The Implementation and Assessment Group on Greek Life met on Wednesday February 20 for the first regularly scheduled meeting of the semester. Two additional meetings are planned for the spring.
Topics of discussion included a summary of the report made to Board during the January meeting. An excerpt of the Student Life Committee Docket (in italics) is provided below relative to this report.
The Committee met three times during the fall semester. Discussion started to shift from the metrics to the feasibility of implementation of the recommendations outlined in the report accepted by the Board of Trustees in 2011. There has also been substantial work completed on an annual review and recognition program to replace “COMPASS,” which was used for a number of years, but does not adequately reflected the objectives on which the organizations were asked to focus.
The Office of Institutional Research was asked to provide updated information on academic performance and diversity of the Greek organizations and updated conduct data was available from the Division of Campus Life. Several observations regarding these data are noted below.
The chart below provides the cumulative GPA at graduation for the classes of 2010-12. There is no gap for women. There is a .09 lag between the fraternity men and non-affiliated men.
The chart below illustrates semester grade point averages for the sophomore, junior and senior classes (first-year is excluded), broken down by affiliation. The fall and spring grades typically following a valley and peak pattern, with women nearly identical regardless of affiliation. The semester grade point average for the fraternity men equaled the non-fraternity men in the spring of 2012.
The chart below displays the semester grade point averages for the incoming classes of 2009-2011. Breaking these data out focuses on the recent academic performance of the groups. These data include the current sophomores, juniors and seniors. The sophomore recruitment semester continues to be a low point in terms of academic achievement, but both sorority women and fraternity men close the gap by the spring of the junior year, with fraternity men slightly outperforming their non-fraternity peers (Class of 2013 Greek affiliated men earned a 3.38 and non-affiliated men earned a 3.28 in the spring of 2012).
During the 2011-12 academic year a total of 361 sanctions were issued for violations of student conduct rules and regulations. Greek affiliated students made up 19.3% of the students found responsible for violations of College policy. As a comparison, student athletes comprised 21.8% of the students found responsible for violations of College policy during that same time period. First-year students continue to be found responsible for the most violations of College policy, typically due to alcohol violations. The percentage of policy violations attributed to Greek- affiliated students seems to be in line with the percentage of the population that they represent. Five sanctions were issued to organizations during the 2011-12 year. Additionally, one organization was sanctioned at the start of the 2012 academic year for an incident that occurred in the spring of 2012.
The committee invested the remaining time together discussing an implementation grid that has been created to track achievement on the various recommendations made by the Greek Life Working Group. There are a number of very good items to report regarding student attendance at leadership and training events, efforts to provide alcohol-free programs and a plan to add a summer, graduate-level intern to assist with program planning. The implementation grid will be posted on the web page in the near future. Additionally, Metric 1, Fraternities and sororities must facilitate demonstrated learning opportunities for students and provide benefits to the College as a whole, will be updated to reflect values that enhance and extend learning rather than produce competition for college-wide programming venues.
Annette Diorio, Ed.D.
Vice President for Campus Life
and Senior Diversity Officer