Despite administrators' claims that the revised alcohol policy is not designed to specifically target the Greek system -- and that it was crafted with input from Greek leaders -- fraternity social chairs criticized the newly-implemented code for complicating their jobs without producing any foreseeable benefits for either their houses or the people who attend their parties.
The policy has been widely heralded by administrators as focusing on education, health and safety instead of punishment, but Greek leaders said the changes affect the logistics of holding parties more than anything else -- and that while they adequately accommodate smaller groups wishing to hold parties, they penalize Greek organizations.
"The Greek system is definitely going to bear the brunt of any potential downsides of the changes," Psi Upsilon fraternity social chair Ted Knudsen '04 said. "The policy is good for dealing with smaller organizations."
One particularly contentious change was a new requirement that any alcoholic event with more than 40 people or more than the number of organization members present-- whichever number is fewer -- needs to be registered.
"We have almost 100 guys in house so if less than half of our guys invite one friend over and somebody's drinking then we have to register the party," Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity social chair Justin Johnson '03 said.
Another provision limits registered alcoholic social events to two per week per house.
Johnson and others worried that the combination of these two rules may necessitate the registering of weekly meetings, in which case having over 40 people in the basement on both Friday and Saturday nights would be in violation of the policy.
"It's setting the frats up for failure," Gamma Delta Chi fraternity social chair Chris Sommers '02 said. "People have to party somewhere at least on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights -- and it's common knowledge among administrators."
The revised policy eliminated the old tier system of party registration -- which required CFS houses to notify the College ahead of time of approximately how many guests they expected for a given event -- and introduced an online registration system, but many social chairs said the changes constitute "a bureaucratic mess."
Under the old regulations, Greek houses dealt almost exclusively with the Office of Residential Life, but the revised policy also involves Safety and Security and requires that social chairs meet with the Office of Student Life to discuss health and safety measures each time they register a party.
"It kind of throws a chink in the argument that it's an easier system when you're dealing with 50 percent more people," Knudsen said.
Others have found the meetings with Student Life Staff to be more cursory than genuinely geared toward hosting safer parties.
"Most of our parties are pretty similar so you end up talking about the same things over and over again," Alpha Delta fraternity social chair Reis Alfond '03 said. "It just seems like they're trying to make us jump through more hoops."
Some houses said that the meetings undermine what should be a trusting relationship between the Greek system and the College.
"For our house it's already part of our policy to educate new members about safe drinking and how to host parties, so if the College starts stepping in and taking control it's sort of stupid and repetitive," Johnson said.
Gamma Delt representatives said that their last meeting consisted of staff asking whether exits would be clear during the party and requiring that the house buy 11 pounds of food and 11 two-liter soda bottles -- none of which ever got consumed, they said.
"People go to these fraternity parties to drink alcohol," Sommers said. "They don't go to drink soda. If you're not drinking alcohol you probably won't be having fun -- and the administration knows that."
But Knudsen said the relationship with Student Life can be as painless -- or as strained -- as the staff chooses to make it.
"I'm very wary of the changes, but I'm certainly willing to give the new personnel a chance to be more student-friendly," he said. "How Linda Kennedy cracks the whip and how she deals with things that don't go the administration's way is going to completely define how this policy affects us."
The revised policy also requires that beginning Spring term all drinks must be served by College-certified servers, something social chairs said poses a "logistical nightmare," since the limited number of training sessions offered means that only a small percentage of the membership will be certified before next term.
Typical house policies have members rotate bartending duties so that no one person is stuck with the job for the entire night, but because of the lack of training opportunities only a limited number of members will be allowed to serve alcohol for at least the beginning of next term, Alfond said.
But Knudsen stressed that the ultimate effects of the policy depend on how the College chooses to interpret it.
"With any new policy what's written on paper is only half the story," he said.
