Greek community requires mutual responsibility

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.Membership in the greek community has enriched my experience intellectually. I've met wonderful people, grown personally and gotten to wear my Wolverine costume without waiting for Halloween - oh, Greek Week.

However, part of caring about an organization is holding it accountable for its shortcomings so it may improve and better serve its members.

The Panhellenic Council mission statement includes intellectual development, friendship, citizenship and cooperation among its principal standards.

I've already talked about intellectual development, friendship goes without saying, and DePauw's greek chapters are active in working for the philanthropies of theirs and others' chapters, and even for other campus organizations and in the community.

DePauw's Interfraternity Council constitution states DePauw fraternity members are best served by "cooperation between fraternities and their members," "looking critically at problems that affect fraternities and Greek [sic] life in general" and representing the fraternities well "through good publicity and through the intelligent handling of problems that involve fraternities."

Where are we falling short?

Cooperation and the intelligent handling of problems.

Listening to conversations of various greek men and women on campus, it's pretty clear what the big issues are: risk management for IFC and recruitment etiquette for the Panhellenic community.

IFC worked with Public Safety and Community Standards to revise its safety management policy. Wristband policies and mandatory sign-ins were considered successful compromises. The idea was that if students had some input on safety management and resulting sanctions, it was more likely that the policies would be respected. The students got their input, but the policies have not been consistently followed. Sign-ins haven't always been mandatory and wristbands haven't always been marked. Why hasn't IFC done more to ensure the enforcement of these new policies?

The Panhellenic Council has nine pages of rules and amendments in place to ensure that pre-recruitment and recruitment are not about balloons, glitz and glamour. Unfortunately, the only violations for which sanctions are actually defined are measurable infractions, like going over on time during a recruitment event. In fact, these are the only infractions with a defined sanction. What about all of the non-measurable infractions that can and will occur without effective sanctions? Fines are not the only option; Panhellenic Council could find other ways to effectively enforce these rules.

When someone breaks a rule, you don't change the rules altogether to accommodate the disobedient. That's ineffective governance. Effective councils must find ways to enforce their rules. How can we expect others to respect us when we do not respect ourselves enough to adhere to the rules we wrote ourselves?

Whether or not we like these rules, the fact is that the greek community voted on them and passed them as a whole. Whether it's resisting the urge to put up balloons, or respectfully signing in and taking your wristband, we should follow these rules out of respect for that larger community.

Part of being united as a community is holding each other accountable.



- Cheeseman is a sophomore from West Lafayette, Ind. majoring in biology and political science. She is the opinion editor of The DePauw.

opinion@thedepauw.com