The Balanced Man Program: What It Is

• The Sigma Challenge - Becoming a Brother and Adjusting to College Life
• The Phi Challenge - Building Balance
• The Epsilon Challenge - Preparing for Life After College
• Brother Mentor Challenge - Becoming A Leader

Sigma Phi Epsilon is not your typical "frat". The our charter reads, "This Fraternity will be different," and in the past few years, SigEp has completely reinvented itself to change the notion of the typical fraternity and help eliminate the negative stereotypes that have plagued the Greek Community of late.

The worst of these stereotype is hazing. Students go to college having heard horror stories of hazing in movies and on television. SigEp has completely removed the pledging process. The day men join our chapter, they are full brothers with rights and privileges equal to the oldest members of the house. There is no separation between older and newer members that tends to exist within pledging-model chapters. There is no place for hazing in SigEp.

The elimination of pledging has also enabled SigEp's Balanced Man Program to move away from the common model of member education. Typically, fraternities educate and develop their members only during the pledge process. For many houses, there is programming to help improve the new members. Pledging forces men to prove themselves worthy to enter a fraternity. The Balanced Man Program aims to "Build Better Men". Our Balanced Man Program is a large and encompassing Member Development plan providing the framework for programming meant to help educate our members for their entire college experience. There are systems in place to help educate members about everything from physical fitness, to resume building, from philanthropic endeavors, to academic support.

Most importantly, the Balanced Man Program allows members to make choices. The program is not rigid, but malleable. Whatever elements the member feels will help him, he participates in; the BMP is self-paced. There is no notion of a person must do this thing, on this date, by this time. The Balanced Man Program is made to improve the lives of each member that takes on the task of completing it, not be a hindrance to those that look to get through it.

The Balanced Man Program is the backbone which helped Sigma Phi Epsilon win the Cathedral Award for Overall Fraternity Excellence in 2005.

Note: A full version of the Member Development Plan can be found here.