on as a service club is actually doing more service,” she said.

Argo said that he’s logged about 40 hours of service this semester alone, but he’s only recorded seven of those hours officially to fulfill Lee’s requirement. He said that logging hours didn’t matter anymore to him and that the main focus was helping as much as he could.

McClung said that he thought service projects by Greek clubs have increased in number over time, but that the projects get less publicity than most clubs.
“Service is really very much a part of their makeup,” he said. “I’d be disappointed if it wasn’t.”

McClung said that clubs have adopted a section of a highway, crocheted for the homeless, raised money for a victim of Chernobyl who couldn’t afford treatments, held a lingerie party for a battered women’s shelter, and worked with the Crossover ministry, just to name a few examples.

“They do so much in the community that no body knows about,” he said. “Right now I could not be more pleased with where all of the Greek clubs are at and it’s been that way the last few semesters.”

GPA concerns

McClung said he and Vice President for Student Life Dr. Walt Mauldin meet with the presidents, officers and sponsors of Greek clubs at the beginning of every fall.

“Dr. Mauldin and I just spell it out,” he said. “This is what you can do, this is what you can’t do. If you violate, we’re going to come for you. They know we’re serious.”

Club newsletters are on the agenda to talk about at the next meeting, he said, as well as member GPAs.

“We’ll go over induction again,” he said. “We’ll encourage them to follow their constitutions and stay consistent with that. There’s been a little coloring outside the lines.”

He said that while girls clubs have not budged when it comes to the minimum GPA of new members, guys clubs have repeatedly asked for exceptions.

“In the past we kind of winked if it was close enough,” he said. “If the kid was one tenth of a point away, I thought, how can you deny that?”

McClung said that he now tells club members to follow the constitution, no matter how close the GPA may be to the minimum requirement.

“I think they’ve let things slide because it was…for the better of the club,” he said, adding that sticking to the constitution “protects them and protects me.”

McClung said he holds Greek students to a higher level of accountability than other students on campus.

Despite the shift away from danger and toward Christ-focused serving, some students still don’t subscribe to the notion of the Greek club.

“I have nothing against Greek clubs. It’s just not my cup of tea,” Austin said. “People can have friends wherever. I have friends; I’m not in a Greek club.”

Austin said that the real question was whether or not the administration should be concerned about the path Greek clubs are beginning to take on Lee’s campus.

Considering McClung’s position, however, that shouldn’t be a problem.

Marroquin said that Greek clubs will continue to be a major spiritual element in the lives of Greeks at Lee.

“As president I still have a chaplain’s heart,” he said. “I still have a heart for my guys.”
Marroquin compared Pi to a church where the guys meet to talk about the struggles in their lives.

“They’re mature as far as college goes,” he said. “They’re a lot of great guys that have good heads on their shoulders. Every club has its bad apples. There’s not quite as many as there used to be.”

Students diagnose Cleveland ER

Published in the Lee Clarion.
Angel Cromer was running to class at the Humanities Center when she felt stabbed by a severe amount of pain and fainted before even reaching the doors.

The senior theology major said she remembered being rushed to the emergency room at Cleveland’s SkyRidge Medical Center during her first semester at Lee in the fall of 2005.

Good and bad experiences can happen in any emergency room, but students at Lee have generally had negative stories to tell about their times at Bradley County’s ER.

Cromer said that by the time she arrived at the hospital, the episode was almost over, but that the medical staff decided to investigate further.

“Due to their excavation, they actually ruptured my ovarian cyst that was the size of a baseball,” she said.

Cromer said that cysts shouldn’t be ruptured at all as they introduce harmful chemicals into the body.

“It probably was an accident, but you’re not supposed to touch it, period,” she said. “I would expect a female of any variety who has had female issues to understand you’re not supposed to touch a cyst.”

Cromer said she was then sent home, sans painkillers, and suffered a severe amount of pain for a week until she was able to visit a specialist.

When junior telecommunications major Beth Blair passed out at Lee and awoke unable to move, she was rushed to the emergency room at Cleveland’s SkyRidge Medical Center, a trip she now wish she never took.

“They never really paid any attention to the fact that I was there,” Blair said. “The waiting room wasn’t packed or anything. They just didn’t do anything.”

She stayed in the waiting room for three hours before finally being admitted, where she waited for another nine hours as she was told that tests were being run.

By the time 12 hours had passed, Blair said she was told a different doctor would replace the first, who was rude and hadn’t made any progress.

