Fraternity's charter to be revoked

Penn's chapter of Delta Tau Delta will lose its charter as a result of low membership. Delta Tau Delta's charter is going to be revoked due to its low membership, National Assistant Director Garth Eberhart said yesterday. "This is purely a membership issue," Eberhart said. "There's just not enough manpower." The fraternity currently has 21 brothers. DTD President Robert Cuthrell, a Wharton junior, said the chapter has decided to disassociate from its national organization, saying that DTD will no longer exist as "an official group associated with the IFC." He maintained that the group has no plans to "go underground." DTD's house at 130 S. 39th Street is University-owned, but the national organization holds a 20-year lease on the property. According to Cuthrell, the lease was signed just a few years ago, and DTD's national organization plans to rent out the house until the fraternity can recolonize at Penn. Cuthrell acknowledged that membership numbers are low and suggested that the size of DTD's house, located at 130 S. 39th Street, may have played a role in the decision. "We are currently living in a very large structure, so we've been having trouble getting it filled," he said. Both Cuthrell and Eberhart expressed the national organization's desire to bring DTD back to Penn eventually. "We look forward to working with the University to come back soon," Eberhart said. Eberhart also stressed that the chapter's low numbers were the only factor in the decision. "There was no discipline or behavioral issue," he said. DTD is currently the subject of a $250,000 lawsuit filed by Robert Herdelin, who until recently owned a building next to the fraternity house. Herdelin claims DTD brothers routinely threw trash and bottles onto his roof, damaging his property. The fraternity held a fall rush in 1998 and extended rush in spring 1999 in an effort to drum up some additional members. InterFraternity Council President and Alpha Chi Rho brother Andrew Mandelbaum said he knew DTD's numbers were low but that he had not yet heard the fraternity is leaving campus. "They have had some membership issues in the past," the College junior said. "But we probably wouldn't hear about [the national organization's decision] until afterwards." DTD, which left campus in 1972 after a fire at its house plunged the chapter into debt, recolonized at Penn in 1991.