Report details strengths, weaknesses of Greek Life

The Office of Greek Life has formed groups to address each of the issues in the report.

By Travis Cornejo

Published May 7, 2010

Greek Life is in the process of creating work groups in response to the evaluation from Npower's visit to campus in November.

According to a letter from the Office of Greek Life, there are eight work groups: Alcohol, Academics, National Pan-Hellenic Council, Multicultural Greek Council, Interfraternity Council Freshmen Male Experience, Panhellenic Association Chapter Size, Values-Based Community Standards and Community Competition.

The Alcohol work group will cover alcohol abuse, lawlessness, fear of tragedy occurring, sexual assault, destruction of property and hazing.

Academics will cover academic achievement, standards, incentive and recognition.

The NPHC work group will cover overall council identity, governance and support.

The IFC Freshmen Male Experience work group will cover recruitment, education, institutional identity and living requirements.

The PHA Chapter Size work group will analyze chapter size and review National Panhellenic recommendations.

The Values-Based Community Standards work group will cover standards for every chapter based on values of the Greek Life community.

The Community Competition work group will cover the positive and negative aspects of competition.

Greek Life Director Janna Basler said they took the information in the report and boiled it down to the eight work groups.

According to the Npower report, nine key themes emerged when focus groups were asked to identify strengths: leadership, philanthropies, academics, alumni support, competition, fraternal values, PHA chapter size and identity for first-year PHA students.

When asked to identify weaknesses, 12 themes emerged: alcohol abuse and risk management, alcohol policies, philanthropies, perspective on university support, fraternity housing, membership size and quality, competition, values congruence, confusion on judicial procedures, marginalization of culturally based fraternities and sororities, over-programming and lack of identity for first year IFC students.

"If you go to our website, you'll see that there's an interest form to create work groups," Basler said.

The form has been available for approximately two weeks. Greek Life stakeholders, including students, alumni, faculty advisers and others, are invited to apply.

Basler said so far, there has been a good cross section of applicants.

PHA spokeswoman Michelle Hanko said she has expressed interest in the Community Competition and PHA Chapter Size work groups.

"They're just to see what people think about the different things in the report," Hanko said about the work groups.

Originally, work groups were going to begin in the summer, but after a presidents meeting, it was decided to hold off until the fall.

"Not everybody is here (in the summer)," Basler said. "We want to have more of our members present."

The structure of the work groups will be set up in the summer.

"In the fall, chapter presidents will get more people to join the workgroups," Basler said. "Within the second week of school, we'll start the actual work group meetings."

Basler said it breaks down into two parts: operational and strategic.

"We're already working as a staff to make things happen," Basler said about operational changes. "Not everything in here is a strategic issue."

Over the summer, Greek Life will work on operational issues and develop a skeleton plan for the work groups and strategic issues.

A few examples given include making presidents meetings more relevant to all four Greek Life councils. Another is how judicial matters will be handled in the future.

"All of the judicial things are not going to be handled within this office," Basler said. "They'll be handled through Student Conduct Office."

Basler said they would work on these issues over the summer, when they're working on operational issues.