Sept. 3, 2010
Charge
The objective of the Working Group on Greek Life and Campus Community is to understand more clearly the benefits of sorority and fraternity membership in order to preserve and enhance these benefits, while simultaneously working with the undergraduates and alumni to mitigate the more problematic issues facing the chapters. The group will seek to determine how best these organizations can contribute to the College’s future by aligning its primary purposes and daily operations with academic excellence, diversity and inclusion, student learning outside the classroom, responsible use of controlled substances, personal integrity, and the development of organizations that both support and challenge its members to grow and develop.
Background
One of the major objectives outlined in the Strategic Plan (2007) is for Lafayette to foster a more powerful sense of itself as a community whose members value and support one another and who are eager to serve as catalysts for productive partnerships with other communities. In addition, the plan seeks to enable every Lafayette College student to benefit from an environment that reflects diversity of thought, background, perspective, and experience. The 2008-09 Ad Hoc Committee on Residence Life issued several recommendations to shape the future of the College’s residential program for the next decade, but it also stated that the contribution of traditional fraternities and sororities to this effort was unclear. In fact, it was the committee’s studied opinion that further examination will be required to resolve the issue of how fraternities and sororities can most effectively contribute to the College’s mission.
Many students and alumni who belong to these organizations articulate forcefully the merits of membership, merits that extend far beyond their four years at Lafayette. Conversely, the Ad Hoc Committee reported on the perceptions of some that the Greek system may have a deleterious effect on such important community values as inclusion and diversity, equal access to desirable residential facilities, living-learning outside the classroom, the responsible use of alcohol, academic performance, etc. Thus, the objective of the working group is to understand more clearly the benefits of fraternity and sorority membership in order to preserve and enhance these benefits, while simultaneously working with the undergraduates and alumni of these organizations to mitigate the more problematic issues facing our chapters.
Lafayette hosts 11 fraternities and sororities, all of which are nationally affiliated. The working group seeks to determine how these organizations can best contribute to the College’s future as it is conceptualized within the context of the Strategic Plan. Ideally, the working group will determine ways in which the Greek system could better align its primary purposes and daily operations with academic excellence, diversity and inclusion, student learning outside the classroom, responsible alcohol use, personal integrity, and the development of organizations that both support their members and challenge them to grow and develop. Moreover, the Working Group will focus on the relationship between these organizations and nonaffiliated students as it shapes the quality of life on our campus.
The Working Group, made up of trustees, faculty, students, alumni, and staff, will spend the academic year engaging the College community in conversations related to the issues identified above. Moreover, it will investigate best practices for Greek life as recommended by national oversight organizations and employed by Lafayette’s peer institutions. The group will outline its findings in a final report offering observations and recommendations that will be shared with the campus community near the end of the academic year.