On January 15, 2012, graduate and undergraduate Alpha Kappa Alpha women along with the men of the Jericho Lodge #20, Free and Accepted Masons, Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of PA partnered to celebrate the life Martin Luther King Jr.  The event was held at Barack Obama Academy of International Studies.

The event opened with a welcome to over 100 members and guests, followed by dinner and song by Brady and Brana Hill.  Mr. Andre’ McGee, Past Master followed by presenting the audience with a powerful video entitled “Keepers of the Dream” to the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Event co-chair Jackie Blakey led the group discussion on how the guests in attendance and young people continue to keep the dream of Martin Luther King.

In addition to paying a tribute to Martin Luther King Jr., military families were honored and recognized for their service and sacrifices to our country.  With the assistance of the Students Ambassadors at Pittsburgh Dilworth PK-5^th grade, the two organizations were able to present over 50 food baskets to veterans transitioning back into civilian living through a program sponsored by the Veteran’s Affairs Hospital.  Event co-chair, Dr. Monica Lamar is the principal of Pittsburgh Dilworth PK-5^th Grade.

A local sorority has dedicated itself to making life better for homeless children in the area.

The Marshall University Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority adopted a room at Hovah Hall Underwood Children’s Home in Ona, W.Va.

The room serves as a short-term emergency children’s shelter operated by The Children’s Home Society of West Virginia.

“We are ever so grateful when wonderful organizations, like the great ladies of Alpha Kappa Alpha, donate their time and effort to make our home beautiful for the kids we serve,” said Melody Plumley, site manager, in a press release.

Alpha Kappa Alpha adopted a girl’s room at the shelter and decorated it in green and pink, the sorority’s colors. The sorority has been involved since 2011.

In April, they hosted the Ivy Academy, a one-day leadership conference for local high school girls, with a community and campus drive and collected approximately 5,000 personal care items for the residents of the home.

“Alpha Kappa Alpha is committed to community service, and we have initiatives we are committed to completing,” said Kara Hornbuckle,  senior exercise science major and chapter president of Alpha Kappa Alpha.

Throughout the year, the sorority provides training sessions in life skills, college life, diversity and regularly hosts a game night for the residents.

The Children’s Home Society of West Virginia is a private nonprofit organization dedicated to helping homeless children throughout the state.

The society was founded in 1896 by Reverend D.W. Comstock of Arkansas.

In 1900, United States Senator Henry Gassaway Davis donated $10,000, which allowed the society to purchase its first children’s shelter in Charleston.

The society is currently in charge of nine shelters and helps with adoptions to place children in homes as quickly as possible.  The society also provides behavioral health, advocacy and social services to underprivileged and developmentally disabled children.

“One of our goals is to make the shelter pleasant and homelike for our children,” Plumley said in the release. “Their safety and comfort is key.”

The General Board of the Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc., unanimously voted to authorize the Fraternity, in concert with the International President, to expel any member found guilty of hazing. The decision was made on January 7, 2012 at the winter of the General Board in Memphis, Tennessee.

International President Jimmy Hammock has expressed deep concern over the effects of hazing on the Fraternity: “There are members of Phi Beta Sigma, and other fraternities who have pretty much ignored the anti-hazing, no pledge policy for new membership intake, as state by the member organizations of the National Pan-Hellenic Council. Underground pledging has overshadowed a system designed to eliminate hazing and reduce the liability pledging and/or hazing has on Black Greek Letter Organizations. No one wants to be a called a “paper” brother, or to allow someone to “skate” into the fraternity, or be accused of being “soft”; so the madness continues. We must work to change this culture, by taking the lead on the enforcement of the anti-hazing policies set by all Black Greeks”

The General Board also unanimously adopted the following procedure measure to the expulsion process: After investigation by Regional Director, and upon the recommendation to the International President, members found guilty must receive notice via US mail to their known address. Members will be given 30 days to respond to that letter; if there is no response within this timeframe, then the General Board will expel the member(s) pending verification at the next Conclave.

These decisions are the beginning of a series of anti-hazing actions and initiatives implemented by the General Board. Members of Phi Beta Sigma will receive more information on risk management matters in the near future.

“Sigma will become the global brand reference for fraternities and community service organizations,” shares President Hammock. “A major threat to our brand today is the threat of hazing. We are determined to seriously address and eradicate this culture of hazing.”

A student at Jarvis Christian College claims fraternity members damaged his kidneys and opened wounds on his butt by beating him with heavy wooden paddles, then welcomed him to the fraternity’s “‘Century Club’ … reserved for those who could withstand at least 100 blows during this initiation process.”

