Dear Campus Community,
Having reviewed our current social policies, national chapters have strongly recommended that we as a Greek system adhere to expected risk management guidelines.
In accordance with National Fraternity and Sorority guidelines, Union College will be making changes to its social policies beginning Fall 2012.
The first change that will be implemented is that all registered social events will be moving to a list based system.
This is not in an effort to make Greek life events more exclusive; rather, these policies are a part of national Greek guidelines, and are being enacted to heighten the sense of accountability during social events.
In order to start the year on a healthy and productive note Union’s administration have also requested that temporary social policies be put in place during the first five weeks of fall term.
For the first two weeks all fraternity functions will be dry events. This is an effort to allow Greek houses to focus on rush and recruitment events.
Starting week three the guest list system will be put in place. These lists can include pledging sophomores as well as all juniors and seniors.
In an effort to meet the request of Union’s administration prior to week five, no freshman or independent sophomores will be allowed to be placed on a registered party guest list.
After week 5 fall term, any Union student will be eligible to attend Greek parties, provided they have received an invitation.
These changes are being put in place in order to ensure Union’s Greek Community will continue to thrive into the future.
Sincerely,
IFC and CPC
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This is ridiculous. Freshman are going to make the unsafe decision to drink alone with their friends in their dorm. They won’t have an upperclassman there to help them if something goes wrong and in turn will have to go to an RA or campus safety and gather points. The lists are going to make greek life more exclusive and it is only going to alienate greeks and non-greeks to a greater extent. As it is now anyone can attend a greek function, much like your loved Minerva functions, and by using a list policy this will only alienate, anger and frustrate the non-greek portion of campus. This is going to cause more problems than it will solve and your phasing out of the Greek system will anger Alumni and hurt your precious donations. Good job union for getting it wrong again.
Terrible idea. The open attendance policy is what keeps Greek life successful at Union. The policies of exclusiveness are what give greeks such a bad reputation at other campuses. But I guess the point is to diminish the greek’s popularity among the student body, so this should be an effective tactic. The administration should understand that this is only going to exacerbate the drinking problem Union because it’s going to mean shots of liquor in dorm rooms instead of a beer or two at a frat. It’s never going to mean an alcohol-free night at a Minerva. If they’re lucky students will be wondering around Schenectady looking for bars that aren’t checking IDs.
Frats will not be able to adhere to this type of “restricted clearance” attendance policy even if they make considerable efforts to abide by the drastic new regulations. As a recent alum and fraternity brother its obvious to me that parties get to crowded at a certain point to ever be able to strictly control entrance. Freshman, non-greeks will be let in by registered attendees, brothers or just sneak in, which will result in write-ups for the party hosts and create animosity towards any unfamiliar person at an event.
We are the Union COMMUNITY right? This is really going to exacerbate the exclusivity stereotype of fraternities. I was in a fraternity and fraternities should be seen as welcoming places to all students, not where you have to be on a “list” to get in. All students should have social options on weekend nights and not limited to non-fraternity parties because they’re not on some pretentious, exclusive list like they’re trying to get into some big club in New York to party with rock stars. I think a fraternity as a statement, should just hand the school a 2,200 student guest list to show all students are welcome.
What ever happened to our constitutional right to free association? This rule is ridiculous and and probably illegal.