Sigma Phi Epsilon returns to campus fraternity house

Four years since the fraternity was closed in 2013, Sigma Phi Epsilon, also known as SigEp, has reclaimed its Oak Lane house and will be moving back to the Virginia Tech campus. Wrestling with an imperfect reputation, the members of Sigma Phi Epsilon are working to prove that they are moving forward with a mature mindset.

“The biggest change would be a positive reconstruction of our values,” said Matt Rowe, a senior majoring in agribusiness who is also the president of Sigma Phi Epsilon. “It was a way for us to come back to what we really are and we are able to build a foundation strongly up from there.”

Sigma Phi Epsilon was suspended in 2013 due to repeated alcohol violations. Because of the consistent record of misbehavior, the national fraternity decided to disband the chapter at Virginia Tech. All the members of the fraternity at that time were put on alumni status. After two years of rebuilding relationships within the Blacksburg community, Sigma Phi Epsilon and its alumni restarted as a new chapter at Virginia Tech in 2015.

According to Byron Hughes, director of Fraternity and Sorority Life, Virginia Tech and Sigma Phi Epsilon agreed that they would return to the Oak Lane house in 2017 when the chapter was restarted in 2015.

“They are being fully embraced as a new fraternity. That's part of the reason why whenever a fraternity is either suspended by Virginia Tech or is closed by national fraternity, typically the only way that they come back is by coming in as a new fraternity with brand new members and brand new culture,” Hughes said. “Otherwise it sets up for a return to old behaviors.”

When the national fraternity disbanded the chapter at Virginia Tech, the Oak Lane house, which was previously occupied by Sigma Phi Epsilon, became the property of Virginia Tech. According to Hughes, Virginia Tech entered into an agreement with Sigma Phi Epsilon that the house would be used for other programming available while they were rebuilding the chapter.

In 2013, Housing and Residence Life launched the Innovate living-learning community at the Oak Lane house. After two years, the program grew significantly and the department decided to relocate the program to Pritchard Hall.

The house was then used as a transfer house for transfer students for two years. According to Kenneth Belcher, senior associate director for Housing Services, Virginia Tech made a decision to not to continue the transfer house for the 2017–18 academic year due to the unexpected size of the incoming first-year class.

Sigma Phi Epsilon started the “balanced man” program to replace the old pledging system. According to Rowe, the program represents a belief in continuous development.

“At college, you spent 90 percent of your time outside of the classroom, so how are you gonna become a better man? How are you gonna build yourself up and build others around you so when you graduate and get that diploma, you can make a contributed difference to society?” Rowe said. “In that way, we also believe that pledging was more so growth in a semester whereas the balanced man program is growth in the whole entire four years.”

The program includes four challenges with one challenge for each year in college. The four challenges are Sigma challenge, which is an intro session to Greek life, college life and SigEp; Phi challenge, which is to help the members to find and develop leadership and social skills; Epsilon challenge, which is to use the skills developed in Phi challenges in real life; and brother mentor challenge, which is to build oneself up for the life after college.

“Their focus has truly been on how to identify men that wanted to come in,” Hughes said, “and really become the type of man that would embrace the values and carnal principles of Sigma Phi Epsilon.”

Sigma Phi Epsilon has had the highest GPA of any Virginia Tech fraternity for four consecutive semesters. According to Rowe, the fraternity’s goal is to get to a fifth this semester and sixth next spring.

“Right now we are trying to rebuild our chapter,” said Karthik Dhanireddy, a junior microbiology major and Sigma Phi Epsilon member. “Get away from that old image, start to build a new image ... take things forward and establish who we are as a new chapter and hopefully the pinnacle of the Greek community here at Virginia Tech.”