Xavier Foster sued Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity and four of its members – Sadallie “CJ” Cole, Waymon Humphrey, Bruce Nance and Omar McElroy – in Federal Court. Foster says when he enrolled in the Christian college in Hawkins, Texas in August 2009, friends and coaches encouraged him to pledge membership with Kappa Alpha Psi.

He says at the on-campus “intake meeting,” fraternity members and school representatives went over the pledge process and told him “the sole requirements for membership in Kappa Alpha Psi were a minimum grade point average, approval by current members and successful completion of a written examination on the history, rituals and traditions of the fraternity.” At that meeting, Foster says, frat members and school officials said they did not tolerate “physical or psychological hazing of pledges.” Foster says he fulfilled all requirements to join the fraternity by paying membership fees, and passing its written exam on April 24, 2010.

But his new brothers had other plans for him, Foster says, and on April 30, 2010 a frat member told him to report to CJ Cole’s apartment in Hawkins for further initiation into the national fraternity and its local chapter. ”There, defendants CJ Cole, Keith Humphrey and Bruce ‘BJ’ Nance physically and psychologically assaulted Foster,” the complaint states. “These defendants stood at attention and peppered him with questions regarding the history, traditions and rituals of the fraternity, punctuating each incorrect answer with blows from heavy wooden paddles and rods. ”CJ Cole, Keith Humphrey and Bruce ‘BJ’ Nance further represented to Foster that membership in the fraternity’s ‘Century Club’ was reserved for those who could withstand at least 100 blows during this initiation process.”

Later that evening, Foster says, the defendants ordered him to report to a second apartment in Hawkins for more initiation.
There Cole, Humphrey and Nance were joined by the frat’s “dean of pledges” Omar McElroy, and they all set to “striking Foster about his legs and buttocks with paddles, rods and boards for approximately two more hours,” according to the complaint. ”Finally, after more than five hours of non-stop beatings, verbal and psychological abuse,” the four frat members welcomed him into Kappa Alpha Psi, and “pronounced him a member of exclusive the ‘Century Club.’”

The complaint continues: “Within days of the beatings, Foster began to succumb to his injuries. His legs and buttocks were predictably inflamed and swollen. More unexpectedly, he began to suffer nausea, cramping in his hands and feet and loss of appetite. He began to vomit and could not eat. ”On May 3, 2010, Foster’s family doctor diagnosed Foster with acute renal failure and admitted him to the hospital where doctors confirmed the admitting diagnosis through a kidney biopsy and began an immediate course of dialysis. In the meantime, the wounds on Foster’s buttocks had grown so severe that they ruptured and required complete debridement and ongoing treatment of a wound care specialist.”

He was released from the hospital 8 days later, but needed “continued medication and monitoring of his kidney function and a wound vacuum for the still-healing wounds on his buttocks.”

“Since his release, Foster has undergone surgery to place skin grafts over the wounds on his buttocks.

“The damage to Foster’s kidneys was so severe that he now suffers from a permanent loss of 10 percent of his renal function. As a result, doctors have placed him on three separate medications to control his blood pressure to prevent further damage to his kidneys. ”Foster continues to be under the care of physicians because of the injuries inflicted on him. He is at increased risk of future kidney damage. He has pain with sitting for long periods of time. His legs and buttocks are scarred and disfigured.”

He seeks damages and punitive damages for negligence, gross negligence, assault and battery, and pain and suffering.

At Howard University in 1908, sisters Beulah and Lillie Burke helped to found Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA) sorority. At Washington and Lee University 103 years later, sisters Devin Cooper ’11 and Amber Cooper ’12 helped to found a W&L chapter of that Greek organization.

“We tease them and call them the Burke sisters,” said Tamara Y. Futrell, associate dean of students. Futrell, a member of AKA herself, worked with the Coopers to bring the sorority to W&L.  The Tau Zeta Chapter of AKA, which was chartered last March with 12 members, is one of two historically black sororities on campus.

The other is the Tau Omega Chapter of  Delta Sigma Theta, which is a joint chapter with Hollins University and Roanoke College. It is recruiting and has active members on the other campuses, although none is currently enrolled at W&L. Both sororities belong to the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC), which oversees the nine traditionally black fraternities and sororities. Except for one that dates to 1963, those Greek organizations were founded between 1906 and 1922. With the arrival of AKA, W&L has eight Panhellenic and National Pan-Hellenic sororities in all.

