By Brett Billings ’12

Photo by Steve Tringali ’13/ The Lafayette

Lately, Greek life has been keeping its doors closed. Unannounced, and sometimes unexplained, Public Safety’s visits have left some Greek members wondering about the standards to which Greek houses are held in relation to the rest of campus.

Currently, all four fraternities are on social probation, while no sorority is.

According to the Student Handbook, when a Greek house is on probation no alcohol is permitted in the house.

In the Report of the Working Group on Greek Life, “repeated alcohol violations are the primary reason groups receive sanctions from the Dean of Students or from the Committee on Student Conduct, and in some cases, lose their ability to remain on campus.” Kappa Delta Rho and Phi Gamma Delta are the most recent.

Despite the report, differences in individual versus group consequences remain a murky topic: “The Working Group received feedback that the basis for decisions about whether to sanction groups or individuals was still perceived as unfair and the appeals process was out of step with conventional practice.”

Historically, the patrolling of Greek chapters has been contentious.

In 1987, a faculty-approved motion put a formal end to “pubnights” at Lafayette, permitting alcohol to only be served by campus groups on Friday or Saturday nights. At the request of the Greek chapters at the time, Public Safety began patrolling these houses in place of a rotating student patrol. According to Director of Public Safety Hugh Harris, “[The brothers] came to us and said, ‘We can’t do it. It’s just hard on our guys to deal with other fraternities.'”

But some fraternity members think more trust from the college is necessary. President of Delta Upsilon Alec Eidelman ‘13 maintains, “We handle our [DU’s] internal punishment, I think, pretty well.”

The question is brought to a head when alcohol violations then occur.

On February 3, Public Safety officers on patrol in college-owned DU found two bottles of “unattended and unsecured” alcohol in a private room. This incident was not reported as a crime, even though the occupants were under-age, according to a letter sent to the fraternity by interim Dean of Students Jodie Frey.

Internal reports conflict with Frey’s letter, as PSafe did not contact the residents of the room either, according toEidelman. PSafe maintains the students were of-age. Currently, it is being handled as a group incident.

“We are going to be taking responsibility for our brothers’ lack of judgment,” Eidelman said.

A similar violation occurred at Phi Kappa Psi that same weekend, but the students involved were of-age. PSafe reported the students in question to college officials. Both cases are currently ongoing and being handled internally per college policy. Both cases involved doors left slightly ajar.

President of Phi Kappa Psi James Rippeon ‘14 declined comment for this article.

“There’s nothing in the Student Handbook about the alcohol patrols … It’s been told to us numerous times,” Eidelman said. Ambiguity seems to surround the exact protocol for the “alcohol patrols.”

President of Zeta Psi Peter Kuhns ‘13 maintains the search criteria became fairly clear after speaking with Harris regarding the patrols. “It’s got to be spelled out somewhere, because he’s very explicit in his explanation of what they can do and cannot do.”

If a door is left open and PSafe has “probable cause,” they can enter the room. This applies to all college owned residences. “There is no written code,” according to an email from Harris. “It is one of the many routine functions of the department.”

PSafe usually stops by the Zete house only once a week, according to Kuhns. “I hear differently from the other fraternities.” Because Zete hires Bear Security to police the house in addition to the “alcohol patrols,” Kuhns suspectsPSafe is not around that often.

Eidelman believes Greek life is capable of self-regulation.

One of the recommendations of the Working Group was the formation of Greek judicial boards for “adjudicating minor organization violations.” This recommendation was, however, not approved by the Board of Trustees this past October.

The Implementation and Assessment Group on Greek Life (IAGGL) has since taken over responsibility. The group has been charged with establishing the “interim benchmarks” by which Greek chapters will need to align themselves.

Chair of the IAGGL Celestino Limas said the group is considering “posting on the college’s website which organizations are under conduct probation and for how long, so that way — as students think about joining different organizations — they will know what those issues are.”

This will apply to all student organizations, not just Greek chapters.

“Instead of relying on organizations to provide that information, we’ll want to do it,” Limas said.

Julie Depenbrock ‘13 contributed reporting to this article.