Greek Week Controversy: Wet Socials Slashed to 1 Night
News, UCF Administration, UCF Greek Life — By Staff on March 23, 2011 at 1:52 pmKnightNews.com is following a major controversy coming out of UCF’s Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life, raising questions regarding whether the UCF Administration is violating the rights of registered student organizations by restricting their events without a Student Conduct Trial.
UPDATE: We caught up with both presidential camps about this Outrage in OFSL.
Gurney/Gonzales spoke out about how student rights need to be better protected, and suggested a lack of a strong leadership from students on IFC standing up to proposed erosions of rights by the UCF administration was a big part of the problem:
IFC President Adam Brock, who is running as Matt McCann’s SGA vice presidential candidate, confirmed that higher administration imposed this policy without any student input. Brock said he opposes the move and expressed his dissatisfaction with his advisers:
Also watch both candidates participate in a town hall at Zeta Tau Alpha lasting about an hour:
KnightNews.com has been monitoring a trend out of OFSL recently to scrutinize events of UCF fraternities and sororities and make it harder to get approval. Just within the last 30 minutes, KnightNews.com received more evidence of this in a mass email sent to the leadership of Greek Community earlier today:
“Fraternity and Sorority Life has been receiving questions regarding socials/events during Greek Week. We want to clarify that the only events that will be approved will be dry socials/events that do not conflict with the scheduled Greek Week events. These events should only include those organizations that are part of your individual Greek Week teams.
“Thursday March 31st is the designated social night, which is when you will be able to have wet socials as this was the day designated by the Greek Week Executive Board.
“Remember that you must turn in a SERF form if you would like to have an event (dry or wet). If you have already turned in a SERF form for a dry event during Greek Week and it was denied, please resubmit your SERF form for that event.
“Please let myself, Laura, or Megan Reid know if you have any questions.”
The email above was sent from Jimmy Kelly, a Graduate Assistant with OFSL. In the past, Greek organizations were allowed to have multiple wet socials throughout Greek Week. Now, the right of every Greek organization to do that has been taken away and reduced to just one night — without a Student Conduct hearing.
This latest edict from the UCF Administration and OSFL staff comes days after another mass email went out promising to “sternly” enforce regulations regarding socials and to discourage having socials on weeknights.
OFSL has outright banned “new member activities” from being allowed at bars, claiming it is a “violation of FIPG and national policies.” That means no more pledge auctions at bars, which had been a popular event among many UCF fraternities before the ban. KnightNews.com is working to find out if a formal hearing where public comment was sought occured before this ban was imposed, as is the case often with the Golden Rule Review Committee and other policy changes at UCF.
OFSL is also requring strict guest lists for social events, and no longer allowing chapters to turn in their entire roster showing the people who may be attending. Now the chapters must submit a specific list with dates, PIDs or birthdays, because the previous “leniency has been abused by chapters.”
OFSL also promised to ensure “that events that pose higher risk such as bar crawls or socials on week nights now have national office approval.”
One KnightNews.com alumni viewer posted this video showing what Greek Week was like in 1990:
The movement to slash rights of Greek organizations comes as OFSL has engaged in an odd policy of secrecy for Greek Week events. KnightNews.com has been asking for weeks to shoot video of the Greek Week events, but UCF has refused to let KnightNews.com know if it will be allowed. Student activity fees often fund these Greek events.
KnightNews.com just received much of this information and will work to seek comment from IFC President Adam Brock and UCF officials to update this major breaking news. Check back for continuing coverage on the controversy involving the rights of UCF fraternities and sororities. We’ll also work to see if these restrictions are going to be imposed on other organizations at UCF after the changes to the Greek Organizations are imposed.
Tweet This
Digg This
Share on Facebook
Stumble it
12 Comments
“Greek Week continues to get worse; it used to a can food drive or penny wars mixed into a week of fun. Some people looking to be PC so they don’t look bad have eroded Greek Week into a boring joke. ”
Like when last year they trashed organizations in a Greek Week sponsored video? They’re morons.
And to the Homecoming post who said”You can’t plan an event through the Univeristy when another University event is taking place.”
Greek Organizations aren’t planning an event through the university. You’re an idiot. The university doesn’t cover the cost, liability/insurance, make the calls/reservations, and Greeks don’t get student funding as previously said. If they don’t want to go to the events they shouldn’t have to – it could send a message to the GW Exec and HC boards that they are doing a terrible job. Forced fun isn’t fun. Greeks are a special group that requires more paperwork and hoops to jump through with less privileges than any other RSO on campus.
The priority of UCG Greeklife is not socials. Who cares if the groups can’t have a social during Greek Week!
Homecoming does the same thing. You can’t plan an event through the Univeristy when another University event is taking place.