AKA established a presence on campus in 2005 when three W&L students became general members, meaning they were unaffiliated with a specific chapter. Several obstacles delayed colonization on campus. “It takes 12 people to start a chapter, and I don’t think that they had the numbers early on,” said Futrell. “We underwent international administration changes, and that held up the process, and then we had to wait until we had trained graduate advisors in the supervising graduate chapter, Beta Chi Omega, which is located in Roanoke that could assist us with the chapter.”

“In terms of recruitment and retention for Washington and Lee, I think it’s very important that people see all sides of Greek life,” said Amber Cooper, AKA’s current president. While the existing Panhellenic and Interfraternity Council (IFC) Greek organizations may be the best choice for some students, said Cooper, a mass communications major, it’s good to have the option of NPHC fraternities and sororities. “I’m hoping that in the coming years there will be more.”

Kahena Joubert ’13, AKA’s treasurer, agreed. The first in her family to join AKA, she was impressed by the sorority’s dedication to public service. “I really wanted to be a member of an NPHC organization, and after doing my research, I realized I really wanted to be a member of AKA because I really liked what they were about, service and sisterhood.” Joubert is majoring in business administration and politics and has worked with the Multicultural Student Association.

Dedication to community service is one of the most notable characteristics of NPHC fraternities and sororities. The sorority is “very service-oriented, very philanthropic. We don’t do a whole lot of partying and things like that. While we do have social activities, that is  not our focus,” said Futrell. Women who join NPHC sororities consider themselves lifetime members and take seriously their commitment to continue philanthropic activities after graduation.

NPHC fraternities and sororities are not part of the IFC or the Panhellenic Council. “Totally separate bodies, but we encourage collaboration,” said Futrell. “We are totally separate because our recruitment and member  intake processes are completely different. We have different rules and different policies that govern us as opposed to the other two bodies.”

Women planning to join AKA, for example, do not go through Panhellenic-style rush,. Instead, AKA hosts a Rush Session in which interested women submit applications for membership and then are voted on. AKA is open to all women, and two non-African-American students became charter members at W&L last spring. One of those, sophomore Sally Platt from Fredericksburg, Texas, said she joined for a variety of reasons.

“As a blond-haired, blue eyed Texan of Irish descent I kind of look a little out of place. But that is the awesome thing about AKA — it is really not about color. The ideals of the sorority stay the same, no matter what,” Platt said. “Our goal is to provide ‘Service to all Mankind,’ and this is something the sorority really stands for.”

AKA’s new members are looking forward to starting their philanthropic projects. Internationally, the sorority focuses on seven signature initiatives: emerging young leaders, health, global poverty, economic security, social justice and human rights, and internal leadership training. The W&L chapter plans to work on breast-cancer awareness and to partner with an Atlanta organization, Living Water for Girls, that aids young victims of sex trafficking. Devin Cooper began her involvement with Living Water while she was a student. A biology major, she is now a member of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps in its medical school.

“One that we haven’t started, but that I’m excited to start, is the Emerging Young Leaders Program,” said Joubert. “We partner with girls in middle school to get them excited about going to high school and college, and just being their mentors.”

Amber Cooper and Joubert are glad W&L took an active and supportive role in bringing AKA to campus. “Bringing diversity to campus says a lot about the way W&L is moving,” said Joubert, “and how diverse we’re becoming, and how accepting we’re becoming of just lots of different things.”

In the wake of a college drum major’s death in Florida, a lawmaker from the state plans to introduce anti-hazing legislation when Congress returns in mid-January.

The bill would strip financial aid from anyone sanctioned by a university for hazing or witnessing hazing and failing to report it – including the victim, said Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson.

“Hazing is demeaning, dangerous and, sadly, deadly,” Wilson, a former school principal, told the Los Angeles Times, adding that the death of Florida A&M University drum major Robert Champion warrants a federal response.

Florida has toughened the penalties against hazing, but Wilson said in an interview that, under her proposal, if anyone witnesses hazing – “including the victim, they will tell because they don’t want to lose their federal aid.”

Florida officials have ruled Champion’s death in November a homicide. The incident has drawn national attention and generated soul-searching on college campuses throughout the country.

Wilson, who has yet to draft the legislation, said she also wants the U.S. attorney general to set up a commission to examine ways to stamp out hazing.

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in 2005 signed legislation making hazing that results in serious injury or death a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison, even if the victim consents. The bill, the Chad Meredith Act, was named after a University of Miami freshman who drowned in a campus lake while trying to join a fraternity in 2001.

Wilson said that, notwithstanding the new law, “we have had a plethora of hazing incidents,” but prosecutions have been difficult because “you can’t find any victims to talk.”

