The University announced last week plans to require new fraternity pledges to take a one unit course discussing issues pertinent to the Greek community, including alcohol safety, beginning this spring quarter. Residential Education’s Fraternity and Sorority Life division plans to use this class to incorporate new policies and better educate new pledges.
“[ResEd is] acknowledging the necessity for enhancing new member education,” Amanda Rodriguez, assistant director of Residential Education and Greek program advisor, wrote in an e-mail to The Daily.
Rodriguez said that while ResEd has laid out ideas, “movement to engage the leadership of the Greek community in the conceptual process is ongoing, so no details are final at this time.”
The most widely discussed proposal a potential class or seminar held during spring quarter that would be mandatory for all Greek pledges—sororities as well as fraternities. This proved unpopular among current actives and is now under further discussion. As of now, the class is being proposed as “Athletics 1.”
“The viability of a class or seminar format is still being explored,” Rodriguez said.
Fraternities’ responses to the new rules have been mixed. Nik Milanović ‘11, president of the Inter-Fraternity Council (IFC), which represents most of the fraternities on campus, blames this on a lack of communication.
“Most of the feedback about this class has been questions about the class, the format—whether it’s mandatory, whose idea it was, et cetera,” he said. “There hasn’t been a lot of positive feedback, but there’s a lack of information out there about the class.”
Cody Sam ‘12, president of the Theta Delta Chi fraternity, said the class could hurt the fraternities and serve to discourage students from rushing in the spring.
“It hurts the potential rushees who are on the fence about joining a fraternity more than anyone else,” he said. “In Theta Delt, more than half of our membership says that they initially thought they would never join a fraternity. Athletics 1 would do a lot of harm to the fraternity system at Stanford.”
Sam also raised concern that the administration proposed this class without contacting any of the fraternities beforehand.
“The people who are most affected by this change shouldn’t be involved in the deliberations as an afterthought,” he said.
Milanović echoed this sentiment, saying the main complaint he’s received from fraternities is that they feel left out of the process.
“Fraternities are generally upset about the fact that they feel this is being imposed on them, a decision made without their consent or approval,” he said, adding that Greek program administrators will be talking to the fraternities over the next few weeks to try and work out a better solution.
Rodriguez declined to elaborate on details about a timeline for the decision-making process or other educational avenues being discussed.