STUDENT self-governance. The right to recruit new members for any student-run organization boils down to just that: student self-governance. In a way that directly threatens this University's foundational principle, only the four Greek Governing Councils cannot decide when to recruit new members autonomously from the University.
The University establishes its relationship with each fraternity and sorority in the BFC, IFC, ISC and MGC through the Fraternal Organization Agreement (FOA), which removes much more liability from the University than a CIO agreement does while giving the fraternities, sororities and their alumni very few benefits in return. The four Greek councils are currently seeking to work with the University to revise the FOA so that it would be more mutually beneficial to the four Greek councils and the University. One such revision, we believe, should be in Section 9 of the FOA -- which states that the University must approve all dates for fraternity and sorority recruitment.
In 1998, Dean of Students Robert T. Canevari, after long negotiations with the IFC and with the power given to him by the FOA, decided to move fraternity rush to the spring of the first year. The ISC, simultaneously, decided on their own to recruit in the spring semester of the first year. The BFC, for the most part, did not recruit first years, so they were not affected at all. The MGC was not yet in existence, but today, the MGC feels the full effect of the decision.
What exactly are the full effects of the 1998 decision on the Greek system, and why is the University administration so opposed to reconsidering a reversal of that decision? The moving of first-year rush from the fall to the spring has significantly hurt most fraternities and many sororities financially. New members joining a semester later directly correlates to losing a semester of dues for each fraternity or sorority, to not being able to fill the physical fraternity houses (or for the MGC, having hardly enough people to have a house) and to a lack of commitment by alumni to a Greek system that has now been around for over 150 years. Giving fraternities and sororities the right to recruit as a governing council is a matter of student self-governance. Allowing fraternities and sororities to recruit at some point in the fall semester is a matter of strengthening the Greek system and, potentially, the University. The institutional memory of the students who experienced fall rush may be gone, but the lasting effects of the move to first-year spring rush have not left. If the University and the four Greek councils can together solve these significant problems in another way, the issue of fall rush would be a dead one.
The University's extreme opposition to reconsidering Section 9 of the FOA or reversing the 1998 decision breaks down into two areas of concern of specifically the IFC fraternities: the first-year experience and alcohol.
The University administration states that the first-year experience was too negatively affected by fall rush to justify leaving the dates of rush alone. Interestingly enough, the University had left fall rush alone for at least 25 years until 1998, and during those 25 years most, first years, undoubtedly, had excellent first-year experiences.
The University administration argued that first years were plunging themselves into lives surrounding alcohol for which first years are not prepared. The faculty argued that pledging at any point during the first year significantly hurt scholastic performance. Without any statistics to really support or refute those arguments, I can say that I firmly believe that those potential negative effects could be reversed. The IFC could rush two weeks after fall break to avoid midterms, shorten pledge programs, increase the emphasis on scholarship and significantly alter the overall safety and security of our fraternity system.
We have made great strides in the forms of responsible behavior and accountability since 1998 -- enough positive change to warrant at least the discussion of making these changes. Additionally, limiting the right to recruit through the FOA for the BFC, ISC and MGC is completely unfounded. There is no question that joining either of those three councils' fraternities and sororities which have a much lower emphasis on alcohol and a much higher emphasis on service significantly enhances a students' experience at the University. Unfortunately, the University administration is simply unwilling to discuss any change in Section 9 of the FOA for all the Greek councils.
Ultimately, the University preaches student self-governance until the liability is simply too great. As the United States adapted the Greek governmental principle of true democracy to form a limited democracy, the University has adapted the Jeffersonian principle of true student self-governance to meet their legal needs: a limited student self-governance. As strong believers in the principle of true student self-governance, we sincerely hope that the University does not deem any other organizations as appropriate for the application of this legally based "student self-governance."
We know that the University is committed to both strengthening the Greek system and the entire University. Hopefully, we can find a way to accomplish both goals simultaneously while remaining true to this University's foundational principle.
(Ryan Ewalt is the president of the Inter-Fraternity Council. He is a fourth-year Engineering student.)
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