“We’ve got to take a tougher stance,” added Wilson, who said that she became known as the “haze buster” while serving as South Atlantic regional director for the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. “It’s time to stop it.”

Congress has been considering legislation aimed at bullying, including requiring states to report bulling incidents and expanding programs for teachers, administrators and counselors on strategies to prevent bullying and harassment.

In November 2010, I watched “HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” and saw a piece on the hazing antics at several historically black colleges and fraternities. I took to Twitter to share my thoughts on the issue.

Much of the report focused on Southern University, and man, did the floodgates open as a number of students from the university angrily tweeted me back, cussing, yelling and screaming, with some defending hazing, while others were angry at the national attention focused on their university.

For hours we went round and round, and were joined in the discussion by members of several black fraternities, including my own Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. A number of these individuals actually supported hazing, or “pledging hard” and not becoming a “paper” member who “skated” into the fraternity.

Despite the anger and vitriol, I refused to back down, making it clear that getting beaten for being in a band or fraternity was absolutely dumb.

Here was a young man who went off to college, planning to earn a college degree while leading one of the nation’s most colorful and exciting bands, only to be returned home to his parents in Georgia in a coffin.

While hazing immediately was suspected, we could only speculate about the cause of the 26-year-old’s death. That is, until Friday, when the medical examiner released details of his autopsy, concluding that Champion “collapsed and died within an hour of a hazing incident during which he suffered multiple blunt trauma blows to his body.”

News of the death has rocked the Florida A&M campus, angering its students and alumni, triggering multiple state investigations and leading Gov. Rick Scott to call for the suspension of school President James Ammons. That prompted FAMU students to march to the governor’s mansion on Friday and camp out on his lawn, demanding he rescind the resignation call.

Champion’s death isn’t the first time we have seen individuals in a band or fraternity die. It is incredible that some folks have given their lives — literally — for just being a part of a student group.

State laws have been passed, organizations have been kicked off campuses and national fraternal and sorority groups have paid millions in settlements because of hazing, but we continue to see these stories.

“Why?” is a consistent question that is asked, and at the end of the day, it boils down to power and a desire to demand others kowtow to someone else’s demands in order for them to be accepted.

A decision not to follow through means you can be ostracized, ignored and marginalized. That’s the last thing any young person wants to experience when in an organization.

Every one of these organizations is overseen by adult leaders or advisers. But in truth, fellow students run the show. Normally in a band, a drum major sits at the top of the food chain, but Champion clearly had to bend to the band’s culture to be fully accepted as a member of FAMU’s “Marching 100.”

So what you have is a bunch of students between the ages of 18 and 22 calling the shots and making it clear who is accepted and who isn’t, who gets in and who doesn’t. You aim to please them and no one else. Oftentimes they are leading based on how they were led, and it has been indoctrinated into them that this is the way of life, take it or leave it.

These are powerful forces that can only be changed by peers. Hazing will only be brought to a close when members of organizations make it clear the vile hazing traditions will not go forward. No one today can be hazed if the student leaders make it clear that it’s unacceptable. Yet because of the natural turnover in student organizations, that mindset has to be created and passed on for it to succeed.

When I was about to pledge Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. in spring 1989, I met with my four other pledge brothers and made it clear: I’m not getting hit, I will never use alcohol and I will not agree to be hazed.

Even though my older brother pledged the same fraternity at Texas A&M two years earlier without any nonsense, I was making it clear that such shenanigans were idiotic. All five of us agreed and in the four weeks, two days, 16 hours, 38 minutes and 39 seconds I was on line (yea, having to recite such specifics was a part of our process), the behavior that we often heard was associated with pledging didn’t exist.

Yet because of that, we weren’t always as accepted by other fraternity members at other campuses. Our chapter was called soft; we were criticized as not “pledging the right way” and had to constantly defend our manhood.

Me, I didn’t give a damn. I would look others in the eye and say, “In the history of our chapter, only one brother has failed to graduate, and we do nothing with him. Are you guys on the six- or seven-year plan, and can you match our graduate rate?”

From my perspective, we were supposed to be in college to graduate, not to pledge. And if my fraternity was founded as a study group at Cornell University on December 4, 1906, why would we eschew academics?

Even though we pledged the right way at Texas A&M, that peer pressure was still unbearable for some. That summer at our national convention in San Antonio, hazing was on the agenda, and I made it clear I was going to speak. Some other brothers in my chapter pulled my coattails and said, “Don’t tell the brothers you didn’t take any wood (that’s being paddled).”

