Greek Life Plan Update
College Administrators host forum to answer student concerns – Feb. 24th, 2022 (Danni Savage)
By: Clarice Scheele
Throughout the Greek Life Forum on February 24th, murmurs of frustration from both affiliated and unaffiliated students filled the Withrow Activity Center.
Many students are upset about the plan, with most feeling completely left out of a plan that directly affects them and the organizations they love.
Students came to the forum with a lot of questions but didn’t leave with answers to some of their most pressing concerns.
The purpose of this forum was for the college administration to clear up questions and concerns that had developed about the plan while offering a space for questions to be asked in-person.
The Associate Dean of Students, Casey Heckler, reviewed the PowerPoint provided to all of the Greek houses: going through the plan and debunking myths.
These myths include:
College administration is trying to end Greek Life
College administration is trying to take Greek houses away
The college is going to buy out Phi Delta Theta (Phi Delt) and Phi Gamma Delta (Figi)
The Vice President of Student Life and Dean of Students, Dr. Dewain Lee, provided information concerning the new Greek Organization on campus, Alpha Kappa Alpha, and facilitated the question-and-answer portion of the forum.
President Lake Lambert was present to answer questions and as a representative for administration and the Trustee Board.
New Greek Organization
Alpha Kappa Alpha, AKA, is a traditionally all-Black sorority. AKA started as an all-Black sorority but are open to all types of members. The organization had been approved by Greek Life a few years prior.
Dr. Lee updated the students by informing them that housing will not be provided for the members of the sorority like they have been for the rest of Greek Life. AKA will act more as a student organization.
It’s not a standard through the National Panhellenic Council that AKA receive a house. Normally, they occupy a floor in a residential hall. The college plans on following this but could not provide any details on the specifics such as the residential hall and floor.
Updates about the Plan
Dr. Lee went into the forum by emphasizing that the college plans to “enhance the experience, not minimize it, for our own benefit”. The administration is hoping this plan will benefit the Hanover College community.
The Greek Life Plan will be completely effective in 17 months. After this point, the plan is estimated to take 5 to 7 years to be completely incorporated into Hanover’s Greek Life.
Concerned student fill the WAC to hear updates on the Greek Life Plan - Feb. 24th, 2022 (Danni Savage)
Communication of Plan Development
Administrators presented the timeline behind the plan development to offer more of an understanding to the students:
2020 Board of Trustees reviewed the plan.
Spring 2021 President Lambert presented the Greek Dining plan by Parkhurst to the Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees advised that they wanted a more comprehensive plan.
Summer 2021 Administrators decided to offer room scholarships in their financial packages. This would aid high-need individuals, but these financial packages could not be offered to students in Greek Life with their housing corporations still involved.
This issue with the housing corporations could be a pushing factor towards the college’s decision to buy the six Greek houses on the college’s land. This way the college could offer the financial aid packages to needing students interested in or already involved in Greek Life.
Greek RA Training
The Greek Life RAs will have special training on top of the regular RA training conducted by Student Life. Greek RAs will not be required to do rounds like they do in campus housing. This means the RAs will not be monitoring the halls late at night.
Filling Townhouses
Chapters will be responsible for filling their townhouses. If the chapters are unable to fill their designated townhouse, then the college will assist them in that process.
The townhouse will most likely then be filled by an unaffiliated member of the campus community. It is important to note that these unaffiliated members will not live under the same roof as the affiliated member. Instead, they will be neighbors.
College's Connection to Phi Delt and Figi
The college still does not plan on pursuing buying the Phi Delta Theta and Phi Gamma Delta fraternities.
Further Reasoning Behind Plan Development
President Lambert says that much of the data for this plan was collected through analyzing trends in Greek Life with other schools. He did not specify which schools the college analyzed to gain this information.
Concerned students create a petition to speak out about these Greek Life changes
Concerns Brought by Students
Students were provided the option to submit concerns ahead of the forum along with staying after to have their questions asked.
The forum extended for an extra two hours as students voiced their concerns.
Nicole Fry, Junior in Alpha Delta Pi, voices her concerns about dietary needs - February 24th, 2022 (Owen Via)
The Sigma Chi fraternity’s Instagram live streamed the entire forum. Other attendants took notes and saved recordings of the forum.
Here are the main concerns presented at the forum:
How Parkhurst will effectively accommodate dietary needs
With a larger frequency of students in the dining halls, it will be more difficult to accommodate everyone’s needs. The General Manager of Parkhurst Dining at Hanover College, John Anderle, was not present at the forum. President Lambert indicated that the CEO of Parkhurst dining will be on campus soon to answer questions.
Accountability of the college to facility management
Many students presented concerns that the college has struggled in the past to be prompt with facility upkeep. Students are worried about the college’s promptness in renovations and the upkeep of these renovations thereafter.
Fairness of the plan
Many students are concerned about the fairness of the plan for management and recruitment reasons between the six organizations effected and the two fraternities that are not.
The fear is that students interested in Greek Life will be more likely to join the houses not affected by the school's bureaucracy because they will be more free to do what they want.
Additionally, many students choose to join Greek Life to escape campus life such as the campus meal plan.
Overall unhappiness of the communication of the plan
Since they were being directly affected by the changes, affiliated students feel as though they were blind-sided by the college. The lack of communication about this plan has raised concerns among the student body about the operations and communication coming from the Board of Trustees. Many decisions coming from the Board of Trustees affects the students drastically, but they are never informed.
A similar forum for Greek alumni was held virtually on March 3rd. Alumni sources confirm that similar information was provided to the alumni as was to the students. A month later...
Currently, no further updates on the plan or how it will be implemented have been communicated to the community.
Students and alumni are still concerned about the effects of this plan with little answers to calm these nerves.
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