discretion
 

Why does the fraternity or sorority have to have booze at all?
The wet/dry thing is hypocritical. Why not drink outside of the
house? The disappearance of the housemother has brought us
another thing...a hovel...houses are horribly kept. Lack of the
old pledge duties-to help keep the houses shipshape-have hurt
us, too. That is not hazing and only the bleeding heart limpdicks
who are not greeks are trying to impose this crap on us...
Until each chapter, locally, in their own way as is done on their own turf, decides to come to grips with the legal/illegal handling
of booze, we will be constantly playing musical chairs, screwing
up with the school and press, and in general...getting a poor quality of member and continued bad rep....
Only you guys can do it...not us old codgers, or nationally...and it
is up to you. Discretion, manners...what happened to them?

I don't understand, just have a policy of expelling all under-age members that you see drinking alcohol. That eliminates most of your liability.

They are breaking the law right? Most other approaches are hypocritical.

Perhaps your houses have become dilapidated and rundown because of low quality members or mismanagement, but I wouldn't try to blame substances like alcohol for that result. Drinking, whether done by underaged or legal members of a house is a problem that needs to be addressed equally throughout the universities. What's the point of coming down with policies on one group when another or the entire non-greek student body can do it without question? This is the problem of enforcement of the one-sided policies.

On top of that, it would be wiser to teach people how to become responsible around alcohol rather than scold them like little children and slap them with fines. Obviously if they are going to do it, then the next step in curtailing the danger and harms of it would be to educate how to prevent problems and promote safety.

My whole point is that while drinking underage is of course illegal - you can't stop it. Do the next best thing, accept the reality of the situation and show students how to manage things and keep everyone alive.

It's just a little ignorant to assume all the problems of poor quality members comes from social activities with alcohol. I've known some pretty horrible houses that ran on substance-free activities. Bad members are the result of environment and probably a bunch of other multiple factors. Guarantee you that even without alcohol houses would still fall apart :)

RUgreek

I feel that if we expelled any member of a greek org who was caught drinking underage, we would kill our organizations. You can't throw the baby out with the bath water.

I don't think drinking is the cluprit, i think it is lack of education and a lack of an environment that fosters healthy drinking. Apparently we used to flagrantly break the drinking rules in our house, we had no clue it was supposed to be dry. Though we were kind enough to remove our alcohol from the common fridge when nat'l came to visit...:)

I am not sure I like these new alcohol policies. I don't get why NPC has to change on the basis of helping IFC fraternites. I thought that we were independent women's organizations and this seems like it goes against that. If the rational was based more on another factor, i'd have no issue, but to help out dry fraternities...

There is a great quote from earlier in the thread that I think makes a very clear explanation of why these rules were put into place:

I don't think anyone here said the policy is supposed to prevent us from drinking; I think it's supposed to help prevent us from getting sued for drinking. Obviously, a 3rd party vendor is going to do a better job than Sally Sister at prohibiting under-aged members from drinking.

Re the kicking members out for under-aged drinking thing, of course we'd lose all our members if we did that. I think the point James was trying to make was that by us trying to create a rule that eliminates our liability, but not reprimanding our members for not abiding by the law, we're being hypocritical.

I think it's tiresome to say that fraternity houses are messy or dilapidated because of drinking in them. I've seen plenty of dorms and other student apartments where they don't drink and are still messy. If mommy picked up everything before the kid came to school, I don't know why it's assumed he's immediately going to turn into Martha Stewart. This doesn't have to do with drinking, but with responsibility. I would bet the houses that have responsible drinkers in them look better than the ones where the guys do nothing but get poopy-faced.

AXiD670, this is if you have a house off-campus that everyone refers to as "the sorority house." It doesn't apply to 3 girls living in an apartment who happen to be sisters.

And this, to me, is the dumbest thing. I mean, think about what the fraternities that bought this to NPC are saying by asking for our "support." They're saying they don't think girls will want to hang out with their brothers unless booze is involved - which doesn't say much about their opinion of their brothers. They're saying this really isn't a good or popular policy because someone else has to help them enforce it. They're saying they don't really have the guts to strike out on their own without assurance. I mean, when we raised our GPA, I'm sure it hurt our rush at some schools because there were women who couldn't pledge us. We didn't ask other sororities or the fraternities to "support" us. We knew it was the right thing to do and we didn't need to have our choice validated.

If I'm not mistaken, Farmhouse has ALWAYS had dry housing and they've never asked for anyone's "support."

Panhel's statements only discuss the positive aspects of the alcohol policy, but it does not mention the negative effects on the rest of the greek community. While the object is to "level the playing field" for dry fraternities, you are actually discriminating against fraternities that allow alcohol on the premises. And forcing them to seek 3rd party vendors is a financial burden that doesn't seem to hold well. Even believing this policy would work relies on everyone following the rules. I've seen people hold illegal mixers and socials to circumvent the rules. This policy exists only to make people believe the problem is being addressed.

Perhaps this policy is working on some campuses, I really don't know because I've never heard one person mention how great and helpful it was to their organization. But I'm sure that's not the case and still feel their is a more effective hands on approach to the issue that is not being used.

RUgreek

Oh that's a hoot!!!

You said it!