I yelled, “If we pledged brothers the right way, why in the hell are we afraid to say it?”

Since those days, I’ve never wavered from my anti-hazing position. It is deplorable and shameful to think that someone would beat another person for them to prove something. Prove what? They can take a punch? No. I prefer to challenge his mind, his intellect.

Our goal as fraternity men is to take young men and mold and shape them to be better men. It is not our aim to take young men and train them to be collegiate mercenaries, hellbent on inflicting as much pain as they got onto the first person they have control over.

Is there tremendous value in fraternities, sororities, bands and student organizations? Absolutely. The leadership opportunities are tremendous, and the lifelong relationships are vital.

But what has to be preached and preached and preached to every student, whether they are white, black, Asian, Latino, male or female, is that if they love that frat, sorority, drill team or band, they shouldn’t do anything to jeopardize it for the next person.

Do we need tougher hazing laws? Yes. Do we need universities to take punitive action, including kicking students out who break the rules? Yes. Do we need national organizations to ban chapters for years for egregious behavior? Absolutely. Should fellow student leaders turn in others who break the rules and haze? Of course. There must be a zero tolerance attitude from every state official, administrator, student leader and organization member. To hell with tradition, rituals and “the way we do things.” All that must end. Now.

But we also must raise a generation of young people who have enough confidence in themselves to say, “I will not take a beating just to be accepted by you. I’d rather not have your affection or support if it means putting my life on the line.”

And if that means other students calling you out or teasing you, fine. I’d rather you talk about me like a dog today than be hazed and have my friends search to figure out what to say at my funeral.

It is time to remit dues for fiscal year (FY) 2012!  NPHC, Inc. operates on a fiscal calendar of January 1 to December 31. Annual dues are to be remitted by January 31 of a given fiscal year.

Undergraduate councils are responsible for dues in the amount of $150, Graduate councils with 1-9 Chapters in the amount of $250,  Graduate Councils with 10-19 Chapters in the amount of $300, Graduate Councils with 20-29 Chapters in the amount of  $350.00, and  Graduate Councils  with 30+ Chapters in the amount of $450.

Members remitting dues after February 15 must include a $25 late fee with annual dues. (1) If a council has not been financial in the previous fiscal year that council is responsible for remitting dues for the previous and current year, as well as a $50 reactivation fee (Ex. Undergrad councils = $350.00; Graduate Councils with 1-9 Chapters = $550.00; Graduate Councils with 10-19 Chapters = $650.00;Graduate Councils with 20-29 Chapters = $750.00;Graduate Councils  with 30+ Chapters = $850.00); and (2) if a council has not been financially active within a five year time period, that council must be re-chartered.

Again, you are advised not to wait until the last minute to remit your dues.  Should you have questions or concerns as to your council’s financial status and/or account balance, please contact NPHC National Treasurer at  treasurer@nphchq.org.

Attached is the link to the remittance form http://www.nphchq.org/docs/2012Remittanceonline.doc

Also use this link if you would like to remit payment online  http://nphccouncildues.eventbrite.com

Name: Cherrie Lemon
Major: Chemistry
Year: Senior
Hometown: St. Louis, Missouri

After four years of marching band in high school, Cherrie Lemon was done. She decided not to join the Purdue “All-American” Marching Band her freshman year, but that all changed when she heard the tapping of drums after class. Since her sophomore year, Cherrie has been a dedicated member of the marching band and is currently serving as the first African-American drum major.

Bold beginnings

“I was in the eighth grade band and out of nowhere I asked my teacher, ‘Can I conduct the next song?’ I didn’t know anything about conducting and she let me. I figured out the pattern: down, in, out, up and I thought, ‘I could do this in my sleep!’ She told me I should be a drum major in high school and I went from there.”

Humbled by success

“I’m a really grounded person because I know I worked hard to be a drum major, and I know a lot of other people did, too. I know as easy as you get things they can be taken away, so I wasn’t going to get a big head about it.”

Adrenaline rush

“Marching is one of those mental things that comes from within. When we walk out on the field, everyone is looking at us. However long it is that we walk onto the field, you just have to be on it and in the zone. You can’t think about anything else.”

Mutual admiration

“I like it when women come up to me feeling inspired. It’s always interesting to see how they get inspiration from me, and how they inspire me, as well.”

Fearless leader

“I think people are afraid to succeed because expectations change once you’re successful. People expect greater things from you from that point on because they know your potential. I hate wondering, ‘What if?’ The worst thing you can do is not try.”