Thanks for sharing that video. I was waiting for Ogar to come out and yell “Nerds!!!!”
This is what Greek Week was back in the day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvJZhdi6prY
We are a liberal school run by the most extreme conservatives now.
We are college students and Greek Week was fun and full of tradition. The administration that OFSL is part of helped kill all these traditions we had. Annual Parties Canceled, Pledge Auctions Done away with. No student had any input on this at all! Brock said he doesn’t blame OFSL because they did it over Spring Break- As IFC president how could you not know they were going to meet and discuss such a matter.
Greek organizations are registered student organizations but we cannot receive funding from SGA, but we still have to abide by stricter standards. Administration never supports our events. Schumacher would have never let this happen. He would have camped outside Belindas Office until this was repealed.
Everyone is just going to have unofficial events every night during the week anyway. One official social is all anybody ever has anyway. Every other night is just a “go out to random bar” night.
And OFSL isnt out to get anyone. The VP of SDES saw DU and Kappa being ridiculous on a social and wanted to enact very harsh penalties on all organizations. Glad we got what we got.
And guests list? Really? Sororities already do that per social. Fraternities are just lazy.
Greek Week continues to get worse; it used to a can food drive or penny wars mixed into a week of fun. Some people looking to be PC so they don’t look bad have eroded Greek Week into a boring joke. I heard a year or two after I was out of school it had basically turned into philanthropy week. Philanthropy has its place but it isn’t all Greek Week is about. Now I see no more skit night and they are taking away your socials. Some weak leadership has let the Greek Affairs office take away everything that is fun. The people on IFC/PAN need to put a stop to this – just say no. A small group of people in Greek Affairs does not have the right to do this. Let’s see them justify it for real if challenged – or tell other groups they can only meet / have wet socials certain days of a week.
Events for Greek Week USED to be fun – no great purpose outside of that (philantrophy, diversity, etc). Every single person you vote for at the next IFC/PAN election, or that serves on GW Exec, needs to say they will work to make greek life fun again – not bend over for the administration like the last few administrations have seem to have done.
According to the email, you all have designated 1 day for us to have wet socials. A big part of being greek is our socials; it is probably a key element in the culture we have developed. For you to allow us only one day shows only that you have let your advisors run the meetings (which is a lack of real leadership, but you have also forgot what it is like to be greek.
Being a leader is making decisions for the good of the majority, not for the good of yourself (in this case your events).
The reason why our Greek life at UCF is not in means comparable to other campuses is because the OFSL staff.
Until we get staff members who support Greek life, aren’t afraid to advocate for us, and can actually talk to us like humanbeings we will never be up to par.
If UCF stands for opportunity, they must have not included greeks in that plan.
This is what happens when the school is run by a bunch of GDIs
I graduated from UCF a few years back… when I went to school there, Greek week was a full week of fun and school spirit. We had a good time, we did community service, we went out and got to know our partners EVERY NIGHT OF THE WEEK at fun socials.
We also had an even called Greek Sing in the arena that was a big hit. It seems like they cancelled this and spent the money on a step show this year.
It’s interesting to see how much things have changed. I have a feeling that the size of the Greek community has shrunk proportionately from a few years ago … despite UCF’s booming growth. I’d be interested to see Knightnews investigate how much the Greek community has shrunk or grown under the current leadership.
Remember when Schu/IFC tried to have the all Greek tailgate and OFSL said it had to be dry and the sorositutes backed out… IFC responded by having the tailgate anyway and printing a banner that said “Proud to Tailgate Responsibly”… The community needs to respond again
Wow, the errors in what is going on here are numerous:
1. FIPG stands for Fraternal Information and Programming Group. They don’t set policies, they promote awareness. No one is bound to follow these.
2. Though my chapter doesn’t host new member events are bars, I know my nationals doesn’t prohibit it in their risk management policies. How can they make a blanket statement like this?
3. “That events that pose higher risk such as bar crawls or socials on week nights now have national office approval.” I can understand a bar crawl typically has higher risk, except for the fact that most of them take place in the same parking lot (Library, Fubar, Etc.)which means there is the same amount of driving to and from the bar. And let’s be honest, people (at least my friends) aren’t going to drink any more or any less if they’re at one bar or 3, they’re getting drunk (which is still legal in this country, right?)
4. How is a weeknight social a higher risk? It could impact grades, yes, but not a higher risk that could violate an insurance policy since grades aren’t on our risk management policy at least.
5. So can my nationals office approve my week night social if its during Greek Week?
Whether you believe Greeks are terrible people or not, OFSL should not be able to unilaterally impose sanctions against events/actions that are not against the law, the Golden Rule, Insurance Groups, or National Policies.
I’m sincerely disappointed in the Greek administration.