As administrators tout their vision of a new and improved University greek system, fraternity and sorority leaders are feeling like they’ve been left with the dirty work of carrying out an agenda they didn’t set.
“The administration handed us this decision that has a drastic effect on chapter members in a letter,” said Jackie Ray, president of the Panhellenic Council, a body of sorority representatives. “They failed to give us the steps to get there. “
On May 17, University President Dave Frohnmayer approved new standards, effective this fall, for all fraternities and sororities that receive school services. The standards require chapters to have alcohol- and drug-free housing and to maintain a chapter grade point average at least as high as the University men’s and women’s
averages. Chapters will also be required to show a commitment to community service and member leadership development.
Frohnmayer said he believed the new standards are necessary to fix a failing greek social policy and to curb reckless underage drinking in fraternity houses.
“Voluntary standards were not only not working, they were actually being flaunted,” he said.
Ray said she “understands the validity” of his decision. However, administrators’ failure to involve students more closely in the decision-making process has cost them the support of many chapter members, she said, making it difficult for greek student leaders to implement the new standards.
“Now we’re supposed to enforce this, and yet, when you have a number of people who don’t agree with the standards, it’s going to be hard to get those same people to enforce the rules,” she said.
The call for change in the greek system began last summer when EMU Director of Student Activities Gregg Lobisser, Associate Vice President for Student Affairs Anne Leavitt and Greek Life advisers began discussing how to improve the organization’s social policies.
At the same time, he said, they began to hear from greek alumni who were worried because greek recruitment was declining while University enrollment was rising.
They began meeting with local alumni groups, and found that many greek alumni supported the idea of a dry greek system. Some people said it would “level the playing field” in recruitment, Lobisser said. Other alumni, who graduated in the 1970s and 80s, said they drank too much in their chapters and they wanted a better atmosphere for greek students today.
In the fall, Lobisser said, administrators began meeting with house corporation owners, the landlords of individual chapter houses who are usually greek alumni. Administrators also began meeting with some greek students, including outgoing Interfraternity and Panhellenic presidents Kevin Gelbrich and Amy Stanton and incoming presidents Ray and Kyle Knepper.
Administrators expanded the scope of their discussion with students in January, meeting with chapter presidents and Interfraternity and Panhellenic council members to discuss the “health of the greek system,” Lobisser said.
From students, they heard first-hand that voluntary social policies were no longer working. Some students thought the solution was to have all houses go dry, he said, but a larger number of students said all chapters should be wet.
Lobisser said he and Leavitt took student perspectives into account in making their recommendation to the president, but they didn’t
consider letting students decide the social policy to be a viable option, particularly on the issue of drinking in the houses.
“Why not let students choose?” he said. “It’s an area where it’s very hard for students to choose anything other than the trend, the norm. The peer pressure is just enormous.”
Ray and IFC Vice President for Leadership Education Jonah Lee said at meetings they attended with administrators in January and February, going dry was on everyone’s mind but it was never mentioned directly. Student leaders tried to get a copy of the proposal, but they were told it was an “oral proposal,” Ray said. They received a copy of it the day before it was approved, she said.
Students raised their concerns about the proposed changes with Frohnmayer at a meeting of the Associated Students Presidential Advisory Council in early May. With the help of ASUO, on May 14 they started a student calling campaign to the president’s office asking him to postpone signing the proposal.
“We didn’t ask him not to sign it,” Ray said. “We asked him to wait for more consideration of student voices.”
Three days after the calling campaign began, Frohnmayer approved the proposal.
He said he decided to approve it despite student concerns because the greek social policy is a serious issue involving more people than just students.
“We’re not going to sit on our hands while there are tragedies waiting to happen,” he said.
After the president’s decision was announced, Ray said IFC and Panhellenic leaders received a letter notifying them of the deadlines greek chapters would have to meet in order to maintain University affiliation. Since then, they haven’t met with, or heard from, administrators.
“Everything has been so vague and they’re leaving it to us to have jurisdiction over it,” she said.
Greek chapters are required to submit a written agreement by Sept. 1 showing that they will comply with the new standards by December. If the administration does not receive that agreement by Dec. 15, the chapter will lose University affiliation and the president will write a letter to the chapter’s national organization asking that the house’s charter be revoked.
Lobisser said chapters that do sign will be evaluated to check their six-month and 12-month progress, in effect giving them a year to comply with the new standards. Chapters will be judged according to nonsubjective, specific standards and some leeway will be given to chapters working to change, he said. Administrators understand, for example, that chapters with low GPAs may not be able to raise them to the University overall average quickly, he said.
“You must make steady progress,” he said. “If (the average GPA) is moving up, you’re making progress and you’re in compliance.”
The standards are so new that specific endorsement requirements haven’t been put in writing yet, Lobisser said. With only two weeks left in the term and most greek student leaders gone for the summer, Ray and Lee said they need more time and more concrete definitions of what constitutes progress to work with.
“Progression is the vaguest term you can use,” Ray said. “We need some things on paper.”
They want to know exactly how much chapter GPAs will need to go up for them to be in compliance. They wonder how the University will be able to accurately evaluate more subjective areas such as the contribution a chapter makes to the community.
“These are the kinds of things that should have been considered before this decision was made,” Ray said.
While any large organization has problems, Lee said the greek system is not in the state of crisis it’s been portrayed to be in.
“It feels very much blown out of proportion,” he said.
Ray said the new standards seem to be aimed less at finding a realistic solution to problems than at improving the University’s image.
“I feel like decisions were made on the basis of what looks good,” she said. “It looks good that we’re going to go dry. … But it’s going to take us a while to get there.”