In the wake of allegations that the College's Greek regulations are unfairly enforced, Student Assembly leaders have formed a group to investigate the rules governing Dartmouth's fraternities and sororities.
"We basically want to revisit some of the policies that have been enacted and try to get a sense of the direction the College is going," Student Body President Janos Marton '04 said.
Leader James Baehr '05 said the group -- consisting of members of the Assembly's student organizations committee -- has singled out a number of specific policies to investigate. Assembly leaders will reportedly be meeting with several key administrators in the coming weeks.
Topping the list of concerns will be the burden of Greek compliance with the upcoming College requirements regarding physical plant accessibility and safety, according to Baehr.
Forthcoming facility audits will require fraternities and sororities to undertake expensive construction, adding features like fire escapes and access ramps for wheelchairs. Although Dartmouth would have to pay for such modifications to College-owned Greek houses, corporations with privately-owned houses would likely have to foot the bill themselves.
"The fees could range from $200,000 to $800,000, and most houses don't have more than $50,000 in their accounts," Marton said.
Organizations with their own houses would presumably be forced to take out large loans to pay.
Baehr framed the issue as one of fairness on the part of the College.
"We think that if the College is going to mandate something, they need to fund it," Baehr said.
Assembly leaders said the group also specifically aims to end regulations that make it difficult for Greek organizations to serve beer from kegs. Keg regulations have come under fire in recent years by environmentally-concerned students, who say that such policies result in large volumes of wasted aluminum cans.
"It doesn't make sense ecologically, it doesn't make sense financially, it doesn't even make sense from a sobriety standpoint," Baehr said.
Greek leaders also said that the canned beer poses more problems from a distribution standpoint than beer in kegs.
"From a sorority perspective, we prefer having control over the alcohol in our space," Epsilon Kappa Theta President Katie Lieberg '04 said. "If we have one keg in one location, we're much better at being able to monitor that under-21-year-olds are not having a drink."
In exploring policy, Assembly leaders expressed a desire to overcome the atmosphere of confrontation that characterized relations between Greeks and the administration in recent years.
"Many students in the past had the perception that the administration was battling the Greek system," Baehr said. "A lot of this is about the administration showing us that there's really a new tone in Parkhurst: one that's accepting and positive about the Greek system and all that it brings to Dartmouth."
