In the middle of a long Associated Student Government Senate session Wednesday night, the body overwhelmingly voted to recommend the administration make changes to the “Freshman Freeze,” the four-week period – New Student Week and the first three weeks of classes – during which fraternities cannot host open events and are prohibited from advertising themselves or their events.
The specific measure ASG endorsed was the “Northwestern University Freshman Freeze Reform” proposal, drafted by all of NU’s four Greek councils: National Pan-Hellenic Council, Interfraternity Council, Panhellenic Association and the Multicultural Greek Council. The proposal called for shortening the freeze by two weeks, allowing the councils to sponsor events during the freeze itself in conjunction with New Student Week, Greek councils to advertise themselves during the freeze and individual Greek chapters to advertise upcoming events during the period.
The report merely built off of conclusions reached by an ASG report during the administration of former President Jonathan Webber and a later recommendation by the Office of Student Affairs to shorten the period, said IFC President Lucas Artaiz.
“We’ve been going through this for some time since 2005,” the SESP junior said.
The original purpose of the freeze was to shift the Greek system from a fall recruitment model to deferred recruitment, Artaiz said, adding that the system in its current form creates “headaches” for those who are in charge of enforcing the freeze as well as for those who are required to follow it.
The lengthy freeze policy is no longer necessary, thanks to improvements in the quality of administration oversight of the Greek system, Artaiz said. He added that the policy only served to push parties off campus and to give students a bad impression of the Greek system.
“A lot of their interaction with IFC is negative and unregulated,” Artaiz said. “We don’t want to push them away.”
Shortly after the proposal was introduced, Hiro Kawashima, a Residential College Board senator, read a letter from the RCB executive board strongly opposing the proposal. The board argued that its ability to create strong communities in the residential colleges would be undermined by the amounts of resources the Greek system could put into advertising their own organization.
“RCB is about creating a sense of community in the first few weeks,” the Weinberg freshman said, reading from the group’s statement. “If the ‘Freshman Freeze’ is shortened, that threatens that sense of community.”
Artaiz responded that the RCB had never objected to advertising and events produced by other groups during the “Freeze.”
“Greek letter organizations steal time and attention from the residential colleges – the same would be true of other student activities and athletics,” Artaiz said. “Students can go to an a cappella audition, try out for the sailing team, but not go to a philanthropy sponsored by a Greek letter organization.”
The back and forth continued for several minutes as Kawashima’s question time was extended to allow additional debate. Shortly after his time ended, the measure came to a vote and was passed, with only Kawashima and one other senator voting against the resolution.
Kawashima said he expected the level of opposition he encountered.
“The hostility was expected, if you look at who endorsed the bill, you’ll see all 10 IFC and (Panhellenic Association) members, as well as Mike McGee,” he said. “I had a lot of Greek and Panhel members in my own caucus.”
The resolution adds to a lengthy history of administration and student support of a new policy, Artaiz said.
“Passing the proposal through Senate is just another indicator of the consensus that we’ve been building over the past five years,” he said.
Meanwhile, Barry McCardel, an IFC senator, said he thought support for the bill was so large because the proposed changes would benefit the whole student body.
“I can’t stress enough that reform of the ‘Freshman Freeze’ is beneficial in a lot of ways, not just to Greek organizations,” the Communication sophomore said.
