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Founding Facts: First Administration: About Zeta Psi, Rho Alpha: The following is an excerpt from a research paper written by Thomas Popik, our Phi during the 1981-82 school year. In the latter years of the 1970s MIT began to experience severe overcrowding problem in its dormitory system. These problems resulted from large freshman class sizes for several consecutive years. Concurrent with the problems of dormitory crowding, a national fraternity, Zeta Psi, first attempted to start a new chapter on campus in 1976. The process of obtaining clearance to colonize from the IFC (Interfraternity Conference) took until the Spring of 1978, largely because another fraternity, Alpha Delta Phi, had just been founded in 1976. I first became associated with the fledgling Zeta Psi Chapter in the Fall of 1978 when I began to attend its rush functions designed to recruit new members. The current members were extremely optimistic about attaining housing in the near future. All they had to do was fulfill there part of the bargain by reaching a membership of twenty-five and MIT, with its great resources, would provide them a house. It became evident later in the year that our goal of twenty-five members would not be reached. However, MIT still made a commitment to search for housing even though our membership consisted of only thirteen by the end of the Spring term. During the Summer of 1979 we were informed that a house had been found - a burnt-out funeral parlor near Kenmore Square. But renovations would not be completed for some time, probably not until the following Summer. In the meantime we leased a group of adjacent apartments near Central Square in Cambridge with Institute assistance. The Fall Rush Week started and we were busy recruiting new members with the promise of a house in the Back Bay when word came that the deal had fallen through. We were to stay in the temporary apartment arrangement for the next two years. In October of 1980 an Institute representative from the Real Estate Office, Merrick Leler, came over to our apartments to explain a possible housing arrangement at 233 Massachusetts Avenue. The arrangement would not be ideal but considering the situation in the Back Bay, still seemed very attractive. The fraternity decided to take the opportunity. With a laugh we later realized that this would mean the end of Revolution Books. We passed by the bookstore daily on the way to classes but none of us had ever stopped in. The posters and banners in the window, with their assessments of the world situation and exhortation to revolution, seemed to be just one more facet of the liberal Cambridge mentality. However, the fraternity was far from liberal; in fact, it was extremely conservative. We could hardly contain our amusement when we learned that Revolution Books thought that its impending eviction was a vicious plot of the Reagan Administration. I was president at the time and as such it was my duty to attend the zoning hearings. My amusement quickly disappeared when I saw Revolution Books appear en masse at the hearing. Politely they asked if we could please withdraw our petition. We just had to understand how important this bookstore would be in the coming revolution in the eighties. In the two-week period after the zoning had been conditionally approved but before MIT presented evidence of its compliance before the Board, Revolution Books repeatedly tried to contact us in efforts to win the "people" of the fraternity to theuir side. To them we were being used as pawns of the Institute, a suspicion confirmed by the seeming ignorance of the fraternity members that they were able to engage in conversation. If indeed we were pawns, then it was a position that we actively welcomed! As president I was glad that we were perceived as such. Later, after we moved into the new building, I did not want any reprisals to be taken against us. As for the ignorance, the members had been instructed to say nothing since I knew that whatever we said might later be twisted against us at the second zoning hearing. And as expected, the Revolution Books spokesman did state that the fraternity members were ignorant and being used as pawns. In the personal conversations with Revolution Books that I was unable to avoid, I professed that we were all too busy with our studies to think about such things as revolutionary theory. The details of negotiating with Revolution Books I gladly left to MIT. I had neither the expertise, patience, or time to deal with such people. It was with great relief that I found out that Revolution Books had been evicted and stopped its negotiations with the Institute. One thing that I did not want was to be in the same building as a bunch of revolutionary communists. (And, perhaps, neither did they want to coexist with a conservative fraternity.) The remainder of our housing efforts have been almost plain in comparison. We dealt extensively with the MIT architects and achieved the interior design which we wanted. We had some problems with the contractors and the city building inspectors, but nothing to compare with the Revolution Books conflict. On November 11th we moved into the newly renovated building. A major point to be made is that an already existing fraternity was ready to move into the Institute-provided building. For while MIT had worked on housing, the fraternity had built an organization and a membership of forty-two. Both factors were necessary to achieve the goal of increased undergraduate housing. In this sense, the relationship between MIT and its fraternities is truly a mutually beneficial partnership. |
Zeta Psi Fraternity, Massachusetts Institute of Technology