Sigma Chi Takes Stance On “Frat Humor”

The vision of the Sigma Chi Fraternity is “To be the preeminent collegiate leadership development organization — aligned, focused and living our core values.”
Following in this vision, Sigma Chis, both undergraduate and alumni, have been faced with a challenge that pushes against those very values learned in every brother’s journey through the Fraternity’s teachings.
The website, Total Frat Move, a site devoted to humor surrounding Greek-letter organizations, activities and slang, is marketing its new endeavor, Total Frat Movie, which essentially would include footage of fraternity parties shot on location from college campuses across North America. The site is reaching out to Sigma Chi alumni and undergraduates in order to help fund and shoot the film.
Sigma Chi strongly encourages all its members and chapters to refuse responding to any solicitations from any film agency or producer, director, etc., looking to exploit the Greek-letter system by shooting this footage. Cooperating with a film agency not only risks a chapter’s standing with its own university and the Sigma Chi Fraternity, but depending the severity of the offense, individual members also risk their standing with the Fraternity if the member partakes in any conduct that is detrimental to being a Sigma Chi.
Andy Huston, the director of member services at the North-American Interfraternity Conference (NIC) in Indianapolis, sent out a release to all NIC-member fraternities to advise their members of the threat posed by the nature of films such as Total Frat Movie.
“Our ability to thrive as a fraternal movement is linked to our reputation as a whole. The quality of that reputation is based upon the actions of our members. While we know the many good stories of fraternity that demonstrate our ability to build better men, we know negative behavior and inconsistent application of values erode public confidence in the fraternal experience,” Huston wrote. “ The NIC is aware of some private media efforts that will be extremely negative for the reputations of our values-based organizations … While we are unable to control what media is produced, our member fraternities are able to prepare their members to understand and uphold organizational policies regarding media … At this time, we believe our best course of action is to minimize the impact by addressing this with our students [and alumni]; a public attack would further promote their efforts while exposing the weaknesses of the fraternal movement.”
Any members with questions regarding this situation or another similar to this, or if any member would like to let Sigma Chi International Headquarters know that they have been contacted by a film agency, please email headquarters@sigmachi.org.