Editor’s note: Toby Winick is a staff writer at the Daily. Winick was not involved in the writing or editing of this article.
Following the completion of a social probation issued in April 2023, the fraternity Zeta Beta Tau will resume hosting social activities starting this fall, while remaining under disciplinary probation.
Mary Kate Kelley, director of orientation and student experience, wrote in a statement to the Daily that ZBT was “found responsible for alcohol policy violations including providing alcohol to an underage person, failing to comply with social event policies, other behaviors that pose a risk to safety of self or others, and open container in a public or open area.”
“Essentially, you’re not allowed to serve alcohol at all at a party, and people can only bring in alcohol if their ID is over 21 and then they need to keep it on their person, or in a fridge or some area where people aren’t going to grab it,” ZBT President Toby Winick, a junior, explained. “At a party in spring 2023, the fraternity broke those rules.”
Kelley also noted that “ZBT lost the privilege to host social events until this Fall and will remain on probation through the spring semester, with the privilege of hosting social events.” Under its disciplinary probation, which will continue through May 23, 2025, ZBT is “permitted to conduct operations as usual,” as per the Residential Life and Learning website. However, if ZBT is found to violate the terms of disciplinary probation or any other university policies, it risks having its recognition revoked by the university.
“ZBT is in the process of finalizing their final sanctions,” Kelley wrote. “Once completed and approved by Community Standards, they must follow the Social Event Registration Process that all houses must follow to host social events.”
According to Kelley, while under probation, ZBT was required to engage in several leadership trainings, as well as a Green Dot training session and a Social Event Training with its national office. ZBT was also mandated to write a “historical transition document” for the incoming executive board that outlines lessons learned during probation and creates recommendations for the future.
While ZBT was prohibited from hosting social events under disciplinary probation, they were still allowed to host other events.
“Even though the chapter couldn’t host social events, I’m still pretty satisfied with the philanthropy events, the alumni outreach and brotherhood events that we did,” Winick said. “I still think that, for instance, going on a chapter retreat both semesters last year was a highlight.”
“[ZBT plans] to formally register some social events. That’s very exciting for [the] guys,” Winick said. “But [we] definitely [aim] to make sure that everyone is on the same page as far as Tufts safety requirements, and not just theirs, but our national [chapter] and [executive board’s] expectations for conduct and rules during events.”
According to Winick, the fraternity currently has about 20 brothers and their incoming rush class had eight people. Winick is looking forward to “begin to know our new rush class, do fun things with them [and work] on alumni and philanthropy [events].”
Sam Goldstone, a senior and ZBT’s risk manager, shares that ZBT has two main goals for their future plans: social experiences and brotherhood development.
“Now that we’re able to host social events, it’ll be a better experience for brothers since they’re going to be able to have their friends come to the house a lot more,” Goldstone said. “[This will] hopefully create a really nice comfortable environment for [new members] that want to come join the fraternity next year.”
Goldstone also shared some of the difficulties ZBT faced recruiting new members under social probation.
“It’s a lot harder to have sophomores even know about the chapter if you’re not throwing social events at all,” Goldstone said. “Last year, we didn’t throw any events. When I was talking to my friends who were freshmen and are sophomores now, they were like, ‘I didn’t even know ZBT was a real frat.’”
Goldstone shared that he is looking forward to having the new members experience larger social gatherings and events, along with upholding the fraternity’s core values of intellectual awareness, social responsibility, integrity and brotherly love.
“We have a really good class of new brothers this semester that are super excited to get to work planning our social events and getting things on the calendar,” Goldstone said.
Goldstone elaborated that he joined ZBT because of its culture of community and academic success.
“One main reason [I joined ZBT was] I was looking for a community of people who I could hang out with, do fun things with … a community of people who I thought would be helpful to my development as an individual,” he said. “It’s all about creating a good community where we’re focused around good values, and we really try as a chapter to live up to those values.”
