Clubs upset with policy

Photo by: Henoc Kivuye

With demands for students to take down their paddles, oars and swords from public display, Oklahoma Christian University’s social clubs are challenging administration’s new views of their club insignias.

“This really isn’t a change in policy or anything like that,” Associate Dean of Students Jeff Bennett said. “There was just a communication error. I didn’t communicate to the housing people exactly what I was talking about. So this whole thing kind of blew out of proportion.”

When the initial emails with the request to take down their club memorabilia were sent out recently, students were not happy.

“The bottom line is that what we wanted to do was stay in line with what the handbook says, and our policy on hazing,” Bennett said. “So the items that needed to be removed were those things that represented hazing or were representative of a weapon. This extends to Kappa oars, Psi swords and Delta paddles.”

Men’s clubs Kappa Sigma Tau, Psi Epsilon and Delta Gamma Sigma are most affected by this request because they are accustomed to displaying  these decorations.

“I feel like it is targeted toward us: Kappa, Delta and Psi included,” senior Dwayne Wiseman, Inter-Club Council and Psi Epsilon president, said. “My take on it is that administration approved these clubs and their mascots. They allowed these clubs to have these items and mascots despite student policy. And now we’re stuck in this position. It’s causing a student uproar.”

Students aren’t standing for the new implementation of this rule, but the administration says it’s always been a part of the rules despite the fact that it has never been enforced.

“We’ve always had the policy that you couldn’t display anything that represented a weapon,” Bennett said. “And also that you couldn’t display anything that could be representative of hazing.”

In accordance with the rules that protect individuals to hazing within club organizations, the school is simply asking the members of these clubs to take down things that can be construed as hazing materials. However, students disagree with this issue, insisting that these items are simply symbols of club pride.

“A lot of the things they do with their symbols are for club pride,” Bennett said. “As long as they do that in their meetings and they’re not carrying them out to ball games, carrying them around campus, or putting them on display.”

Clubs aren’t being asked to take everything down, they’re just being asked to keep things that can be seen as hazards out of public display.

“I think that the rule has good intentions,” Kaleb King, Kappa Sigma Tau president, said. “I can understand that the university does not want publicly displayed things that they think are involved with hazing, but it is disappointing.”

Kappa is known for using their paddles in their thunderous cheering at intramural games.

“We in no way use our oars for hazing,” King said. “We have them as symbols for our club in honor of the float trip that we put on for the school each year, and as a reminder that we should be men of direction, not just going with the flow or floating idly by.”

Traditions hold strong in displaying club pride by placing emblems such as the swords, paddles, and club letters in windows.

“We have put our oars in our windows for as long as I have been here and that has always been a cool way to distinguish where our brothers live, but if it proceeds to be a rule in the future, we will move on,” King said. “We will always have oars, I guess we will just be proudly displaying them inside our apartments instead of the window.”

Hoping to calm the student body’s disapproval of this announcment, the administration is trying to find a solution to the problem that will benefit everyone.

“I think administration is working hard to fix the situation,” Wiseman said. “If things need to be changed in the ICC constitution or student handbook, we’re trying to find those common grounds.”

The Inter-Club Council is working to mend the fracture between the club members and the administration.

“We have a new ICC person working in the office,” Bennett said. “So what we’re doing is looking at the rules for the clubs and the handbook and making sure all those things are in sync with one another so there’s not any confusion.”

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