Representatives from the College's Greek organizations will meet today with Assistant Dean of Residential Life Deb Reinders to discuss an alternate proposal to fill empty beds in Greek houses.
Panhellenic Council President Dani Brune '96, Ryan Carey '96 and Coed Fraternity Sorority Council President Matt Raben '96 will present a plan where the College would provide financial incentives to entice Greek organizations and undergraduate societies to fill their beds.
Greek leaders developed this alternative in response to a draft proposal released three weeks ago by the Office of Residential Life that would force Greek organizations to fill their houses before their members could get on-campus housing.
Shortly after the release of the draft proposal, the College said it would not deny Greek members housing if the house were not filled. But administrators still said they wanted a plan to fill Greek houses.
ORL said there were 58 open beds in Greek houses this fall, 56 of them in fraternities.
Raben said the CFSC decided Monday night to endorse the alternative proposal, which, according to Brune is "essentially the same" as the plan she released last week.
The changes mainly involved working out the group's negotiation strategies with ORL, Raben said.
The proposal would give houses that are filled to minimum occupancy money from the College to plan programming events for the entire campus.
Also, those houses would get money for the "improvement of their physical plant as further incentive for members to reside in the house."
Carey, who helped Brune come up with the plan, said the CFSC met on Monday to work on the strategy and philosophy of the plan.
"We're really looking at [the proposal] as the first step in the bargaining process," Carey said. "We really felt threatened by [ORL's] proposal -- we thought it was a horrible way of handling the situation, so instead we came up with a proposal."
The original ORL proposal "would only serve to marginalize the CFSC," he said.
Carey said the alternate plan came about because "a group of interested students ... knocked out a proposal and presented that to the Presidents' Council."
The Presidents' Council is made up of the presidents of Greek organizations and constitutes the membership of the CFSC.
Raben said the biggest motivation for concocting a counterproposal was a strong objection to the original plan.
"We would like to implement a system of incentives to encourage houses to fill as many beds as possible," Raben said.
