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Rolling Stone may have ranked UNM’s Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter as one of the nation’s “most out-of-control fraternities,” but students at UNM remain indifferent to the disbanded organization.
In May the administration decided to revoke the fraternity’s charter because of its student code of conduct violations that involved the unauthorized use of alcohol on campus and the consumption of alcohol by minors.
Despite the group’s history of sexual assault allegations, students maintain a positive image of Greek life at UNM.
Parrish White, a junior majoring in chemistry, said fraternities and sororities can be beneficial to students at the University.
“In general, I think they’re a good thing for campus as long as they benefit other people,” he said. “But after what they did, I can see why they got disbanded.”
Rachel Yelin, a sophomore majoring in psychology, said Greek life can have academic merits because the members “can actually stay focused on doing school and they do it as a group.” She said the fraternity was not unique in its violation of the code of conduct.
“They (the administration) weren’t paying attention to the rest of UNM,” she said. “Like Lobo Village, there’s a lot of crap going on over there. But I don’t see anyone doing anything about that. Someone got on someone’s bad side.”
Brian Velazquez, a freshman majoring in mechanical engineering, also said the group got “singled out” by the administration for alcohol abuse. He said as far as freedom, fraternities can help students develop throughout college.
“If they do it right the first year they do it, then they learn how to live by themselves,” he said. “If not, they learn what not to do in the future.”
Latoya Lozoya, president of Theta Nu Xi Multicultural Sorority, Inc., said the situation with Sigma Alpha Epsilon “sucks” because of the image it projects for fraternities.
“Regardless of whether or not they did it, it does make Greek life look a little bad,” she said. “All fraternities are going to be deemed as sexist and deemed as being negative. I would just say that not all sororities and fraternities are like that, and hopefully the incident with them gets resolved.”
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Lozoya said she loves Greek life because of its diversity and the comfortable environment.
“The fact that you can all get together and do community service or fundraising for the same purpose is really neat, too,” she said. “I like it here.”
German Martinez, a senior in Lambda Theta Phi and a member of the Multicultural Greek Council, said all fraternities are different in their own way. He said despite the diversity of Greek life, members cooperate and perform safe practices at events.
“We usually get along with everybody, we don’t do alcohol-related events,” he said. “If we do it, we do it safely. We usually take charge of it.”
Martinez said what happened to SAE was unfortunate because the events that led up to the suspension likely did not involve all members.
“I don’t believe all the members are that way,” he said. “Just because a few of them did something wrong doesn’t mean the whole fraternity is like that. It doesn’t work like that.”
