These new plans were made public on Thursday at a meeting given by the Dean of Students Mark Smith, the Senior Judicial Advisor Travis Apgar, and Greek Dean Jessica Wickiewicz to the over five hundred assembled students in DCC 308. The room was mostly full of Greeks wearing their letters, but some non-Greeks did attend. All the seats were filled and in time the aisles, sides and front of the room had students occupying all the available space.

Dean Smith first commented on how wonderful it was that greeks were wearing their letters today, to which the crowd responded with applause, and amiably Smith said, “This is what [greek life] is, and what we want to preserve.”

As the presentation began, Smith reinforced again and again how important greek life is to Rensselaer and that the Institute considers it an important and valuable asset to its undergraduate experience. Membership to greek life offers students leadership, scholarship, service, independent living-learning communities, life-long friendships and networks. He also highlighted however that changes are in order, and will be executed over the next year with greek input. The administration hopes to align the greek community to the goals and initiatives of the Student Life Plan, form sustainable living-learning communities, and make greek life a model that represents the principles of life-long brotherhood/sisterhood, service, scholarship and leadership.

Vice President of Student Life Eddie Knowles described the motivation for the plans, “With the history and tradition of Greek life on this campus, as we sit here in 2006 we should be one of the best systems in the country…I want us to be viewed as a Model of Excellence and I don’t think that’s asking too much.”

The problems with the current state of greek life in the eyes of the administration were then presented and focused on trends that signal disconnection between greek chapter values and principles. The slides of the presentation specifically stated that there have been compromising of values and integrity, increase reliance on alcohol as a social base, decrease in academic performance, decrease in membership, compromising independent living management, and a decrease in cooperation between greek chapters.

Data was then shown to the audience of the decreasing five year trends of the percentages of greeks on campus that dropped from 27.9 percent in 2001 to 23.1 percent this past fall, the percentage of men in fraternities dropped from 32.2 percent to 25.3 percent, the GPA’s of all Greeks versus all campus decreased. The percentage of women in sororities however, increased from 14.4 percent to 16.3 percent and sorority GPA’s versus all campus averages increased from .04 to .13. While the number of chapter residences on campus remained at 28 and their occupancy also remained at 69%.

Then graphs about membership numbers, grades, drinking, partying were shown in Greek vs. non-Greek form from the last five years.

The graphs reflected the administration’s concerns of decreased membership, grades and increases in drinking and partying. Other student’s questioned the accurateness

of the graphs, that in fact were skewed to show bigger dips in GPA’s than they really have, the graphs that showed big disparities in the grades were actually scaled from 2.8 to 3.2. In addition to that, the senior surveys that compared the amount of drinking and partying not only referenced Rensselaer but UCLA, and the fact that another school was cross-referenced was never mentioned or explained.

The presentation went on to directly explain each of the new initiatives. According to the new direction the Rensselaer Resident Facility alcohol policy will be expanded to include all Greek Life chapters resulting in no consumption of storage of alcohol in any common areas on property owned, occupied or leased by a Rensselaer recognized fraternity or sorority. Social events are to be alcohol free, unless at an approved third party location like a banquet hall. Those members that are twenty one and older may have, store and consume alcohol in the privacy of their individual rooms. This policy also applies at all times, under all circumstances in all venues. Knowles said that the IFC has told him that they can’t get houses to comply to existing rules. He also said that for any year to have six houses on suspension is too many. These are some of the reasons for the administrations strive to put in place these new policies.

Angry students asked why the Greek Relationship Statement that was recently signed was circumvented. Apgar replied that the relationship statement took five years, and if these new directions wait that long, tragedies will occur and he’s not ready to put the greek organizations at risk.

The AIGC is equally as enraged as the current students, and does not stand for these changes. AIGC President, Mark Anderson expressed that these new initiatives had them completely blindsided. He and the AIGC also have taken offense to the partnership the administration claimed to have with the students and alumnus. “In a partnerships do I decrees things to my other half? Do I issue mandates? Do I withhold information and make demands?” The AIGC, students and administration should be working together towards a common goal.

As per these new directions, the alcohol policy would be in effect July 1, 2006 while the other two initiatives will take affect July 1, 2007. Apgar went on to say, this is Institute policy that is not open for discussion; the last two initiatives are not written in stone, while, the alcohol one is. This caused reaction from the crowd, in particular Bob Fishel ’07, a brother of Phi Gamma Delta, who also had been working on the student handbook subcommittee said that no students knew about these initiatives when they were being planned and if students are not informed, they can not respond. To which Apgar responded saying that these new directions are not going to be in this year’s new handbook so the subcommittee didn’t have to know and he further defended the administration by saying that when the research into these initiatives began they didn’t know it was going to lead to a change in policy.

Fishel went on to quote RPI’s Students Bill of Right’s. According to the document, “Students shall be free to organize and join lawful associations to promote their common interests…. Recognition shall not imply approval or disapproval of an organization’s aims, objectives, or policies.” To which Apgar responded that greek organizations are on Rensselaer property and recognized by Rensselaer they are under Rensselaer’s power and jurisdiction.

As presented, the new member recruitment and education will see a transformation in recruitment from rush to a year long recruitment process. Rush would begin no earlier than the sixth week of classes in the fall and end one week prior to the last day of classes, culminating in bids being extended no later than the last day of fall semester classes. In conjunction with this new recruitment process, new member education and pledging would begin with the spring semester and ends by the eighth week of the semester.

