Albany's Underground Frats Could Face Trouble

UAlbany Clamps Down on Underground Fraternities

Officials at the University of Albany don't like underground fraternities. Several of the campus' frats that have been kicked off campus in recent years, have kept their brotherhood in tact with non-affiliated groups behind closed doors.

In an effort to put an end to the underground frats, the university established a program where those groups could come forward to the school and be permitted to re-establish themselves legitimately on the campus.

In what Albany called "Amnesty Month," not one single group decided to come forward. The university took it upon themselves to contact 2 of the 4 suspected organizations national headquarters to begin new colonies at the school. However, under re-colonization, new members will be organized, and the current "underground" brothers would be considered to be disaffiliated.

"We haven't had a serious incident here with our unrecognized fraternities," said Albany's student activities director Michael Jaromin, "But we don't want to have one."

Numbers in the recognized frats at the college are less than half of what they were a decade ago. Officials said that the underground fraternities offer students benefits that the recognized frats can't - like pledging as a first-semester freshman and pledging with a GPA below 2.25. Plus, without any dues or insurance, the underground frats can simply spend their money on alcohol and parties.

"It's not really the number -- it's the quality of the parties," Ryan Kinney of Tau Kappa Epsilon, a legit Albany fraternity. "They just have excess funds, bigger bank rolls."

The fraternities the university believes to be operating illegal underground lifestyles are Sigma Alpha Mu, Zeta Beta Tau, Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Pi Kappa Phi.