Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/2001/04/23/the_future_will_be_created_in_the_basement_of_parkhurst.php
Monday, April 23, 2001
For the past six months, a Greek Life Steering Committee(GLSC) has prepared a report, due to be released in the very near future, on changes that should be implemented in the Greek system. I have reviewed a copy of the final draft of that document. It is, I am sorry to report, deeply flawed, both in its lack of specificity and in the content of many of its most important recommendations. For the sake of brevity, I will not attempt to summarize its entire contents, but will rather present the most significant recommendations and themes, both good and bad.
The Committee approached its work on the basis of six guiding principles for the Greek system: Scholarship, Leadership Development, Service/Philanthropy, Brotherhood/Sisterhood, Inclusivity, and Accountability. Its report makes recommendations for improving the performance of Greek organizations, and the system as a whole, in relation to these principles, as well as in the area of public relations.
Before dealing with the contents of the report, a critical failing in the area of procedure must be reported. Several students serving on the Committee whom I spoke with informed me that the final document, produced by the Committee's Chairwoman, Assistant Dean of Residential Life Cassie Barnhardt, both ignored major elements of the work actually done by the Committee without discussion, and included elements specifically rejected by the Committee as a whole. Two of those students have informed Dean Barnhardt that they may not be able to sign the document unless these issues are addressed.
The GLSC was formed with the explicit assurance that by including students, some of the them chosen directly by the Co-ed Fraternity Sorority Council, students would have a meaningful voice in determining the recommendations made in the resulting report. It now appears that not only students voices, but even those of faculty and alumni may have been circumvented to a significant extent, and replaced by the fiats of ORL. Even were the contents of the report exemplary, this would have been a grave violation of the spirit of the enterprise. As the report is less than exemplary, this process represents an inexcusable flaw that undermines the legitimacy of the Committee itself.
In light of the somewhat "unique" method that created the report I am discussing, I must qualify one aspect of my analysis before I continue. Throughout, I will be referring to "the Committee" as the body making recommendations. However, since it is unclear what parts of the report are the work of the GLSC as a whole, and what parts that of Dean Barnhardt alone, I apologize in advance for any aspersions I may cast, by implication, upon committee members who had no part in the creation of certain recommendations. That said, let us examine the contents of the GLSC report.
Scholarship
Defined as "a commitment to the pursuit of knowledge, with individual academic excellence as the primary goal," it is this principle which contains some of the most unfortunate recommendations. Most egregious, clearly, is that only those students with a grade point average(GPA) of higher than 2.30 be allowed to participate in rush or remain a member of a Greek organization. The double standard contained in this simple recommendation is appalling. The College itself imposes no sanction on students with a GPA below 2.30. Such students are not on any form of academic probation. They are not denied any College privileges. They may belong to any other type of organization on campus, and may be president of any of them, of their class, or of the Student Assembly. They may sit on College committees such as the GLSC, and even on Trustee committees. Yet apparently they would no longer be judged worthy of membership in a Greek organization.
Their is no logic to this proposal. This was recognized by the GLSC itself, which at their final meeting explicitly rejected this provision, only to find it reincorporated into the final document. The conspiracy theorist might say that the goal of this is to reduce the number of students, especially those of lower academic achievement, in Greek organizations. I shall confine myself to saying that it is an appalling idea that holds Greek members to higher standards than other students for no legitimate purpose, and creates two tiers of students - those who are "smart" enough to be members of a Greek organization, and those who are not.
A similar, those somewhat less problematic, recommendation also apparently imposed by Dean Barnhardt is that each Greek organization's recognition be contingent on its maintaining an average GPA of 2.30. While this once again represents a double standard imposed without justification (no other student organization faces a similar responsibility) it has at least the benefit of being unintrusive. Over the last several years, the only Greek organization to approach that cut off has been Alpha Phi Alpha. While the Black Greek fraternities hardly seem the place for the College to crack down, at least this recommendation will not have a system-wide impact.
