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I figured someone would post on WU's new "Greek Life" policy, and I thought as an alum, I'd give my $.02:
First of all, point of clarification Wine&Silver Blue: ZBT has never had a house on campus. They will never have a house on campus. When ZBT colonized, their HouseCorp bought them a house off campus to live in because there was no open fraternity house on campus to purchase and no place to build it (based on the way the old Greek Row was built without any buildings 'below the Row'). Over time, they enjoyed their house off campus and thought that it gave their chapter 'something different'. They were not the only chapter off campus through the 2000s (TKE had a house off-campus on U-Drive before WashU bought all of those buildings and built small group). When SGH was built, ZBT was offered a chance to come on campus and declined b/c they wanted control of their house and would have to give up control of their chapter house if they moved on campus, since WU now owns all of the fraternity houses (which they bought during the 2001-2002 school year). The university could not force them on campus, so they haven't.
Back to the issue at hand...
I'm not happy with this new policy. I think that the Greek Life Coordinator has been VERY bad for Wash. U. Greek Life as a whole. She's rude, she's mean, and she doesn't listen to the chapters, she just makes up her own policies. And for someone who is Greek herself, she seems to think that "all greeks are inherently bad". I think she doesn't remember what it's like to be in college. She even didn't reach out to help Kappa Alpha Theta as they were closing, and she's an alum of Theta!
I'm a law student (as some GCers know), and as I read the policy, it applies only to "official" events. Meaning that for example, the PiPhis couldn't have a party for all PiPhis off-campus at someone's apartment or a bar where they would have to go through their Nationals to OK the event and have risk management procedures in place. It would also apply, if I read correctly, to "sisterhood" or "brotherhood" events that are chapter-wide (e.g. movie night at the house).
Greek Life cannot stop people from drinking on the South 40 (the dorm area) or at a bar. If you read StudLife (the paper) carefully, she even says that with the policy, she knows she cannot control what happens at a bar or on the 40. If I remember the article correctly, it even states that a couple of guys informally hanging around in their house drinking beer and watching a baseball game wouldn't count b/c it's not an 'official' or 'unofficial' event--that's normal house behavior. They just couldn't invite a bunch of people from outside of the house to join in.
Confusing policy yes? Extreme? YES. Stupid? Not entirely, but highly unreasonable.
It's like the cease and desist from back in 2000-2001. The "greek life advisor" is basically just trying to save her job and her butt and kiss up to the administration to make herself look good and students look bad. If she really did her job correctly, things wouldn't go out of control.
PS: I don't think WU is trying to abolish Greek Life. They let Chi Omega on last year. I think they're just trying to control what happens so it doesn't escalate into large scale problems (like deaths).
/end long $.02 rant. Thanks for reading!
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