IHC Issues Pledge-Related Proposal

Author: Tim McCahill Assistant News Editor

Members of the Inter-house Council (IHC), the governing body of all the College's social houses, convened on Tuesday, Oct. 30 to draft a proposal responding to the actions of an Alpha Delta Phi (ADP) pledge class member during the Homecoming football game half time show.

The proposal, which was submitted to IHC Advisor and Assistant Dean of Student Affairs Karen Guttentag and Dean of Student Affairs Ann Hanson on Nov. 1, claimed ADP's responsibility for the pledge's actions and declared that it would issue full apologies to both the administration and those who were offended by those actions.

The proposal also recommended sanctions against ADP and agreed that Donald Anselmi '04, the student who perpetrated the acts, issue a series of public and personal apologies to members of the College community.

Anselmi will also be removed as pledge class president, and will be disciplined internally by current ADP members.

In addition, the proposal stipulated that all ADP pledge activities be suspended until Nov. 5, and forbids ADP pledges from attending that social house's parties for the remainder of the pledge process. ADP members will also carry out a series of high profile community service activities to "rebuild their image," according to House President John Joy '02.

Joy, who outlined the proposal's guidelines, said that the administration accepted the document and emphasized that the IHC review in full pledge events in order to prevent future incidents that might call into question the pledge process itself.

It also placed the house on social probation until Nov. 9.

"The IHC's job was to determine what if any IHC and College violations had been [made] by ADP to make a recommendation to the administration of an appropriate response," Guttentag wrote in an e-mail to The Campus.

"I participated in their initial deliberation and was extremely impressed both with the level of thoughtfulness with which they evaluated the incident and with the way they evaluated the incident."