A vast array of proposals were also included by the Committee relating to organizational practice. These consist of recommended requirements for Greek organizations to produce academic support structures for students, including new positions in each house and the various Greek councils. While to a certain extent these are productive recommendations, in many respects they simply go to far.
The guiding principle of scholarship for Greek organizations should not be primarily academic in nature, it should be intellectual. Greek houses should be places where the open exchange of ideas is promoted, where intellectual pursuits are encouraged, and where members' minds are broadened. Houses should not, however, be study halls. They are, like the vast majority of student organizations, extra-academic as well as extra-curricular.
Greek organizations are intended to teach lessons that are not available in the classroom, not to provide help in learning classroom lessons. They should be careful not to discourage or impede academic excellence, but encouraging it should not be one of their primary missions. Thus, while the Committee's proposal for partnerships with academic departments is a good one, its insistence on a specific organizational position of liaison to the Academic Skills Center quite simply misses the point. There are a number of similar proposals, such as ensuring that each house include study spaces, access to technology, and quiet time, that not only require resources rarely found in the dorms, but that seem to equate a Greek organization with a giant study group. That is not why Greek houses are formed. It is not a mission required of other type of organizations, and it is unfair to impose it upon houses.
On the brighter side, the Committee made several proposals relating to the strengthening of ties between Greek organizations and the faculty, including a Faculty Mentor program. That program would link faculty members with a specific Greek house, though beyond that details are not included. The lack of relationships between Greek organizations and faculty members has long been a major flaw in the Greek system, and it would be refreshing to see a major effort on both sides, with clear administration support, to remedy that lack.
Leadership Development
This section is devoted to a set of recommendations that are far less problematic than they are meaningless. Reform of the current Council structure of Greek governance is recommended, but without any details. Those details are to be determined later, presumably by another committee. While I certainly believe Greek governance leaves much to be desired, merely stating that point without recommending an alternative structure except in generalized terms like "a more equitable power dynamic between the Councils" is of very little value.
A host of recommendations for the creation of leadership training programs are also included in the report, all of them once again, to be created later. The same objection regarding details applies here as well. To say "let's create a training course" seems hardly worth six months effort. Moreover, this entire concept, while probably harmless, is once again flawed. Training sessions do not create leaders, real life does. Natural aptitude and experience is the only recipe for good leadership, and all the training programs in the world will only add minimally to that. So while a better program for training new officers in their responsibilities, as recommended in vague terms, is a clear need and financial management training (another recommendation) would be valuable on a small scale, the type of continuing leadership training recommended by the Committee is simply unnecessary. Leadership conferences, organizational retreats, and a Leadership Advisory Group, all recommended by the Committee, accomplish nothing and cost students time they can ill afford to waste.
However, along with the initial officer training and financial training programs, the Committee did make valuable recommendations on the topic of alumni relations. The report's call for an increased connection between the Greek Councils and the CFS Alumni Advisor Groups is long overdue, as is the call for the alumni group to organize itself formally and effectively. Suggestions for increased contact with the Office of Alumni Relations are also quite correct. The alumni of the College should play an important role in any changes to the Greek system, and a closer relationship between current and former Greek members, at the very least, is essential.
Service/Philanthropy
The recommendations under this principle should be unobjectionable to every member of the Dartmouth community. The report's proposals for a more focused approach by Greek organizations to community service, working for the most part on one particular cause or with one particular outside organization of interest to the membership would indeed create closer ties with the community outside of Dartmouth. The Committee's suggestion that the Greek system and the Tucker Foundation become more closely linked is sensible, and should certainly be implemented.
Even this section, though better, still suffers from the vagueness that characterizes the entire report. It offers some specifics as to what Greek organizations should do, but sets out no firm guidelines or regulations to be adopted. If this were a document that was aimed at encouraging those organizations to improve, that would be one thing. But the purpose of this report is to establish a new College policy towards the Greek system, and that demands more specifics than are given regarding service or anything else.
