Vice Provost for Student Affairs Greg Boardman declined Kappa Sigma’s appeal on Monday, upholding Residential Education’s decision to revoke the fraternity’s housing for the coming academic year. The chapter will have a chance to apply for reinstatement in January 2012 as part of a formal relevancy presentation to a review panel.

Following Dean of Residential Education Deborah Golder’s March 11 decision to strip Kappa Sigma of its housing, fraternity members were given approximately a week’s time to present their case for an appeal. Boardman stressed that the appeal was not intended to reintroduce specific incidents that led to Golder’s ruling, but to review the process as a whole.

“The grounds for appeal were based on whether the process was unfair or if there were new facts to consider that weren’t presented earlier,” he said. “They did not provide that evidence to me to overrule Dean Golder’s decision.”

Boardman did make one amendment to ResEd’s initial ruling. Instead of applying for housing as part of a larger pool of unhoused organizations, Kappa Sigma will be given priority, allowing the chapter to make the necessary changes with an elevated possibility of reclaiming its residence.

“If they make the progress we expect them to make, they should be given the first opportunity to move back into their house,” Boardman said. “It’s going to take a lot of hard work. It also requires strong leadership and strong support.”

“When we ask them what Kappa Sig stands for, we want them to have an answer that is robust and complex,” Golder added.

The University is slated to specify the conditions on April 22.

“Everyone would have liked to see a different outcome, and we have worked tremendously hard for another one to take place,” wrote Kappa Sigma President Brian Barnes ’12 in an email to The Daily. “Unfortunately, the University felt it was in all parties’ best interest for this hiatus to occur.”

Boardman’s decision came as a particularly strong disappointment to the younger crop of Kappa Sigma members.

“Our house has been working very hard for the past several months to better the culture of the fraternity and to take steps to create the house that both the University and the Kappa Sigma members want,” said Malcolm McGregor ‘13.

While members “may disagree” with the University’s ruling, they are committed to “working wholeheartedly” to prove that the fraternity should eventually return to its house, McGregor said.

Kappa Sigma’s current residence will be used as a Row house in the 2011-12 academic year, opening up approximately 55 new spaces for upperclassmen, the majority of which will be considered “preferred” slots. According to Golder, members of Kappa Sigma will be prohibited from drawing into the facility.

The converted house will take on the name “1035 Campus,” indicative of its street address. Staffing positions will be filled using this year’s unmatched applicants.

“We have vacancies that pop up all the time, so we’ll go back to the list of folks that applied, and we’ll use that to drive and define our process,” Golder said. “We have tons and tons of people that are great applicants, but there just weren’t enough jobs to go around.”

Even with short-term plans in place following Kappa Sigma’s removal, members of the fraternity are optimistic they will return after a one-year hiatus. Barnes said he was “confident” that the chapter could successfully “work with Residential Education to meet their proposed criteria” to regain their house in the fall of 2012.

The beginnings of such an effort have already been in the works.

“As part of the appeal that we submitted, we laid out several things that we’ve already done to improve the culture of the house,” McGregor said.

Moving forward, Kappa Sigma will look to foster a sense of common identity.

“In our Kappa Sigma chapter bylaws, we have a mission statement and part of that mission statement is to further scholarship, leadership, community service, the development of social graces and the development of cultural awareness,” McGregor said. “That’s something that has always been there, but in recent years, we may have lost sight of that.”

“I think in our future actions next year, the things that we’re doing are upholding those goals,” he added.

Barnes echoed these sentiments, stating that current fraternity members “look forward to exceeding” the University’s expectations as they strive to regain their house.