Delegates from the Franklin Square group will be visiting the University to assess the Greek system on April 19-20. The Franklin Square group is an assembly of college and university presidents of national fraternities and sororities and other organizations. They joined to develop a presidential initiative to “transform Greek environments,” according to the organization’s guidelines, A Call for Values Congruence, which outlines a specific set of strategies that campuses with negative Greek behavioral issues uses to “close the gap between what fraternities and sororities nationally support and what their chapters actually do.”
The group met at Franklin Square in Washington, D.C., and one of their concerns was Greek chapters not performing to their national standards, Tom Stephens, Greek life adviser, said.
“There will be some great results from this, but there’s also some growth and development we need to work on,” Stephens said. “I think it’s a good thing because we need to follow our national organizations.”
A site visit process was proposed to establish shared standards among collegiate Greek chapters and national Greek organizations, and the University requested to be a part of the assessment. Twelve universities across the country will be assessed, and Grambling, also in the University of Louisiana System, was chosen to be assessed as well. These are the only universities from Louisiana chosen for this particular assessment.
“They’re going to talk to Greeks, non-Greeks, faculty, staff and administrators who are both Greek and non-Greek and find out what’s happening with our Greek organizations,” Stephens said.
National Panhellenic Council president Janee Rogers, communicative disorders sophomore from Cut Off, said each Greek organization is meeting with Judy Daniels, Dean of Student Life, and Stephens to make sure the necessary paperwork from the previous three years is correct. The paperwork, Rogers said, will assist the delegates in seeing how the University’s Greek system works so “they can help improve” it.
National Pan-Hellenic Council president Chanelle Claiborne, elementary education senior from Port Allen, said not every problem in the Greek system can be solved, but the assessment will “help eliminate and improve some of the things that are going on.”
Interfraternity Council president Alex Ludwig, mass communication junior from Houma, said the assessment would cause the University’s current Greek system to be more organized than it has been in the past.
According to A Call for Values Congruence, recent studies indicate a widening gap between the national guidelines of Greek chapters and the reality of their practices among campuses.
Fraternity and sorority mission statements define these co-curricular organizations as supporting and enhancing the mission of higher education. However, the A Call for Values Congruence said illegal and abusive alcohol consumption and its secondhand effects, such as negative community relations, continue to plague Greek systems.
The Franklin Square firmly believes Greek national guidelines and rules will be equivalent to reality when fraternity and sorority headquarters, host campuses and students “collaboratively implement and assess practices and policies grounded in a shared set of standards,” according to the A Call for Values Congruence.