Brotherhood/Sisterhood
At some point I obviously run the risk of belaboring the point, but in the brotherhood/sisterhood section there is, once again, a dearth of specifics. The current "Big Brother/Big Sister programs need to be further developed." How, you ask? We'll find out eventually, I'm sure, but not in this report. Positive rituals and ceremonies should be created or revived. What constitutes a positive ritual? Unclear, though apparently installing officers and having them take an oath of office is one. Greek organizations should invest in building bonds of siblinghood between organizations. Not surprisingly there are no specifics as to how, nor as to what makes the bond of brotherhood or sisterhood special if it includes 1,500 people in 28 different organizations.
The goals of the Committee on this issue are obviously good ones, but their report gives no meaningful plan for how to accomplish them. Moreover, their inclusion of an unqualified denunciation of hazing is wildly out of place given that the new hazing policy, as I have discussed in a previous column, can be applied to just about any activity for new members one might think of. The Committee would have been far better served to clarify what they mean by hazing.
Inclusivity
This section of the report ostensibly concerns itself with both embracing "diversity" and appreciating "differences in thought and opinion." Like so many of the College's proposals in recent years, the former is discussed essentially to the exclusion of the latter. As this comes as no great surprise, I am sure, to the vast majority of readers, it is not worth much comment beyond acknowledging its persistence in this document. On the issue of diversity, however, the report's recommendations are something of a mixed bag.
On the one hand, the Committee recommends partnerships between Greek and non-Greek organizations, the benefits of which have long been recognized, and held a prominent position in the CFSC's own response to the Student Life Initiative. On the other hand, the report focuses far too much on diversity and cultural programming, both by these partnerships and by the organization on its own. If nothing else has been demonstrated by the College's efforts at promoting diversity in my four years at Dartmouth, it is that appreciation of diversity cannot be accomplished by programming of this kind. Those who respond to such programming have that appreciation already. Those who do not have that appreciation will always consider it a waste of their time.
The Committee's recommendations are a recipe, in this case, for more of the same approach that has failed miserably in the past. A far better alternative, that I am told was suggested by several Committee members but rejected in the final draft, is to promote more social interaction between people of different backgrounds. Few people ever learn to appreciate diversity in the abstract. But many will easily come to appreciate their diverse peers, and through them, the cultures and backgrounds that produced them. This does not happen, however, in the context of programming about diversity. It happens in the classroom, on the athletic field, and, yes, in the basement or the bar. This is not to say that such socialization must involve alcohol. It does mean, however, that efforts should be focused at bringing people together as people, not at bringing groups in for diversity discussions.
The final portion of the Committee's recommendations on inclusivity deal with rush. They are centered around a notion that member recruitment should be based on the values of the organization above all, particularly inclusivity, and should take place beyond the fraternity basement. This would represent an improvement in the system to be sure, but once again the report fails to be specific. It discusses the content of recruitment "materials" that do not exist, and points out that recruitment should be a year long process, but includes no truly useful specifics. The only detailed recommendations are that rush chairs should hold office for a full year, and that a recruitment "expert" should be brought in by the Greek system each year. The first, while useful, is relatively unimportant, and the second is of profoundly dubious value. In sum, the recommendations simply do not contain meaningful plans.
Accountability
This section is by far the most ill-considered of the six. Starting from a fairly sound basis, the Committee managed to combine irrelevancies, fantasies, and dangerous foolishness into a set of recommendations that would have an almost exclusively negative impact on the Greek system. The Committee recommends, correctly, the institution by each house of a written Code of Conduct dealing with internal standards and the exact range of punishments for violating them. This is an excellent idea, and one which houses should have instituted long ago. However, the Committee undercuts itself by promulgating a set of necessary and suggested elements for every Code that are, for lack of a better word, ridiculous.
"Any member who slanders or disrespects men or women, in speech or in writing, will be immediately placed on social probation." Perhaps I am a bit old-fashioned, but the notion that disrespect will be outlawed is not one I can tolerate with equanimity. Showing disrespect to others is not to be encouraged, but it is the inalienable right of every man and woman. A speech code against disrespect is farther than any college or university in the country has been willing to go. Is one now to be imposed on Greek organizations?
