Fraternities around the country have once again come under scrutiny after a recent series of deaths and disfigurements.

A recent focus of controversy has been the hazing death of a pledge at Southeast Missouri State University.

Michael Davis, a junior, died last month from head injuries allegedly sustained in a hazing ritual for the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity.

Seven fraternity members have been charged with involuntary manslaughter and face up to seven years in prison and a $5,000 fine. Four other students are charged with hazing, a misdemeanor in Missouri.

Details of the incident are hazy. But Davis' girlfriend reported that in the week before his death, he had been subjected to physical and mental abuse.

The university chapter was investigated in 1991 by the national office when rumors emerged that the chapter was hazing pledges--a practice forbidden by the national organization. The same chapter was suspended in 1988 when a pledge was knocked unconscious with a cane.

Meanwhile, in Tennessee, a frat party that ended with several party-goers in the hospital has resulted in lawsuits against both Vanderbilt University and the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.

The party, held last February, was the fraternity's traditional "burning of the lions party."

Each year, the paint is burned off two stone lions that sit at the entrance to the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house. But this time the fire spread into the crowd, sending nine students to the hospital with severe burns.

The accident occurred because a homemade mixture of cleaning substances used to ignite the lions burned out of control. A Nashville fire inspector categorized the substance as a type of napalm.

One of the students burned is now suing the local chapter and national organization of Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Vanderbilt for negligence and reckless endangerment.

After the incident, all fraternity activities at Vanderbilt were temporarily suspended.

Remember when five Florida college students were slaughtered in their apartments in 1990, plunging the state's campuses into a frenzy of paranoia?

Jailed a few months after the crimes, serial killer Danny Rolling entered a guilty plea last week. He is already serving five life sentences for other offenses and is looking at a possible death penalty for the murders.

And if you're worried that something like the above could happen to you at school, Nazareth College, in Rochester, New York, may have a solution.

The college is serving as a test market for a new manual security device that sets off strobe lights and activates alarms. The device also informs security officers who needs help and where they are located.

The hand-held device consists of a transmitter carried on a key ring. Although it is installed free, the system costs up to $99 per semester for transmitters. More than 400 students at Nazareth are now using the service.

In an unrelated note, emu societies--organizations dedicated to the breeding of the large, ostrich-like birds--are becoming major contributors to universities.

Societies in Mississippi, Texas, and Georgia are all funding university efforts to study emu nutrition, reproduction, and health. Breeders hope to eventually make emus a commercially viable source of leather, jewelry, and meat.

This story was compiled with wire dispatches and reports in The Chronicle of Higher Education.