new greek life task force

www.indianagazette.com/news/iup-sets-up-task-force-to-study- university-s-greek/article_fa114076-e1a9-11e7-ac4d-c7cc5c802 ac7.html

The above link is the recent article regarding the new task force being set up to study the Greek Life at IUP.

Indiana University of Pennsylvania doesn’t want the sort of problems with fraternities and sororities that other schools have had in recent years.

A task force including representatives of four campus Greek organizations representing 32 entities expects to have a strategic plan ready for IUP President Dr. Michael A. Driscoll’s consideration by early spring next year.

“It is now time to put a plan in place to advance us to the future,” said Betsy Sarneso, assistant director of Greek life at IUP.

Involved are 17 chapters and one colony of various fraternities, as well as 16 chapters of sororities. The 458 men and 570 women in those organizations make up 11 percent of IUP’s undergraduate population.

A fraternal colony and chapters of 11 other fraternities are involved in the Interfraternity Council. A fraternity and two sororities are under the Multicultural Greek Council’s umbrella. Four fraternities and three sororities are in the National Pan-Hellenic Council. And 11 sororities are involved in Pan-Hellenic Association.

“It is nice to see a campus be proactive,” said Dr. Ron Binder, associate dean of student affairs at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford, after a task force presentation Thursday before a committee of IUP’s Council of Trustees. Binder said that was compared to Penn State University being reactive. Binder also was on a task force at Penn State two years ago.

In turn, that’s prior to the death in February of Timothy Piazza, 19, at the Beta Theta Pi fraternity at Penn State’s main campus, which led to charges being filed twice against members of that fraternity.

In a Sept. 23, 2015, memo, Penn State President Eric J. Barron said fraternities and sororities have “a long and notable history” there, but “there also is cause for concern about the current state and direction” of the Greek community “(that) has not been immune to many of these same unfortunate outcomes” found on other campuses.

Such outcomes have been rare at IUP. One has to go back to April 2010 to find an Indiana Gazette report of a brawl involving members of three fraternities — which ended with felony charges being filed, then withdrawn, against five individuals. A book about a controversial death 30 years ago mentions reputed ties to another brawl involving fraternities. But the only charges in connection with the Oct. 16, 1987, death of Jack Davis Jr., 20, from Penn Hills, Allegheny County, were filed against a downtown bar and a bartender who served alcoholic beverages to the underage Davis.

Binder is a past president of the Association of Fraternity/Sorority Advisers. Sarneso is a member of AFA. Also guiding the effort is the Council for Advancement of Standards, a national consortium of professional associations in higher education that promotes development, assessment and improvement of quality student learning, programs and services.

Thursday’s daylong series of committee meetings involving IUP’s trustees also was an opportunity for the release of an annual security and fire safety report by the university’s Department of Public Safety.
Binder is a past president of the Association of Fraternity/Sorority Advisers. Sarneso is a member of AFA.