To: Donald Brady, Chair, Vanderbilt University Faculty Senate, 2013-2014
From: David Weintraub, Chair, Greek Life Task Force
Date: April 25, 2014
Subject: Interim Report
The Greek Life Task Force has spent the 2013-2014 academic year gathering information and
meeting with stakeholders. We will continue our work in the 2014-2015 academic year.
The following persons, including four current/former/future Faculty Senate Chairs, four
Commons Heads of House, and representatives of six colleges/schools, have served as members
of this task force this year:
• Brooke Ackerly (A&S -- Associate Professor in Political Science);
• Greg Melchor-Barz (committee vice-chair) (BLR -- Associate Professor in Musicology,
A&S -- Anthropology, Divinity -- Music and Religion; former vice-Chair faculty senate;
Faculty Head of North House);
• Donald Brady (MED -- Professor of Medicine; Chair Faculty Senate).
• John Braxton (PBY -- Professor in Higher Education, Department of Leadership, Policy,
& Organizations);
• Roger Cone (MED -- Joe C Davis Chair in Biomedical Science and Chair, Molecular
Physiology & Biophysics; Faculty Head of Murray House)
• Cathy Fuchs (MED -- Associate Professor in Psychiatry; Director of Psychological and
Counseling Center; former Chair Faculty Senate);
• Chalene Helmuth (A&S -- Sr. Lecturer in Spanish & Portuguese; Faculty Head of
Sutherland House);
• Brian Heuser (PBY – Assistant Professor of the Practice, International Education Policy
and Senior Research Fellow, Office of the Dean of Students)
• Paul Lim (DIV -- Associate Prof. of History of Christianity; Chair-elect Faculty Senate;
Faculty Head of Crawford House)
• William H. Robinson (ENG -- Associate Professor in EECE);
• Kyla Terhune (MED – Assistant Prof of Surgery and Anesthesiology; Faculty Head of
Hank Ingram House)
• Joseph Wehby (PBY -- Associate Prof Special Education; Chair, Student Life Committee
of Faculty Senate 2013-2014);
• David A. Weintraub (committee chair) (A&S -- Professor in Astronomy; former Chair
Faculty Senate).
Major activities conducted this year:
 Analysis of student survey data (Analytics subcommittee: Heuser, Braxton, Fuchs) –
interim report to be presented to committee on April 30;
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Monthly committee meetings in Fall semester, every-other-week meetings in Spring
semester, used to thrash out ideas, determine issues on which to focus;
Met with staff in Office of Greek Life (5/30/13, 6/11/13, 7/17/13);
Met with Student Government President (8/16/13);
Met jointly with IFC, Panhel, NPHC leaders (10/2/2013);
Met with Student Leadership Summit leaders (11/5/13);
Met with Panhel leaders (4/4 and 4/11/14);
Met with leaders of one sorority (4/9/14) to discuss issues of financial aid for members;
Met with NPHC leaders (4/22/14);
Met with IFC leaders (4/22/14);
Met with Dean Mark Bandas (4/17/14);
Will meet in June, 2014, with Chief General Counsel.
The committee has emphasized, in conversations with Greek organization leaders, that they have
the power and influence on the Vanderbilt campus to influence significant change, not just
within the Greek community but across the entire campus, should they choose to do so.
The committee discussed at length campus shadow Greek organizations, but ultimately chose to
focus, for the most part, on groups registered with the Greek Life office.
The task force has identified two most-important issues on which to focus: the lack of diversity
within the Greek community and sexual violence associated with Greek Life. Note that the
committee very clearly recognizes that sexual violence is not exclusively a problem within Greek
Life, but also that it cannot be ignored as a problem within Greek Life. The ‘painted coolers’
associated with spring fraternity formal season is a tradition the committee has discussed at
length as both symbolic and problematic in this regard.
A significant issue that arose from the Student Leadership Summit conversation is one of space.
Greek organizations have privileged access to social and meeting spaces, in the form of
exclusive access to houses on campus. Non-Greek organizations are at a serious disadvantage, in
this respect. With one exception, the land and the fraternity and sorority buildings on Greek
Row are owned by Vanderbilt; the Greek groups, however, have exclusive access to these
properties. The committee has discussed why that is the case, and does not yet have an answer.
Greek Life organizations do not necessarily meet more often or have more members than other
student organizations. Greek leaders suggested that their groups merit the privileged status of
having meeting houses because Greek alumni donate more money to the university than nonGreek alumni, but the data do not support this argument. An important issue for the committee,
therefore, is to understand what benefits accrue to the institution in return for providing this
special benefit to a limited number of student organizations.
Related to the issue of land and buildings is one of support. The Office of Greek Life has a staff
devoted to monitoring and supporting the activities of registered Greek community
organizations, in particular the Panhel and IFC groups. Vanderbilt University invests
considerable resources in this office; yet not all student organizations receive this kind of
dedicated support from the institution. The committee is working to understand what the
university gains by providing this high level of support only to certain student organizations.
The committee has found that rush and pledging season (January-March) is a very disruptive
force within Commons House communities. The committee also understands that one of the
processes at work during the four-year residential campus experience, as well as one that occurs
regularly throughout all our lives, is the creation and disruption of communities and friendship
groups. The issue for the task force is whether this particular disruption is acceptable or if
attempts should be made to mitigate it.
Of considerable interest, and partially related to this issue, is the decision by the national SAE
fraternity to abolish the “pledging” period for new members. (At Vanderbilt, the IFC agreed last
year to shorten the new member education period, known as “pledging,” from 8 to 6 weeks;
nationally, “pledging” is more commonly a 10 week or full-semester time period.) Henceforth,
new SAE members will be initiated immediately into this fraternity and new member education
will become a multi-year process rather than an intensive 6-10 week process. A second
fraternity with a chapter at Vanderbilt, ZBT, eliminated pledging in 1989. Sororities do not have
“pledging” periods.
The lack of diversity in Greek communities is found in many metrics; however, because of the
large increase in recent years of less financially well-off students due to the success of
Opportunity Vanderbilt, the high cost of membership in the large, socially dominant,
predominantly white organizations is a new problem that divides the student population at
Vanderbilt in ways that did not occur in past decades.
The committee is beginning a phase of investigation into the recent history of disciplinary
actions imposed on Greek organizations and on individuals because of activities specifically
associated with Greek life. One aspect of this investigation will be to understand the relationship
of the Office of Greek Life, which promotes and supports the Greek organizations, to the
disciplinary decision-making process as it pertains to Greek Life.
The Committee has thus far identified and requested five significant sources of student-level
data, which the analytics subcommittee is working with:
1. The Quality of Life Survey – administered by the Office of the Dean of Students (results
presented Spring 2014)
2. The EBI (Education Benchmarking Institute) Survey – facilitated by the Office of Greek
Life/Office of the Dean of Students (results due Summer 2014)
3. Office of Greek Life Outcomes Assessment Results - facilitated by the Office of Greek
Life/Office of the Dean of Students (results due Summer 2014)
4. Greek v. Non-Greek Graduating Student Survey Results (results due Summer 2014
5. Greek Life Task Force Data Report (results due Summer 2014)