Monday evening saw a gathering of the greek community and Institute student life administrators. The announcement of the event was vaguely reminiscent of another meeting from Spring 2006 where the “New Initiatives” were publicized. Many will remember the resulting outrage that unified the greek houses against the administration and against the policies that were presented without an opportunity for discussion or negotiation. Last week, when invitations for Monday’s meeting were distributed, many felt uneasy—at best.
The extremely short notice that attendees—including representatives from all the houses, student government, and the Alumni Inter-Greek Council—were given and the relative lack of information on the policies fueled a general sentiment that at best could be described as tentative. Nobody really knew what to expect, and many feared the worst: a repeat of the conflagration of two years ago.
The reality fell far short of that disaster. The administration has made an honest and good-faith effort to ensure that community input was reflected in the final documents that were submitted to President Shirley Ann Jackson. The working groups that were formed to discuss the Initiatives put in a lot of hard work and gathered very real statistics and feedback that ended up having a substantial impact on the final product.
With that said, communication problems at the end of the process—especially leading up to Monday’s meeting—resulted in the same general appearance of disregard that was the earmark of the original “New Initiatives.” Very few people in the room knew exactly what the document submitted to Jackson said, even though she signed it in November—three months earlier. That, in conjunction with the general lack of information flow since the end of last summer, fostered a disenfranchised attitude that has strained the relations between the greeks and the administration.
This situation is counterproductive; even Dean of Students Mark Smith has stressed that the last few months do not reflect the openness of the entire process. We need to take steps to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. This could be accomplished by a mailing list for announcements, or perhaps a website where updates could be posted regularly; regardless of the method, however, steps need to be taken to prevent further communication problems.
