the winningest organization in the history of buggy<\/a>. \u00a0Their 27 men’s and 11 women’s championships tower over the historical competition. \u00a0Their presence at the top of the\u00a0leader board\u00a0has been a constant throughout the history of the sport and their consistency has played a large role in the stability of our race across its 91 year history. \u00a0<\/p>\nPiKA’s exit from buggy is just the latest and most painful example of a stark trend in which\u00a0fraternities\u00a0at CMU are an increasingly endangered species. \u00a0Since raceday 2001 DU, DTD, PhiKap, KDR, and now PiKA were suspended or removed from campus, taking their buggy teams off the course as they went. \u00a0Of course, each of these decisions is a complicated combination of factors we’re not directly privy to. \u00a0Surely each involves mistakes made by the houses, aggressive enforcement by the school, and some unfortunate situations. \u00a0The overall trend though, is clear. \u00a0The school is not worried about losing greek organizations if they stray outside the lines.<\/p>\n
In a year that saw all 6 men’s trophies go to independents, it hurts to lose the strongest greek competitor in the race. \u00a0Buggy was started by the fraternities and its strength derives from the diversity of teams competing. A further consolidation towards the big independents is not healthy for the sport.<\/p>\n
As announced by the IFC:<\/p>\n
\nIn the interest of transparency with the Greek community, we inform
\nyou that today, April 27th, 2011, the University Committee on
\nDiscipline rendered a decision for the Beta Sigma Chapter of Pi Kappa
\nAlpha. \u00a0Based on a hearing relating to an incident in February of this
\nyear, the UDC has ruled to revoke University recognition of the
\nChapter for no less than four years. At this time, individuals living
\nwithin the 1079 facility will be required to vacate by May 16th, 2011.
\nNo official decision has been made regarding 1079 Morewood Avenue.<\/p>\n
Currently, the ability to appeal is still viable. \u00a0If an appeal is
\nsubmitted, the outcome of that decision will be made available to the
\nbroader community as soon as is convenient.
\n<\/i><\/p>\n
The announcement leaves two glimmers of hope alive, first that there is still the option to appeal. \u00a0I think that the buggy community would resoundingly support PiKA if they choose to appeal the decision. \u00a0They are a positive and important player in one of the school’s most cherished traditions. \u00a0Heck, they even let me take pictures of their buggies these days. \u00a0Second, the charter is revoked<\/del> house is kicked off for 4 years which is an infinite span in the college timescale, but not an unrecoverable one for an organization with the historical depth that PiKA has. \u00a0Here’s to PiKA making amends with the school as gracefully as they can manage, keeping their history intact and\u00a0continuous\u00a0however they can, and getting back into buggy as soon as possible.<\/p>\nUpdate (June):<\/strong>\u00a0PiKA has salvaged some of their standing with the university and will remain a recognized organization. \u00a0They will lose their house for at least 3 years, but can remain a group. \u00a0This is different than KDR’s situation which did not allow them to organize their members and participate in campus activities. \u00a0There is no guarantee that PiKA will make it back into buggy this year, but it’s now possible.<\/p>\nComments on this post have been closed, but further discussion can be found in this thread in the forum<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aw crap. \u00a0It was announced this afternoon that PiKA’s\u00a0charter has been revoked by the school CMU chapter will not be recognized for at least four years. Losing PiKA from campus is obviously a huge loss to the greek community and to the broader social community at CMU in which they played a consistently central role. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest-buggy-stuff","category-sweepstakes-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1599"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9281,"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1599\/revisions\/9281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmubuggy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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