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On the basis of members’ participation in six-hour-long Dartmouth Bystander Initiative leadership training sessions, Greek organizations’ governing councils could receive up to $30,000 in dues-assistance funds. Through a Student Assembly resolution passed Tuesday, councils will receive $2,000 in funding for each fraternity or sorority in which either 25 members or 50 percent of sophomore and junior members complete training.
The proposal will offer funds to the Interfraternity Council, the Panhellenic Council, the Coeducational Council, the National Association of Latino Fraternal Organizations and the National Pan-Hellenic Council. Any student who belongs to houses within these sub-councils can apply for funding, student body president Adrian Ferrari ’14 said.
If 10 organizations meet the participation benchmark by the end of the spring, the Assembly will transfer up to $30,000 to the sub-council accounts by the end of the fiscal year. The total sum will be allotted proportionally to sub-councils based on participation of the organizations.
Funding for the program came from the Assembly budget, Ferrari said. If unused, the money will go to the “take your professor to lunch” program.
The funds will be distributed to the sub-councils rather than individual houses to preserve applicants’ anonymity, Ferrari said.
“If members of the Greek community stand up to help make our school safer, we are interested in helping them with one of their greatest problems — socioeconomic exclusivity,” he said.
Student body vice president Michael Zhu ’14 said that since the beginning of the current Assembly’s tenure, addressing sexual assault has been a top priority.
The DBI program, implemented in 2012 by Jennifer Messina ’93 and director of health promotion and student wellness Aurora Matzkin, aims to teach students to combat sexual assault through intervention. The program is offered in either one- or six-hour sessions.
In October, the Assembly put forth a proposal to grant a physical education credit to students who completed DBI training. The proposal, which pushed for the College to divvy up the six-hour program into shorter periods of time and offer it in accommodating time slots, aimed to make the six-hour program a prerequisite to Greek recruitment. If the proposal were implemented, about 800 people would be trained each year.
The resolution passed last week follows the College’s creation of dues-assistance accounts for the Greek life sub-councils. Ferrari said that while the accounts represented a positive step, the College also prohibited Greek organizations from soliciting donations from alumni for the accounts. Student Assembly’s program will contribute the first funds to the accounts, which have so far remained unused, he said.
The creation of the sub-council dues assistance accounts followed a push for socioeconomic equality in the Greek system by five Panhell executive members in January.
For now, the program is slated to run for one year. Ferrari said he hopes, however, that the program will continue with support from the administration.
Noah Manning ’17, a general member of the Assembly, said integrating training into house culture will increase participation for future classes.
“If all your brothers have taken this training, you will be more likely to get it yourself,” Manning said. “It will become a social incentive. It’s what is done, you just do it.”
Zhu also emphasized the importance of a continuing commitment to DBI training, saying that the year would be “all for naught” if the incentive did not continue for future classes.
Ferrari predicts that many students will take advantage of the program.
“There is a groundswell on this campus to combat sexual assault, he said. “It crosses the ideological spectrum.”
Assembly programming director Mandy Bowers ’14 agreed, saying the assembly has “high hopes” for distributing the entire $30,000.
Gus Llopiz ’14, the Assembly’s chief of staff, said he is excited about the program, but he stressed the importance of implementing other initiatives alongside DBI, like programs that address rape culture and survivor advocacy.
Through training enough students in bystander intervention, the policy aims to reduce the frequency of sexual assault.
“I want houses to compete,” Ferrari said, “to be the safest space on campus.”