This initiative is being proposed because the administration feels that fall rush is too soon and does not give freshman enough time to acclimate to the campus and college life. However a brother from Acacia said that Greek life helped him acclimate as a freshman and it was how he survived his first semester here. Wickiewicz defended the move saying that a six week delayed rush is better than a year delayed rush which had also been discussed. However sentiments were echoed that a bad rush would ruin some houses and that they are under enough pressure from Nationals already regarding recruitment numbers.

Sororities brought up the fact that they had just spent the last two years revamping their recruitment processes and now their hard work is going to be defeated. Harrington expressed how much losing one class of members each year would hurt the system and that the sororities GPA’s and interest had been increasing with their changes, which makes the DOSO proposals obsolete.

The third and final point under these new directions is chapter management and house directors. Under this initiative chapters would be encouraged to use Institute resources and consultants with be brought in to help the campus learn how to socialize without alcohol, give new member recruitment ideas and event planning.

In addition to that, a house director would be graduate student pursuing an education degree who would serve as a live-in advisor. They would lend support and assist with educational programming and management of chapter facility to assure continuity of leadership and enable autonomy and independence. They would also provide appropriate intervention and dual reporting to DOSO and greek dean. The House Director would not be present at ritual events that are held sacred to the respective chapters.

Smith concluded the presentation by explaining that these initiatives will level the playing field among greek houses. No longer will only some houses have restrictions, but all will.

Student safety which was the administration’s main concern in all these initiatives was discussed.It was also contested that by forcing student’s off campus, more are likely to drink and drive. However, Wickiewicz said that they expect students to be responsible and not do that. However student’s further prodded about the trust placed in Greeks and non-Greeks. When point blank asked if the administration felt that Greeks were less responsible, all the administrators present looked this RSE brother in the eye and nodded yes, contradicting their earlier statements of expected responsibility.

A sister from Pi Beta Phi got up and asked the audience how many of them would have transferred if it wasn’t for Greek life, almost the whole audience raised their hands. To which Smith said, “That’s the point, that’s we want to keep it intact.”

Towards the end of the meeting a student raised a valid point that if the administration cared so much about input from the student on these new directions they are proposing why hadn’t they written anything down and why were they blowing students off. To which the administration did not respond. At this point Smith ended the meeting with many students with questions pending and with the promise of more meetings and discussion to come. He, Apgar and Wickiewicz were booed by the crowd.

After the administrators left Santosh talked to the Greeks in the audience and said they were going to offer a counter plan and asked his fellow brothers and sisters to be proactive, and not reactive. On top of that the Alumni Inter-Greek Council president Anderson informed those at the meeting said they are behind the Greeks.

After the meeting a lot of discussion has been floating around campus. Smith acknowledged that there are questions that will emerge that they hadn’t considered and that’s the point of the discussion. The administration used the open meeting as a forum to discuss the new initiative, however many students are upset over the means of how these new initiatives came about and wanted them to be brought about more democratically like the Greek Relationship Statement was brought about and implemented. When asked why the new initiatives were not included in the recent discussion over revising the relationship statement, Wickiewicz said, “We just weren’t prepared at that time,” and admitted that perhaps it should have been.

IFC President Santosh and Panhel President Jan Harrington both said that the administration came in expecting no rebuttals and no opposition from students. Currently they are preparing a sixteen point counter plan that cover the relationship statement and some new point that every house and the AIGC will sign and abide by. This counter plan is proposed to be done by next week

The reason why greeks are mad, Vaghela explained was the lack or respect and trust given to greeks. Greek leadership was totally circumvented, as was the Greek Relationship Statement, with these new directions. He went on to say,” The administration dropped it in our laps and expected us to accept it.” At the meeting the non-greek voice was heard, and especially defined by Independent Council President Rokeach who asked why the administration wanted to circumvent Greek leadership among by announcing policy already set in stone. To further compound that IFC president, Santosh Vahgela said that he was never consulted and only found out the night before this big meeting about these initiatives. Apgar responded saying that they have asked the IFC and Panhel for years to address the alcohol issue and that he had warned that if change wasn’t implemented internally it would be by the institute. He concluded telling the Greeks in the audience, “Your predecessors have failed you.”

The institute began the Relationship statement and it was meant to be a living document and it was suppose to last with reviews and amendments every few years. However these new initiatives are setting bad precedence and letting the document serve more as a figurehead, said by Vaghela.

In response to these new plans the usually apathetic campus has leaped into action with petition signings, sale of tee shirts with “Save Our Greeks,” and a website, http://www.saverpigreeks.com, all made by students and not IFC/Panhel endorsed.

Apart from the student body, the new Student Senate plans to take action. According to new Grand Marshal Zack Freeman, who said, “Currently, I am outraged at the process by which the administration did not consult with the students of any type before mandating the Greek policy.” The new Student Senate will consider passing both a resolution and potentially a referendum.

Overall, the Greek presidents were amazed at how quickly this has been taken by Rensselaer to get back at the administration. Harrington said it would affect all students, Greek and non-Greek and the independents need to realize that. Vaghela is calling all students to action and to taking a stand now. Vaghela feels that if these policies pass it will kill the system. However, Knowles has been quoted saying, “If we wanted to ban greeks, we would have.”

AIGC President, Anderson said that the AIGC plans to launch constructive dialogue with the school, but they need this “edict” removed first.