This.

I think there will be some new policies as a result of all of this. I suspect that there will be a required visitation policy of some kind for each house. Maybe that policy will be "we let anyone in, any time" but at least it would be a policy that they have to think through and adopt. I hope that each fraternity is allowed to draft its own policy, but ultimately it is their property, so they need to do what they think is best.

I also hope the out of town formals will be banned. I think many women are in favor of that. I know it's common on other campuses, but it really can lead to some very unsafe conditions. And extremely awkward ones. How would you like to be 8 hours from home and be date raped, only to have to sit in the car with your rapist for 8 hours on the ride back?

I have no strong feelings about the alcohol policy. I would have had very strong feelings about the drug testing, but since that is off the table, it's a moot point. I love the idea of more education, for both men and women, about safety and resources.

I don't really see banning out of town formals. I would be more in favor of putting distance limits in place. St. Louis and KC, the Ozarks seem reasonable but if a girl gets in a bad situation in Chicago or Memphis she's going to have a real problem getting home. Also not allowing individual drivers (renting a bus with a professional driver) would increase the safety on a variety of levels.

The NPC sororities laid down the hammer about alcohol rules years ago and the earth didn't tilt off its axis. I'm sure the active fraternity members think housing and party rules will kill the fun. It won't. But I'm also concerned that it will drive the naughty underground which will NOT help the situation.

Once again, this sounds like a case of young people with way too much money at their disposal. Hard alcohol openly served at parties? Weekend formals in CHICAGO? These kids are going to get a surprise when they go apartment hunting after graduation.

Here's an idea. Cut dues in half, learn to drink shitty beer, and have your formal at the Columbia Holiday Inn. I guarantee that this strategy will be a better idea than the one proposed.

When I was an undergrad, many of the fraternities who didn't get a lot of social events with sororities would instead blow their money on a huge formal as a way of having something cool to point to when they were trying to competitively rush with fraternities who had 4-5 exchanges per semester. At the time, there were something like 50 IFC fraternities and 20 NPC sororities, so a fair number of groups fell into this boat.

I know I'm comparing apples and oranges with the systems, but this is just odd to me. Formals and date parties (for both sexes) were always private affairs where you could celebrate with your brothers or sisters and carefully picked dates - not rush tools.

What I don't understand is why the smaller fraternities don't get together to have mixers with the appreciably bigger sororities. Everyone would benefit.

I would say that today everything is a rush tool. Everything shows up on social media during the year. If the chapter is smart they're managing that year round so it's a flattering light. Even if they go dark before rush starts the eager PNMs would have been following the accounts and already seen everything.

Well along those lines, I don't think that private functions like mixers, date parties and formals have any place on social media where anyone in the world can see them. But of course, the idea of privacy in general seems to be something today's college students have long since jettisoned, so I'll just pack up my brontosaurus and move along.

My niece’s chapter has a long history (since the 1960s, if not before) of taking pictures of each class (senior, junior, sophomore, freshman) at “private” events. For example, the senior class at formal. The senior class at a mixer. The senior class before preference. The senior class at bid day etc. These would go into scrapbooks that anyone could view. Now with social media, many of these pictures are also posted on the chapter’s Facebook page – for example, “Pictures from 2015 Spring Formal”. The pictures posted are all “in good taste” – i.e. pictures you could show to your “uptight” grandmother at church. I believe that all the chapters at her school (sororities and fraternities) post pictures of “private” events on their Facebook pages. Again, these pictures are “in good taste”. Overall, I would say they are good PR tools for the chapters.

Of course, I joked with my niece that these “in good taste” pictures were taken early on in the night. ;)

Yes, I think the concept if "none of your business" is completely lost on most people today.

An update:

University of Missouri fraternities ban hard alcohol

"University of Missouri fraternities will not be able to have hard alcohol at social events this year and any violations will be immediately reported to the Office of Student Conduct as the result of a months-long discussion about how to reduce sexual violence on campus."

http://www.therolladailynews.com/art...NEWS/150909169

Crafting policy around the fact that someone will be raped at a fraternity function is a bit problematic, no? Considering someone apparently will be raped, is a shorter distance all that would be required to remedy the situation?

A lot of these proposed policies, I think, treat our members like non-adults and could adversely affect recruitment for both the fraternity and sorority systems.

When joining a Greek house subjects you to a million restrictions you wouldn't have if you were non-Greek, joining Circle K seems like a lot more fun.