<p>I am a member of Michigan Greek Life and I just wanted to dispel some of the rumors on here about different fraternities and sororities being on social probation (or “so pro”). First of all, if you don’t know what so pro is, it is when a fraternity or sorority is prevented from having any/all social activities.
So pro comes in two different forms. The first is enacted by the specific chapter’s national organization, and this prevents the chapter from having date parties, formals, and any organized events. However, many chapters who are only on so pro by their nationals continue to have mixers and pre games with other chapters on campus, because these are relatively under the radar, and no one from their national organization is policing them on campus.
The second kind of social probation is that enacted by the University. This can happen for any of a million reasons, and lately they are being ridiculous. Rumor has it that our current president, Mary Sue Coleman, really dislikes Greek Life, and is thus being unreasonably strict. Social probation from the University is a much bigger problem. For fraternities, it means they cannot host any party of any kind (even though most still do anyway). For sororities, it means that they cannot have more than 25 members at the same fraternity event, even if it is an open party. A student-run task force called SRC checks up on this regularly, and reports violations to the office of greek life.
Off-campus houses are something different entirely. These are houses that have violated the rules so many times that the university has removed their charter and they now operate independently. This is not allowed, but since these chapters own their houses, there isn’t much the university can do to make them leave. So instead, they’ve started threatening everyone who goes there to party. The new rule is that if any more than 25 girls from the same house are found at one of these houses, their sorority will be put on social probation. This was a huge problem on St. Patty’s day this year, which resulted in a lot of sororities being put on so pro.</p>
<p>Here is the breakdown of who is currently on social probation/off-campus:
Fraternities:
Social probation: Theta Chi, Sammy, Psi U (really screwed), Chi Phi, AEPi (NOTE: these houses are all on so pro for varying amounts of time. Some may already be done, while others will have it through next school year).
Off-campus: SAE, ZBT, Sig</p>
<p>Sororities:
Social probation: Alpha Phi, Kappa, SDT, Chi-O, possibly AXO
Off-campus: none.</p>