Acacia seeking to reform house

The Acacia fraternity, after being plagued by sexual harassment charges, social probation, and a lack of new pledges this year, has decided to revamp its entire system, former Acacia members said. "We are reorganizing the chapter here," said Matt Bixler, alumni vice president in charge of on-campus activities. "We're opening it up to all freshman and sophomore men who don't already have fraternity membership." Bixler and Acacia alumnus Andy Haut said that all 16 of Acacia's current members would be granted alumni status. "We want new members to feel that it's their house," said Haut, a 1988 Wharton graduate. "What better way to insure that than to make them the only members -- it has to be their house." Bixler said that while the fraternity admits it has had image problems on campus, he does not feel that the current membership has made much effort to change that perception and would be unable to conduct a fall rush. "There's not a level of commitment from the actives to do things to change the image," he said. "If you can't come up with enough guys to make a commitment, you can't do anything period." Interfraternity Council President Mo Massel, a College junior, said that the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs is aware of their plans and fully supports the decision. "We look forward to working with them and making sure that they play by the book and create a good and strong brotherhood," he said. "As far as I know this is occurring." Acacia is currently serving a probation for its involvement in a nude photo incident in 1991. Judy Schlossberg, a December 1992 College graduate, filed sexual harassment charges against four members of Acacia after they photocopied and distributed a nude photo of her which belonged to her boyfriend, then an Acacia brother. In November of 1991, the Judicial Inquiry Office and the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs ruled that Acacia was collectively responsible for the incident. Schlossberg said yesterday she is skeptical about Acacia's decision to revamp. "If the decision was made by the national [fraternity organization], then I applaud them," Schlossberg said. "If it's their [recent] alumni doing it to improve their image, I don't think it will work." "I hope that what happened to me and my publicizing it contributed to this," she added. "The campus knows what happened. It sounds like a decision made just to keep their chapter alive." Bixler said the idea to revamp was brought up to the national organization which approved. He also said that the Acacia alumni have expressed regret with what happened. "I myself am not pleased with what happened. Andy [Haut] is not pleased, and neither are the alumni," Bixler said. "We do realize we have a bad image. One, we want to fix that. Two, we're not comfortable with what occurred [and] we do not approve of what occurred. [Schlossberg] is a victim of a crime [and] in that way I feel sorry." Haut emphasized that new members would have "no connection" with the old members, which would allow them essentially to start over. "With the new membership, we're trying to learn from the mistakes of the past and not repeat them," he said. "In their education to become a member, we'd like to work with the women's groups on campus to stress the sensitivity of women's issues. The education would insure that they would be good campus citizens." There will be an informational meeting Thursday evening at 9:00 in Smith-Penniman Lounge for interested freshmen and sophomores, and a second meeting next Tuesday at the same time and place. According to Bixler, there will then be several social events for the interested students "to get to know each other" before interviews are held and final decisions are made. "[We want] as many quality guys as we can get -- that's the goal," said Haut. "We want to create a strong organization whose members can look back at their years at Penn with pride."