Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) and Phi Kappa Psi (Phi Psi) were placed on social probation last week due to violations of Cal Poly’s party registration policies.
Both fraternities’ social probations will last until the end of Fall 2015. Under social probation, the fraternities cannot hold social events, including gatherings involving alcohol.
Mustang News reached out to Dean of Students Jean DeCosta for an interview, and was redirected to university spokesperson Matt Lazier. According to emailed responses from Fraternity and Sorority Life sent through Lazier, both of the fraternities held parties that weren’t registered through Cal Poly during this year’s Week of Welcome (WOW).
AEPi president and aerospace engineering junior Jake Margulies said that AEPi’s probation resulted from the investigation of an event held at the fraternity house on Hathway Avenue on Friday, Sept. 18.
Margulies said the AEPi members were having Shabbat dinner that night when some asked to invite friends over to the house.
Knowing that there would be loud music playing, two members volunteered to go to the front gate of the house and ensure no outsiders were coming in, only friends the members had invited.
At 11:30 p.m., Margulies said, three men that were not from San Luis Obispo and did not attend Cal Poly tried to enter the house, offering money and alcohol to the doormen.
The doormen denied them access, so the three broke through the side fence, he said, and AEPi members immediately kicked them out.
Afterward, Margulies said undercover University Police Department (UPD) officers confronted the three men, who were holding open containers. Each man received a minor in possession ticket.
As UPD officers were writing the tickets, the men told the officers they got the alcohol from members of AEPi inside the house.
Margulies says that this statement was false and that the men were never inside the house.
From there, Margulies said that UPD became suspicious about the nature of AEPi’s event, and determined that it was a party with alcohol.
Margulies said that there were approximately 80 people at the house that night.
The event was not registered, and after an investigation by the Fraternity and Sorority Judicial Council, AEPi was found to have broken the university’s party registration policy.
The fraternity has been on probation since Wednesday, Nov. 4.
“In my opinion, the social probation is completely fair based on our current registration policy,” Margulies said. “I think this was just kind of a wakeup call that we do need to take more things into account, especially little things going on in the house that we may oversee.”
Margulies said that AEPi is reviewing its current risk management policy and plans to improve it in the future.
Executive members of Phi Psi declined to comment on the fraternity’s probation.
Disclosure: Benjy Egel, the managing editor for news at Mustang News, is also a member of AEPi. Egel was not involved in the writing or editing of this story.