The Interfraternity Council finalized its self-governance policy Tuesday night, and IFC leaders said, if approved, the plan would provide fraternities greater inclusion and fairness in the University’s judicial process.
The policy involves three core components, including education, enforcement and judicial services, IFC President Seth Greenberg said. He said the education and enforcement components already in effect.
The policy’s education component ensures that training, hearing procedures and judicial sanctions are educational in nature for the chapters involved. Greenberg said sanctions should be educational, not punitive because that is the purpose of college.
We think the education component is the most important, he said.
Greenberg and Scooter Slade, IFC vice president of Risk Management said they were able to put the policy together as a result of better collaboration with individual fraternities and Student Judicial Services.
When the presidents (of fraternities) didn’t like something, they changed it, Slade said. And when (SJS) didn’t like something, they changed it.
Slade said if the IFC’s self-governance policy is implemented, it would allow the Greek-letter community to investigate charges and to hold hearings. SJS can also investigate and present evidence. The University still would have oversight of fraternities, he said.
According to a copy of the self-governance policy, the goal is to empower fellow Greeks to be a part of the decision-making and judicial process, thereby encouraging involvement, ownership and safety.
The policy also ensures that there is enforcement against behavior that violates University or Greek-letter policies. The judicial section of the policy affirms that Greeks are responsible enough to identify and deal with violations in a fair, non-adversarial manner, according to the policy.
Greenberg said the self-governance policy was developed by using ideas from other university policies.
Then we looked at our campus and tried to mold it to what fits us, he said.
For the policy to be implemented, the student code of conduct must be changed, Greenberg said. Fraternity members will be trained to sit on the hearing board and the system should be completely running by the spring of 2001, he said.
We think this system is a more fair system, Greenberg said.
