It’s very disheartening to see that over the past three years of my college career at Ohio State, stereotypes of the greek system have not changed, even slightly. The greek community has gone through a lot of good and bad times these past couple years, but as usual, only the bad things surface. I hope that maybe some of you reading this column will walk away with a little more respect for this misunderstood community.I want to clarify a major stereotype that fraternities and sororities are the same. They are not. There are a lot of differences between the two besides gender, yet they always get clumped together when being described. Both groups believe in the same ideals, however, fraternities and sororities are quite different in the ways they achieve them.Sororities set their own minimum grade point average, such as a 2.5 or above, that must be met to become and stay a member. Many sororities also have mandatory study tables to help members who need to improve in their studies or to improve the study skills of members who have poor study habits. This has proved to be quite beneficial to women in sororities since their grades are higher than the all-women’s average of OSU, probably something very few people know.Sororities are required by OSU to recruit freshmen during winter quarter, while the fraternities continue to recruit freshmen during fall quarter. I’m sure that Student Activities has its reasons for doing this, but if fraternities and sororities are so similar, than why don’t we recruit new members during the same quarter?The biggest difference between the two groups is that sorority houses are not permitted to have alcohol on their properties. When you have parties with alcohol at your house, it is very hard to keep things from being damaged or destroyed. This is one of the reasons why sorority houses are more appealing to look at compared to some fraternity houses on campus. In the past, when a fraternity would have a party, they would have to register that party with the Women’s Panhellenic Association (WPA) and the Interfraternity Council, two greek student organizations. Fraternity and sorority parties in a fraternity house could only serve beer in a can, must mark members of age or underage, must have salted food and a non-alcoholic beverage available, must have sober monitors and must have male bartenders serving men beer and female bartenders serving women beer.There was also a group of individuals that would randomly check parties to make sure that these rules were followed. If these rules were not followed, the fraternity or sorority would have to go before a council to see whether or not it was guilty. If deemed guilty, the group could be disciplined, ranging from community service to social probation.However this past spring, members of the WPA and sorority members came together in a vote that has changed the way greek social events will be held forever. In this resolution in support of alcohol-free fraternity housing, sororities on campus have agreed to support efforts of fraternities by co-sponsoring alcohol-free functions at fraternity facilities only if those facilities are presently alcohol-free.This WPA and sorority driven resolution will hopefully raise fraternity grades, increase the number of men who join fraternities, alleviate the greek stereotypes and make fraternity houses more appealing to live in. The most important outcome of this resolution is to create a safer environment for the greek system that will help the entire greek community live up to the higher goals we seek to live by.As you can see, the greek system always had a set of standards and rules in place to help ensure safe living environments. However, times change and the need for even more stringent rules increased in the year 2000.Previously, a group of university officials and a few students, called the Greek Life Task Force, came up with guidelines for the greek system in such areas that included academics and social events. The idea of the Greek Life Task Force’s rules is just what it is – a bunch of ideas that always fall short of becoming actual rules for the greek system to follow. The group began forming in September of 1998, yet still hasn’t turned any of their goals into rules for the greek system. Most of the rules they do want to implement are already done by the sororities, not the fraternities.Those sorority members who came together to create this resolution in support of alcohol-free housing for fraternities are paving a path for a safer greek system and did it in record time. I challenge the OSU faculty to take a lesson from these students on how to be quick and efficient in future resolutions concerning the safety of students and the future of student organizations.
Rebecca Jamrozik is a senior majoring in political science and journalism. You can reach her at [email protected].