SAE makes its way back to IU campus

Saturday marked the first step toward the fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon becoming instituted on IU’s campus since being removed by their national organization in 2002.\nThe 15-member interest group was joined by some alumni for the official colonization process. \n“As a whole, I feel really good and feel like we’re moving in the right direction,” said sophomore Ronak Desai. “We are trying to build this fraternity the right way and focusing on quality more than quantity, getting the right kind of guys who we feel meet our standards rather than just trying to fill a house.”\nThe fraternity was kicked off campus after repeated alcohol violations in 2002. The Gamma chapter of SAE was first established at IU in 1907 and current interest group members hoped to bring the fraternity back by 2007 for its 100-year anniversary. \n“The members of the fraternity that were on campus the year they got removed had distanced themselves from the nationals and weren’t living the lifestyle that we want to represent,” sophomore Zach Garrison said. “That’s not how it’s going to be from now on, we want our guys to follow our fraternity motto of ‘true gentleman’.”\nThe SAE national model is based off of a poem that describes what a gentleman should be, which are the standards that the current fraternity founders are using as guidelines during their recruitment efforts. The poem represents how members should represent themselves, the morals they should go by, and how they should treat others, Garrison said.\n“It could take us a while to get the right type of guys, but it’s what we’re here to do,” Garrison said. “We want this to be a different type of fraternity, we want it to be more of a higher-class fraternity that is very selective rather than just one that wants to get the numbers up; we want a real brotherhood.” \nAnother thing SAE hopes to achieve is to create a more diverse environment in the greek system by making the effort to bring people of all backgrounds into the fraternity.\n“There’s not a lot of diversity in the campus greek system, and we want to change that,” Garrison said. \nThe next step in getting on campus is obtaining a charter, Desai said. They hope to have their charter by next year, which would allow them to compete in campus-wide events like Little 500 and IU Sing. In addition, SAE plans on demolishing and rebuilding its old fraternity house on North Jordan Avenue. The $3 million project will take two years to complete. \n“Right now we’re just trying to get on campus and get involved with IFC and activities that other greek houses participate in,” he said. “We have a long way to go but I’m very optimistic with what we’ve done so far.”\nThe fraternity will be doing the majority of its recruitment on a referral basis but are also looking to attract SAE legacies or those who want to be part of a different kind of fraternity, Desai said.\n“We just want to make it better,” he said. “We didn’t like the fraternity experience we were seeing at other houses around campus, so we’re trying to renew that and make our own experience.”