About a year before many national fraternities are scheduled to implement dry housing initiatives, national sororities have been passing their own resolutions of support. Last night, the University's Interfraternity and Panhellenic councils met to discuss how these resolutions will operate on Duke's campus.
In fall 2000, eight national fraternities, including Delta Sigma Phi, Phi Delta Theta and Sigma Nu, plan to eliminate alcohol from their housing facilities. Several others, including Theta Chi, will follow suit within the next three years.
When fraternities began talking about booting the booze from their houses, the National Panhellenic Conference-the governing body for 26 national sororities-passed a 1998 resolution to help the fraternities implement their plans. By fall 2000, NPC expects each of its member sororities to pass similar resolutions.
Nationally, sorority houses have been dry since their inception; now, sororities are resolving not to co-sponsor events in a fraternity house that is not alcohol-free. The policy does allow sororities to co-sponsor events that involve alcohol at other facilities.
At the IFC-Panhel meeting, suggestions for on-campus party spaces turned up the Hideaway, the Armadillo Grill, the Oak Room, Von Canon and the Faculty Commons-places that were not met with overwhelming support.
"A Tex-Mex mixer?...," joked IFC President Ken Collins, a Trinity senior. "I think the idea of having a mixer at Von Canon or the Armadillo Grill is sending chills down people's spines."
Representatives from national sororities said the policy stems from general health and safety concerns.
"I believe that if the constant availability [of alcohol] is lowered, grades get better, the image of the greek system gets better, there are fewer incidents of hazing, fights, deaths and injuries," said Jean Scott, the NPC representative for the national Pi Beta Phi sorority. "To have it continually available in men's houses is not promoting the image we'd like to promote. The image affects both men and women."
Another major concern was the number of sexual assaults taking place at in-house events, said Lissa Bradford, chair of the NPC when the 1998 resolution was passed.
"We don't think having a lot of alcohol in a fraternity house is a safe place for it to be. There are too many things that can happen.... People make poor choices," said Bradford, who was also a member of the Campus Support Team that visited Duke last spring. "It's not going to happen in the bars like it will happen in a fraternity house."
Because the resolutions will encourage or require hosting events at bars or clubs, conversation at the IFC-Panhel meeting turned to the logistics of renting off-campus facilities for sorority-fraternity functions.
Panhel President Rae Miller, a Trinity senior, suggested forming a committee to examine the financial, safety and transportation issues involved in off-campus parties.
"I think from here, the rest of the academic year will be spent on how to go about implementing this," Miller said after the meeting. "We'll do our best to try to follow the rules that nationals give us."
But several of the 30 fraternity and sorority representatives at last night's meeting sought loopholes in the sorority resolutions, asking whether individual sororities were committed to enforcing their national organizations' policies.
One sorority representative suggested that fraternities begin holding invitation-only parties that were not technically co-sponsored by sororities; another suggested having fraternities sponsor parties while sororities donated money to their charities in return.
"It seems like we should know we're all breaking a lot of rules right now," said one fraternity representative. "This could be another rule we'll keep on breaking."
Still, some sorority members noted that their national organizations kept closer tabs on the local chapters than do fraternities', making loopholes significantly more difficult to exploit.
But parties in fraternity sections are often cited as the defining characteristic of the Duke social scene, sparking concern about what the end to most on-campus mixers could mean for Duke culture overall.
Collins explained that often fraternity-sorority mixers start out as closed parties, but eventually open up to the whole community. If those mixers are regularly held off campus, there is the potential that fewer parties will be held on campus, he said.
Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs Sue Wasiolek, IFC's adviser, said these sorority resolutions were just another step in increasing attention to liability issues for greek organizations.
"[National fraternities and sororities are] attempting to force in a way a culture shift and I think history has shown that sometimes laws, rules, regulations and policies do not necessarily create that level of change. But they will continue to try because their livelihoods depend on it."
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