Daily Egyptian Editor 35

The four schools chosen to pilot Select 2000 have little in common except for the stated goal of returning an ailing greek system to its original standards and foundations.

In 1996, SIUC, Villanova University, Northern Colorado University and Southern Florida College were contacted by the National Interfraternity Council to consider being a Select 2000 school.

The Select 2000 nine-part initiative includes maintaining higher grades, making chapter houses alcohol-free and substance-free and requiring hours of community serve for greek members. The program was designed by 26 national fraternities that want to implement the program completely by 2000.

The initiative has been challenged at SIUC by the SIUC Interfraternity Council, the Graduate and Professional Student Council and the Undergraduate Student Government. All three governments have opposed the implementation and disagree with some of the initiatives of Select 2000, primarily the substance-free housing.

Robert Kerr, greek life coordinator for the University of Northern Colorado, said that Select 2000 was formally adopted Thursday.

We are officially 96 hours into it, Kerr said in a phone interview Tuesday.

Kerr said UNC gave fraternity and sorority members a binding vote to determine whether Select 2000 should be implemented at the university.

We looked at how the rest of the schools are doing it, and I really believe this needs to be focused on students because they have to be the linchpin, he said.

A representative from UNC’s Interfraternity Council, a representative from the Pan-Hellenic Council and representatives from seven fraternities and five sororities voted on Select 2000.

It passed overwhelmingly, Kerr said. There was only one negative vote. If they would have said no, we would have withdrawn Select 2000.

Kerr said that months prior to the vote, the university educated greek members about Select 2000 over a six-month period.

There has to be true decision making, he said. And to do that we wanted to provide an environment in which the students had the necessary information to make informed decisions, not based on emotion or rumor, but on fact.

Kerr said the students voted to implement Select 2000 because they were educated and because greek membership was suffering.

There seems to have been a 40-percent decline in membership in the past few years and academics were not up, he said. We had to determine how we can be an active, viable greek community, and we decided to make the necessary adjustments.

Kerr said UNC will progress slowly on the alcohol initiative.

We’re looking to be substance-free by fall of the year 2000, he said. This is a programmatic process. It is not going to be a push of a button and we have instantaneous substance-free housing. We are taking small steps instead of one giant leap.

Like SIUC, Kerr said Select 2000’s implementation has faced some opposition.

Some students think this is an unproven initiative and ask Why are we the trailblazers?’ he said. But absolutely anytime an organization starts to look at the future, any intervention suggestion of change is met with some degree of resistance opposition.

Kerr said the University of Northern Colorado is beginning to identify alternatives to alcohol parties at chapter houses.

We want students to be able to have a good time and blow off steam without jeopardizing their health with alcohol, he said.

Kerr said the university is looking at using the recreation center as a social outlet. He said the university is also negotiating with country clubs and Moose lodges to determine if fraternity and sorority parties can be scheduled there.

The first thing is creating more balanced social programming, at least as many non-alcohol as alcohol events, he said.

Gary Bonas, director of leadership development at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, agreed that balancing alcoholic and non-alcoholic events is the first step to implementing Select 2000.

This year we require that chapters reduce the number of events with alcohol by one, Bonas said.

He said this year greek organizations can have no more than four social events with alcohol per month and must have one social event without alcohol.

Next year the ball will be raised on the number of non-alcohol events and lowered on the other, Bonas said. We want to find the proper balance to program socially without alcohol and with alcohol, and at those functions we want to make sure alcohol is served responsibly.

Bonas said Villanova is in its first semester of Select 2000 and that, like SIUC, it has met with some opposition as well.

Mostly individuals and small groups of students have come to us and said they want to defend their own rights and that Select 2000 is not in the best interest of greek community, Bonas said. But there has not been opposition in any organized fashion.

I think a lot of people perceive that this is the first in a series of steps which lead to prohibition, but I don’t want to do that or follow that concept. That’s not what frats stand for.

Bonas said Select 2000 has faced less opposition regarding the alcohol-free housing than SIUC because Villanova University does not have chapter houses.

The expectations of Select 2000 are exactly the same at SIU and Villanova, but the major exception is that we are totally unhoused, he said. So the tenet of substance-free housing has no standing here.

We have interpreted it to really mean that there should be a healthy and safe social environment in regards to alcohol.

To this end, Villanova is teaching TIPS training to greek members in charge of running parties. TIPS trains servers to recognize people who need to stop drinking or slow down.

I believe we are the only the second university to teach TIPS training, Bonas said. TIPS will allow members to recognize the stages of intoxication and how to step in and intervene safely with those who are abusing alcohol.

He said greek members also are developing a judicial board to ensure the initiatives of Select 2000 are met by the various fraternities and sororities.

Originally the SIUC standards and expectations document and other media reported that the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York was also a pilot program.

Peter Leighton, coordinator for greek affairs at Rochester, said that was not the case.

At this point RIT is not a pilot campus for Select 2000, Leighton said. In fact, we were never a Select 2000 campus.

He said the confusion was caused by miscommunication with area media and the National Interfraternity Council.

We are evaluating where students’ desires and interest lies with Select 2000 principles when applied to greek life, but at this point we will not force students to go to Select 2000, Leighton said. We are working using self governance with students to develop a process they support and created.

Southern Florida College is also piloting the program. The college is private and has six national fraternities and five national sororities. The college’s homepage estimates its typical undergraduate student enrollment is 1,600 students.

Brad Bishop, the director of greek life at the college, was unavailable for comment.

In Thursday’s paper, part two of the series will examine how Select 2000 is now progressing at SIUC after opposition from student government and the Interfraternity Council.