Northwestern has formed a Greek life task force that willevaluate the university’s fraternity and sorority scene during thenext five years to give NU “the best Greek community in the U.S.,”said Kyle Pendleton, director of fraternity and sorority life.
The task force will have 25 members, including students who aremembers of chapters, Greek officials, administrators and alumni.Dean of Students Mary Desler will lead the group. Desler said thetask force will meet regularly this quarter — possibly once a week– and may become less frequent as the year progresses. They willevaluate the current condition of Greek life, and then work toimprove the fraternity and sorority environment, she said.
Pendleton said Desler had been working for the past two years toestablish the task force. He added that he was glad the committeehad finally formed, since NU’s Greek scene had not been examinedformally by administrators in years despite several changes infraternity and sorority life.
“It’s quite common to do a program review every so often,” hesaid. “The last one we did was in the early ’90s and it’s time wedo this again.”
The group will use the results of a national Greek life surveythat roughly 1,200 NU sorority and fraternity members completedlast school year to decide which aspects of Greek life needed themost reform. The survey asked students to evaluate a variety ofissues, from philanthropies to individual member satisfaction, saidInterfraternity Council president and task force member MitchHolzrichter.
“We will try to look at different areas of Greek life, from thephysical structures of the houses to recruitment, to socialprogramming, philanthropy and judicial issues,” said Holzrichter, aWeinberg senior, who also is the business manager of The Daily.
Desler said she is excited to see which components of the Greekexperience need work and which are on track.
“We will take a look at the strengths, the weaknesses, the newneeds, what’s working, what isn’t, where we want to be in fiveyears and develop a plan,” she said.
However, she said at this point she has “no idea” as to whatexactly the task force will be tackling.
Holzrichter said there are a few specific goals that he wouldlike to work on this school year.
“One is to settle lease structures for each chapter so that wecan renovate houses,” he said. “Another is to formalize arelationship between the councils and (Vice President for StudentAffairs William Banis), and set up IFC as a component of theUniversity Hearing and Appeals System,” he said.
Pendleton said there is no predicted end point for the taskforce because the Greek community is constantly evolving.
“The initial phase is three to five years, but as you accomplishold goals you make new ones,” he said. “This will be a continuousprocess.”
But Pendleton expects that when the project is completed,students will be happy with the improvements.
“Everything will be done according to what students want toexamine and improve,” he said. “The students are the ones drivingthe task forces direction.”
Reach Julia Neyman at [email protected].
