Bloomsburg University Announces Reforms to Greek Life - thoughts?
 

https://www.pennlive.com/news/2019/1...or-hazing.html

https://www.scribd.com/document/4381...ife#from_embed

Not a fan.

Dictating recruitment plans and advisor scheduling, initiation scheduling, and member education cannot possibly sit well with the NPC or IFC, much less individual organizations. Can it?

If so, perhaps we need to re-think those organizations.

I think NPC groups already do most of this. How much detail they want to share is another story.

Making chapters submit a “recruitment plan” either sounds a lot like nebbing into member selection, or else it will be something so buzzwordy and homogenous as to render its existence pointless. And what is “recruitment education”? Do they mean membership education? It’s hard to take these things seriously when they can’t even get the terminology right.

Oh and good luck with that advisor part.

Until I read this, I didn't know hazing and binge drinking are bad things we should prevent through member education, oversight, and attentive advising. Whew...good thing they figured this out and told us!

They let a university committee oversee recruitment and education plans? My, how things have changed.

I agree that the university is acting like Captain Obvious with some of these bullet points. I read the materials and there doesn't seem to be enough meat on the bone.

In response to the other posters who commented regarding their concerns about the recruitment plan - normally NPC recruitment is highly structured, so I'm puzzled at why a recruitment plan would be needed for that segment of Greek Life. However, looking at their Greek Life website, Bloomsburg has quite a mix of NIC, NPHC, NPC and local organizations. I picked around online and it doesn't seem like they have a very cohesive recruitment program for any of the councils. Do they even have councils? It looks like they have simply grouped the GLOS by men and women and that's it. So, if they don't have a structured formal recruitment, I could understand why they are asking for recruitment plans from the chapters.


As it were, San Diego State University has been running a complicated GLO accreditation program for over a decade. These types of things have been around for quite some time. Link: http://go.sdsu.edu/student_affairs/s...onprogram.aspx

They’re asking each INDIVIDUAL chapter to submit a recruitment plan, not the councils. Like they want them to say “we will issue bids to everyone with a 4.0” or something. That might not be it, but the wording is ambiguous.

What universities are pushing for these days is a shortend recruitment/new member time frame under the theory that it lessens the opportunity for "hazing." So some schools require new members to be initiated within 6 weeks -- hardly enough for them to become knowledgeable and acclimated. They are trying to make greek organizations into clubs.

I agree that the university's wording is ambiguous - I previously stated that the proposal was not meaty enough. Clearly they are asking for recruitment plans from the individual chapters, because the statement says "chapters will create a recruitment plan". My point was that, if the university and/or the "councils" don't have any kind of structured recruitment or agreed upon recruitment policies to start with, then that's potentially a problem. A "recruitment plan" could simply mean that they will hold four informal events in February and March culminating in a bid day event. I don't see where it says that a chapter must detail their member selection processes. If that's the case, that's obviously a problem. Again, the university's new requirements are vague.

I am struggling to find any reference to a cohesive college Panhellenic on this campus. Can someone with more knowledge fill me in? Are these chapters just freestyling this recruitment or what?

No, they have a regular structured recruitment and have for as long as I can remember...there is no “freestyling.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/haileyn...cruitment/amp/

Others here have mentioned how vaguely this release reads.

Tom McGuire writes: "The scope and intended outcomes..." (of the reforms) "...align with national standards and will re-establish safety as the primary focus of the Greek system that has traditionally been private and unregulated."

To whose national standards does Mr. McGuire desire we align?

And IMO it's his misstatement to list safety as ever having been the primary focus of the greek system. Welcoming friendships, credible scholarship and helpful service to others historically appear take the lead as highest places of fraternal focus.

Bloomsburg has a mix of local and national organizations. On the sorority side, there are five nationals and five locals, and all are full members of the CPC. On the women's side, they also have fully structured recruitment in the spring, with informal in fall. There has been an incredible rise in the number of hazing reports made to the campus's hazing hotline. The Dean of Student Conduct and VP of Student Affairs were both let go about a month ago, and the former Greek Life Director was reassigned to conference services, because she's such a liability to the Greek Life office for the last 20 years, but nobody knows why they never just fired her ass. A lot of this stuff is ok with national organizations, or something similar, but the local organizations have no clue how to handle these types of things. The President of the University is taking Greek Life and having the new Director report directly to him. It's insanity. Many groups are worried that they're trying to find a way to get rid of Greeks. but they have a lot of Greek donors, and that may hinder fundraising. I just wanted to hear others' opinions on this, as it's a lot of bullshit speak if you ask me. And that Communications Director is VERY new to the university.

OH, and I forgot this...so a young man died this semester after falling over a well known "cliff" area that used to be the back of a frat house. It is still under investigation, but word is that he was at a rush party for a fraternity that they were having with a sorority (both national groups), and he was drunk and fell. Part of me feels like they're trying to get out in front of this before it becomes public....we'll see!

Am I reading correctly that every group starts out on probation? I find this a little unfair.