https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/RPI-hockey-announcer-steps-down-in-protest-13024789.php
RPI hockey announcer steps down in protest
Cites anger over school's move to put a 'pause' on Greek life recruitment
Published 4:51 pm, Monday, June 25, 2018
TROY — A longtime radio announcer and leading voice of RPI hockey says he is quitting his volunteer position in protest over the school’s move to freeze recruitment by fraternities and sororities as well as other policies he believes are hurting his alma mater.
“It’s not easy. It’s still something I feel a great deal of loyalty for,” said Tom Reale, a 2004 graduate who has for the past eight years been among the primary commentators covering Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s hockey team.
The games are covered by announcers such as Reale on the campus radio station, WRPI.
Reale, an Iraq veteran who works in the state Legislature, posted his plans June 22 on a website “Without a Peer,” about RPI hockey that he maintains.
“This administration has surrounded itself with a bloated bureaucracy that seems forbidden to offer courses of action that have not been pre-approved from above, and which refuses to engage in self-criticism,” Reale wrote on his website.
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“This administration, over the last three years, has done something remarkable. They've taken a person who had an uncanny and certainly unusual amount of pride in a school that rarely seems to engender such pride in its students and alums, and turned him into someone who is quite ashamed,” he wrote, noting that his grandfather, father and even great uncle are graduates of the school.
The public resignation is the latest reaction to the school’s decision announced June 20 to halt the traditional fall "rush" period in which new students are recruited to join fraternities and sororities.
“They are going to stop rush in the fall and they might bring it back in the spring,” said Reale, who learned of the move in an announcement to Greek organization alumni. Reale is on the board of directors for RPI’s Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity.
The school is also creating a Greek Life Task Force to examine issues surrounding fraternities and sororities whose members comprise more than 20 percent of the student population.
The scrutiny was first announced in a June 8 letter from RPI President Shirley Ann Jackson stating that “just recently, within our Greek system, we have experienced drug-related tragedies, alcohol abuse, sexual misconduct, and instances of hazing.”
The move also comes as Greek organizations on campuses nationwide are under scrutiny.
RPI’s Greek house alumni, though, say halting the rush period could do serious harm to the organizations, which use that time to enroll new members.
RPI officials on Monday afternoon didn’t respond to an email or phone message requesting comment.
“Even just to delay this by a semester could really be damaging,” Reale said.
rkarlin@timesunion.com 518 454 5758 @RickKarlinTU
