Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Saturday, August 23, 2025

DTD houses grad students

As a result of the disciplinary violations by the Tufts chapter of the Delta Tau Delta (DTD) fraternity last spring, the fraternity's former house at 98 Professors Row will be used this year to house graduate students.

There are currently eight graduate students and one transfer student renting rooms in the house, which has sixteen rooms available.

The chapter was already on social probation when, on Feb. 26, then-freshman DTD pledge Ian McPherran collapsed and stopped breathing after he had been drinking at a pledge event.

The chapter later admitted to providing alcohol to minors, using alcohol in pledge activities, hazing, violating their probationary status, and violating membership eligibility requirements.

The University then closed the chapter for a year, with a one year probationary period after that. The chapter's charter was revoked by the national DTD organization, however so after this year the house will not return to use by DTD.

The house is privately owned by the House Corporation of the Beta Mu Chapter of Delta Tau Delta, which is operated by DTD alumni.

"Since there will be no undergraduate members of the fraternity living there for some time, Tufts administration has assisted the House Corporation in considering alternatives for residency," Director of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs Todd Sullivan said.

Steve Chandler, a representative of the House Corporation, worked with the University and independent contractors to refurbish the house and advertise it as student housing.

All of the rooms in the house are being rented as singles at the standard Tufts graduate student housing rate of $3,360 for a two-room suite and $2,970 for a single. This rate includes the period of winter break.

According to Chandler, approximately $60,000 was put into the house over the summer, $45,000 more than is usually spent on maintaining the house.

Most of the alumni at the House Corporation, "agree that it is unfortunate that we have a break in our 116 years at Tufts University," Chandler said.

Under the rules of the national DTD organization, the Tufts chapter can eventually reform. The fraternity must first form a colony, defined by DTD as "a group of 20 or more men working together as Delts to establish the functions of a chapter."

Chandler said they hope to form a colony within three years. A colony must operate for a minimum of ten months before it is eligible for chapter status.

Not until a colony has been a chapter for two years can it move into its own facility. According to Chandler, the House Corporation will maintain 98 Professors Row for graduate students "until such time as we have an active chapter."

The last president of the Tufts chapter of DTD, senior Noah Ornstein, is still upset at the disciplinary process that led to the closure of DTD. "Only in academia could such a...kangaroo court of a system be allowed to exist," he said.

The Chi Alpha chapter of the Chi Omega sorority was also involved in the events that led to the closure of DTD. In a press release from the Office of Community Relations, Chi Omega admitted to "participating in the hazing of Delta Tau Delta fraternity pledges."

The sorority house will remain open but social events will be prohibited and there will be no pledge class this year.