Four houses failed the Residential Council's spring program house review, and four more houses receiving warnings. While 12 houses passed, reasons for warnings and failure included low membership, lack of a faculty adviser, failure to hold regular meetings and problems submitting spring review materials.
Delta Phi, Sigma Chi, Phi Kappa Psi and Cooking House were the four houses that failed the semiannual review.
Alpha Chi Omega was placed on warning for not having a faculty adviser. Brown's other on-campus sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta, was also warned about not having a faculty adviser, but it is in the process of acquiring one.
Kappa Alpha Theta has struggled with membership numbers for some time, failing last semester's review, but expects to have ample members next year. If it does not, ResCouncil said the sorority will fail the fall review.
Buxton International House received a warning for holding significantly fewer mandatory meetings than any other house. Buxton had already been warned about its failure to hold regular meetings in the fall review. This semester it remains on notice and has been advised to turn its Sunday brunches into informal meetings.
Another house placed on warning was Theta Delta Chi because of its absence of bylaws. All houses are required to have a set of regulations on file with the Office of Residential Life.
"We never really had a set copy of our laws, we always assumed that this is how we had always done things so it was just a matter of my typing up the bylaws, and I was lazy, and I forgot," said Thete President Matthew Mullenax '08.
Mullenax said he had just submitted the bylaws to ResCouncil, "I'm pretty confident that from the fall we should be okay," he said, though he noted that the fraternity "has a problem with damage sometimes."
Thete was also placed on notice during the fall review for issues of "cleanliness, party management and property damage," according to the Official Recommendation of Fall Review published by ResCouncil.
Cooking House, in its first year of existence, failed the review for falling short of membership requirements. The house has only 20 in-house members instead of the required 22 and only two instead of the requisite five returning members.
Jason Leung '09, president of Cooking House, said the problem with membership was not due to a lack of interest in Cooking House. "It seemed that there was a good level of interest amongst Brown students," he said, adding that the problem occurred because "there are a lot of people who expressed interest after or close to the deadline."
Interfaith House President Liz Schibuk '08 said her house faced similar problems. Interfaith House passed the review with enough members this semester but doesn't have the required number of residential members for the fall.
"We had the interest of enough people, but at the last minute, people decided to go abroad or take leave," she said. She also said many people were unaware of Super Deadline Day.
Delta Phi failed the review due to an anticipated low membership of 21 in-house residents and low returning membership. The fraternity also submitted its spring review materials a day late to ResCouncil.
"We had a confusion issue where we didn't know who was taking care of the housing," said Chester Hall '08, vice president of DPhi.
Membership numbers have been an ongoing problem for DPhi, but ResCouncil "applaud(s) their increased recruitment efforts this year, which have resulted in less-weak in-house membership anticipated for next year," according to the Spring Review Recommendations posted on ResCouncil's Web site.
Fraternity Phi Kappa Psi was four days late turning in its spring review materials to ResCouncil. The materials were also incomplete, leading to Phi Psi's failure.
All program houses are required to sponsor two community service events each year, and ResCouncil was not sure Phi Psi's sale of "Thayer Street" discount cards was "sufficient service and commitment."
Sigma Chi also failed because it did not show up at the review and did not provide information and documentation regarding their campus-wide events. Its absence at the review meant the fraternity was unable to explain why their independent liaison had not complied with ResCouncil rules by contacting all of the non-fraternity residents living in their building.
