Greek life: Opening the doors to transparency
Graphic by Isabel Sarhad
By Jordan Erb, The Arbiter
Each year, the Student Involvement and Leadership Center (SILC) releases statistics surrounding Boise State’s fraternities and sororities. Among the statistics are chapters’ GPAs, service hours and code of conduct violations for both individuals and the chapter as a whole.
Conduct violations are any actions that violate Boise State’s student code of conduct, a document that each student agrees to when they join the university. The code covers a wide array of actions, from academic integrity, to alcohol and drug violations, to discrimination and sexual assault.
While the numbers are the SILC’s way of being transparent and holding members of Greek life accountable, questions have been raised by Greek leaders regarding the conduct violations themselves and other students’ right to know. In order to address this, Connor Johnson, president of the Interfraternity Council (IFC), has been working to bolster accountability and transparency not only within the Greek system, but within Boise State’s administration as well.
The numbers
As Greek life grows at Boise State, so do the community’s number of conduct violations. From the 2015-2016 school year to the 2017-2018 school year, members increased from 1,140 to 1,628, and conduct violations increased from 153 to 231. During this same period, the number of group violations increased from one to three. There is no data for group violations from 2015-2016.
The chapters with the highest individual conduct violations during last school year are fraternities Sigma Chi and Pi Kappa Phi, which had 31 and 29 violations respectively. Delta Sigma Phi, Pi Kappa Phi and Tau Kappa Epsilon each had one organization violation; the rest of the chapters had none.
Because the numbers on the SILC’s website are aggregate, students don’t know the breakdown of the information, a fact that has slightly unsettled presidents of different chapters.
“It’s kind of shady,” said Tate Volbrecht, president of Phi Gamma Delta. “It’s weird, especially if my job is to manage chapter operations and evidently there are conduct violations and I don’t know what they are, what am I supposed to do about it?”
Beyond not knowing what the violations are, some chapter presidents and members aren’t aware that the numbers even exist. Siana Carsrud, president of Alpha Chi Omega, feels like she’s been in the dark regarding her chapter’s numbers. The sorority’s numbers have decreased from 22 to 16 to 15 from the 2015-2016 school year to the 2017-2018 school year.
“It makes me feel kind of ill-informed,” Carsrud said. “I feel like if I should know what they are, they would communicate with us or show that it’s important, but that hasn’t been communicated with me.”
Presidents have also expressed interest in knowing what other chapters’ violations are, so that they can look out for themselves and their members.
“I think that it really concerns me, because for my sorority I would want to know as president how high the violation rates of the code of conduct are for fraternities, to kind of give us a better perspective of who we’re hanging around and what they’re doing, what kind of violations they’re making,” Carsrud said.
According to Brayden Pinkerton, president of Kappa Sigma, out of the 24 conduct violations committed by his members, he knew of only two or three. The two or three that he did know of were more serious, including a sexual assault investigation that left his chapter suspended for weeks last semester.
Although the Kappa Sigma member who was investigated for sexual assault was expelled from the chapter, according to Pinkerton, he still wishes there was more transparency across the board.
“That’s the whole thing with transparency, is being able to know. Coming into this and not really looking at the chart as much, I was thinking we probably have one, two or three in there, and then we have 24, and that makes you go, ‘oh crap. What are these for?’” Pinkerton said. “I would like to see that transparency with the school. Maybe not even public, but keeping it to us, and just saying ‘hey, this is what you guys have done. You need to improve on this or there will be consequences handed out.’”
Olivia Lettenberger, president of Panhellenic Council, takes issue with the fact that punitive measures like those of Kappa Sigma are left out of the statistics, which leaves questions surrounding the action that was taken for each offense.
“That’s also something that these numbers don’t represent: how many of these members, if they did commit a very serious offense, were terminated? That’s something that Connor and I envision within this new program, is being able to see, ‘this happened, so what was the aftermath? Did the school have punitive sentencing or punishment for them?” Lettenberger said. “And what are the fraternities and sororities internally doing? Are they educating? Are they holding their members accountable?”
Accountability and transparency
Though his plans aren’t set in stone, Johnson hopes to institute new bylaws that would allow any individuals or organizations to bring complaints about fraternities to a judicial branch within the IFC. Johnson has been in communication with the Office of the Dean of Students regarding this new model, and will be meeting with them later this month to discuss the final judicial bylaws and how IFC and the administration can better work together.
According to Chris Wuthrich, dean of students, the IFC will need to develop its own rules with which to hold chapters and individuals responsible, develop mechanisms for fair and legal adjudication and have some sort of hearing board that would determine whether the group or individual was in violation of code.
The conversation around making conduct violations more transparent is still developing, according to Johnson. One of the suggestions, he said, is to put conduct violations on their future website, including what the violation was and what sanctions were imposed. As of right now, if a chapter is suspended by the university, that information is not told to other Greek members. Chapters have been known to attend Greek functions and gatherings while on suspension, breaking their agreement with the university.
“Right now, if a chapter gets in trouble for anything, every other student organization has the right to know what it was, because we want to hold each other accountable,” Johnson said. “Holding each other accountable doesn’t happen when you keep it behind closed doors and you say ‘we are not going to talk about this. We’re not going to tell anyone about this,’ and kind of brush it under the rug a little. At that point, why punish them?”
According to Wuthrich, chapter-level violations are internally communicated to staff in the SILC, who are free to share that information with chapters if requested. As for matters of individual conduct, he said fraternity and sorority presidents are left in the dark for two reasons: first, because it doesn’t concern them, and second, because it violates other students’ right to privacy.
In order for individual members’ conduct violations to be released to chapter leaders, each member would have to waive their rights to privacy, an action that would likely prove easier said than done.
“Anybody can ask. Each fraternity president can ask what’s going on, and we can disclose certain things to them,” Wutherich said. “If there’s a question from student leaders and IFC/Panhellenic presidents and so forth, that’s a good opportunity for a conversation.”
Volbrecht said that he has asked about his chapter’s numbers, but that he hasn’t heard anything back.
“I would at least like to know, because it makes my job a lot easier — like maintaining accountability and discipline stuff. If people aren’t living up to the student code of conduct, and they’re being punished for it and I don’t know about it, then there’s nothing I can do,” Volbrecht said. “For all I know, maybe someone’s being punished by the university, and they’re not telling me, but they still have full membership privileges, which would be a no-no. The chances that that’s happened are slim to none, but the thought that that could happen is weird.”
If the numbers were classified by what happened, rather than by who did it, it may bring some peace of mind and avoid the issue of privacy invasion. Knowing the breakdown between big and small violations could help paint a more accurate representation of Greek life.
“I think a pro would be, rather than just listing the conduct (violations), saying what those conduct (violations) were,” said Melanie Snelson, president of Delta Delta Delta. “Either it will display it positively or negatively, and depending on what it is, it will be a more accurate representation, rather than ‘this is just a big chunk of things that went wrong.’ I think if people can see more into what the things were, then it would make a lot more of an impression on them and how they can make their own opinion, rather than just that big sum.”
Johnson will be continuing conversations throughout the spring semester, and hopes to have something more concrete in place for the fall; a system in which everyone can have their voice heard.
“…We have a vested interest in ensuring we have a morally outstanding Greek community, and that we have a Greek community that functions well,” Johnson said. “Greek life is expanding rapidly, and there’s no end in sight to that. We want to ensure that while we are growing, we are having sustainable growth that is bound by ethical development.”