A task force composed of members of the four Greek councils, as well as representatives from the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life, the Office of Student Affairs and other Northwestern organizations, will be administering an online survey to all NU fraternity and sorority members on May 17 to evaluate Greek life.

“It will conduct a review of a number of issues in the Greek community, including housing, judicial issues, risk management, academic issues and philanthropy to look at how we see ourselves, how we fit into campus, where we’re excelling and where we can improve,” said Weinberg junior Mitch Holzrichter, Interfraternity Council president and also business manager for The Daily.

The Association of Fraternity Advisors/Educational Benchmarking assessment will analyze student perceptions of the Greek community’s strengths and weaknesses and compare NU’s Greek community to other colleges participating in the survey, which is being administered for the first time this year.

Greek students will fill out the survey anonymously, although they will be asked to indicate their gender and membership in IFC or Panhellenic Council to assist with data analysis.

Kyle Pendleton, associate director of fraternity and sorority life, said Multicultural Greek Council and National Panhellenic Council members will not be able to indicate their affiliation due to those organizations’ small size.

“Some of the councils have less than 50 members,” Pendleton said. “That’s not a large enough population to look at.”

Survey results should be analyzed by Fall Quarter, at which point the task force will formulate what Pendleton called a “three- to five-year strategic plan” for improvement.

Holzrichter said the panel will make a series of recommendations to Greek councils and university administrators.

“We’re looking at this as an opportunity to take a critical look at where we stand,” he said.

Pendleton said he does not anticipate that the task force will make drastic alterations to the Greek community’s structure because many significant improvements were made during the last Greek life review, which occurred a decade ago.

“Drastic changes that could be made with the fraternity and sorority community, such as deferred recruitment, were made in the early ’90s,” he said.

The survey, Pendleton predicted, mainly will determine the strengths and weaknesses of the Greek community, produce data to quantify a need for additional resources and provide a benchmark for future reference.

“We will be able to say, spring 2004, these are what the fraternity and sorority community said were its strengths, were its weaknesses,” he said. “Did we get better?”

Pendleton said he hopes the task force eventually will evolve into an “advisory committee” for the Greek community much like that of the Multicultural Center.

Creating an advisory panel would reflect the increasing autonomy of the Greek community, which already has been expressed in the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life’s expansion next year into a stand-alone department in Student Affairs. Currently, the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life is part of the Office of Residential Life.

This increase in the Greek community’s authority also is reflected in its ability to conduct the survey, which is sponsored by the Association of Fraternity Advisors and a company called Educational Benchmarking. Departments in the Office of Student Affairs conduct internal reviews every five years, but Holzrichter said student-run organizations like the Greek councils were not included in the process until now.

“We’re to the point where we’re a large enough part of Student Affairs that (Vice President for Student Affairs William) Banis thought we should be able to take part in that,” Holzrichter said.

Along with IFC’s growth in size, Holzrichter said, came an increase in the council’s control of its judiciary affairs. Holzrichter said he hopes the task force also cause NU administrators to acknowledge formally IFC and Panhel’s self-governance and clarify the councils’ jurisdiction.

“It would put in writing exactly when IFC gets involved in an issue and when the university does,” Holzrichter said. “We’ve been trying to figure out by trial and error what works best. Hopefully we’re at a point where we can standardize it.”