I am very proud that our Fraternity has taken the bold step into member-created content in Voices. As my first post, I should explain that I will mostly be focusing on Interfraternity issues and the general world outside of our Lambda Chi Alpha chapters. This might be a different direction then some contributors on this site, but I think it is very important to understand some of the broader issues facing the Greeks.

I come from the perspective of a current IFC President and past Chapter President at UNC - Chapel Hill. Before becoming involved at the IFC level, a liberal estimate would say that no more than 5 percent of my Chapter knew anything about the IFC and what their role was on campus. Yet, the IFC was dictating policies on alcohol, recruitment, new member education, and many other areas that affected our fraternity on a very regular basis. No one thought to get involved, and thus Lambda Chi Alpha had little voice in Interfraternity decisions on this campus as a consequence.

Better Interfraternity understanding does not only allow your chapter to be involved in the decision-making process, it could also feasibly keep your fraternity system alive. No matter how much effort I put towards the issue, fraternities on my campus are still stuck in their “island” approach to doing things — the are concerned only about themselves or how IFC policies benefit or punish their chapter.

However, it only takes one stupid decision by a Chapter to bring the whole fraternity system down. This may appear like sensationalizing, but just take a look at some recent news coverage of Universities suspending their Greek systems following a serious injury or death on the campus.

I am going to post more frequently on this topic with random comments and suggestions I have on the issue of Interfraternalism. I don’t know if other authors have made this suggestion, but please email me if you have some unique insight or topic of discussion, and we can collectively cover the issue.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 2nd, 2005 at 9:24 am and is filed under Campus Involvment, University Relations . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.