"No event will be considered exclusively heterosexual." I must confess I have not the slightest idea what that means, which leads me to believe no house judiciary committee will either. Since the Committee also recommends that ORL judge organizations on their enforcement of their own Code of Conduct, this seems a bit unclear to be including in such a Code. Imagine the house derecognized for failing to enforce its heterosexual exclusivity clause.
I could go on, but the point has hopefully been made. The Committee, sadly, did not stop there, but continued to demand that every Code limit the involvement of members "accused of an infringement of the Dartmouth College Principle of Community." I will give the benefit of the doubt to the Committee and assume that by "accused" they meant guilty, since I am sure no one would suggest that a mere accusation at this college automatically requires punishment. Even working under that assumption however, I find this notion disturbing. The Principle of Community is too vague to be adjudicated by the College. It is too vague to be precisely defined. It means different things to different people. On a campus where differences over public policy can and have led to accusations of racism, punishment for a violation of the Principle of Community can only become a speech code. Each house should write a Code of Conduct prohibiting behavior that is objectively offensive. But the Principle of Community means far more than that, and has no business being part of any judicial structure.
Proceeding from the dangerous to the fantastic, the Committee recommends that the College hold educational programming to show "the caring side of [Safety & Security] officers" and that at any social event where policy violations are occurring all Greek members should immediately leave. It seems unnecessary to dignify these suggestions with a critique. Almost equally outlandish, though more troubling, is the recommendation that Greek leaders explore a "no-alcohol Sunday through Thursday policy." With all due respect to the Committee, this idea is absolutely inane. Clearly some people on this campus continue to misunderstand the point: college students don't drink during the week because Greek houses have alcohol, Greek houses have alcohol then because college students drink during the week.
Conclusion
There you have the much awaited report of the GLSC, with the exception of some useful though not particularly profound recommendations regarding better public relations by Greek houses. It is a report that for the most part passes the buck. Greek organizations are to be instructed to come up with a Annual Action Plan for each principle, to be accepted or rejected by ORL. ORL itself will come up with most of the details of the recommendations discussed above, perhaps in conjunction with additional College committees. The only truly firm recommendation seems to be that relating to the 2.30 GPA requirements, ironically the most illogical of them all.
It is rare that I find myself in agreement with that small but vocal group of activists on campus and their calls for change. But in this circumstance I too am appalled by the rhetoric without specifics, the talk without action, the endless stream of buck-passing from committee to committee. However, my reason is somewhat different, and it is based on the need for student involvement. If the College wishes to make improvements to the Greek system, it can only do so with concrete proposals, with student input, and in the open. This Committee was supposed to provide them. It has not.
Instead, the creation of a new and "better" Greek system is being turned over, it seems, to the administration in the form of ORL, with no student involvement, and no openness. The future will be created in the basement of Parkhurst, away from prying eyes, on the basis of a report that can be interpreted in a multitude of ways. In those areas where it is clear, what the report recommends is usually wrong-headed, and much of that wrong-headedness is apparently the result of an administrator going over the heads of the entire committee and tampering with its original conclusions. This is unacceptable.
If we are to have a Greek system in the future better than the one we have now, it cannot be through these methods, and it cannot be based on these recommendations.
The GLSC should reconstitute itself and write a real report, one that makes clear, meaningful, detailed changes, and that does not impose requirements on the Greek system or its members beyond that which is necessary to ensure a beneficent influence on this campus. There is much within this report that is excellent, and that may become the basis for what is needed. But it is a start, not a finished product. To all the members of the Committee, I ask you not to be content with a document that is so terribly flawed, not to accept one that takes responsibility out of your hands and into those of the administration alone, and not to sign one that will shatter the credibility of the College with Greek students on this campus. For that is what this report is and will do, if it is released in its current form.