Blair said the nurse told her that she needed an IV due to dehydration, despite Blair’s insistence otherwise. She said that the nurse made seven attempts to strike a vein.

“I was yelling at the nurse, telling him to stop, but he continued,” she said. Finally, a second nurse was brought in to insert the IV.

Blair said she was finally told she could leave when she was able to eat.

“I spent over 36 hours in the hospital and they couldn’t find out what was wrong with me,” she said. “I thought it was pretty ridiculous that it took them that long.”

The bill for the visit came to around $4,500, she said.

“Unless I literally will die…do not take me [back],” she said. “Never go to Skyridge. I’ve heard enough malpractice suits, I’ve heard enough misdiagnosis…It’s as if your garbage man is your doctor.”

Sara Kistner, a sophomore education major, said that her encounter with the local ER left her extremely displeased as well.

“We waited for well over an hour (good thing it wasn’t life or death!) and finally gave up and left,” she said. “There were several other people waiting and none of them got seen either.”

Mickey Moore, director of Lee University’s health clinic, is a former employee of the medical center.

“I worked as a nurse in the ER at SkyRidge for two years and as a nurse for many years when it was Bradley Memorial Hospital,” Moore said. “I have seen both sides to a great extent.”

Moore said that Lee’s health clinic very rarely sends students to the SkyRidge ER. He said that the clinic only refers students to the ER if they have the insurance for it.

“We can treat most common illnesses and can provide stabilization in the case of an emergent condition until advanced care can be reached either with the EMS unit or by transportation to the ER,” Moore said. “We are not equipped nor licensed to operate an emergency care unit.”

Not all experiences with the medical center are negative, though.

Carol Hays, a senior sociology major, said she was met with positive service during her two visits to the ER.

“Both times were a ‘good’ experience, ‘good’ being a relative term,” Hayes said. “We received care fairly quickly, less than one hour both times, and the nurses were helpful.”

Senior biochemistry and English major Jeremy Blanchard said that a serious injury led him to the local ER.

“I broke my collar bone at rugby practice,” he said. “All the doctors and administration were very professional.”

Jason Feliciano, a junior telecommunication major, said he visited the ER after a bike accident in downtown Cleveland.

“Campus Safety drove me to SkyRidge where they left me,” he said. “I was by myself…didn’t know anyone.”

Feliciano said he waited for three hours to be seen.

“Doctors kept coming in, but they didn’t do anyting, didn’t talk to you,” he said. “Finally a doctor came in and…started touching my open wounds with his bare hands….It was disgusting. And it hurt too.”

Cromer said two other scenarios at SkyRidge caused her to lose faith in the medical center.

In one instance, she said the hospital refused to give care. At a different time, she said the hospital wouldn’t stop providing treatment, despite her refusal.

“They wouldn’t treat me for being a psychiatric patient. That isn’t quite right,” Cromer said. “I was literally having a breakdown and seeing things – which isn’t right … They wouldn’t even sedate me.”

Two days before the 2008-09 academic year at Lee began, Cromer said she was riding her bike in humid 100 degree weather when she blacked out on the side of the road and local pedestrians called an ambulance.

Despite having already consumed a half gallon of water, she said medics tried to treat her for dehydration.

“I understand that by state law if an ambulance stops, you have to take it. However, I refused to get in the ambulance,” she said. “I refused everything. I refused to go to the ER…. I refused to go to the hospital.”

Cromer said that state law requires that she be able to refuse treatment and leave after arriving at the hospital.

“I demanded,” she said. “I said ‘I refuse treatment, please let me leave’ and they said ‘no, you’re too dehydrated.’”

Cromer said she could deal with dehydration at home instead of having to pay a $600 hospital bill plus a $1000 ambulance fee.

“They decided to sidestep the law by saying ‘you are in no condition to choose because you are so dehydrated,’” she said.

When it comes to broken bones and X-Rays, Cromer said SkyRidge could get the job done. However, if your condition is undiagnosed, she advised that Lee students seek more advanced medical assistance.

Cromer said it was worth spending more money on doctors who actually care, despite the state of the economy and college students’ notoriously-empty bank accounts and lack of insurance.

“I know money is tight but you end up getting crappy doctorship,” she said. “Do not wait until you have an episode like I did and then go to the ER and get everything messed up worse.”

• Jessica Wright and Andrea Matthews contributed to this article.