Greek life at FIU has been rocky the past few months and there have been a lot of questions flying around. Starting January 1st all the sorority and fraternity activities were paused in order to take some time for reflection.
On February 1st there was a town hall with the Greek community to discuss the current status of Greek life at FIU where the president of FIU and also the VP of Student Affairs addressed all concerns and tackled what the next steps would be for the Greek community.
Rosenberg addressed the crowd first, saying 2017 wasn’t a good year for Greek life and then showed a slideshow of the men that Greek life has lost all around the country this year because of bad decisions that were made. This truly hit home because even FIU has lost souls too because we weren’t looking out for each other.
The biggest discussion that was brought up was the zero tolerance policy as the new normal. A zero tolerance for any and everything- you either follow the rules or you wont be recognized on campus. Rosenberg states that “the university has zero tolerance for misconduct that jeopardizes the health, safety and welfare of the university community.” As a way of helping this an alcohol ban was put in place and will not permitted for any activity until Friday, April 27th and if found in violation of the ban, the organizations will be held accountable for these actions.
The update on the organizations are: Tau Kappa Epsilon who had been taken off suspension back in September, was put back on interim suspension in October for providing alcohol to a minor. As a result the Office of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution issued a 2 year suspension. Phi Gamma Delta was also placed on interim suspension in October for hosting an off-campus party where yet again underage drinking occurred. So in December they were placed on a 2 year suspension. The chapter did appeal this decision but on February 1st the interim Dean of Students upheld the decision to keep them suspended. Pi Kappa Phi was placed on interim suspension in November due to hazing allegations and while on this suspension they held an unregistered party and thus were immediately suspended from the university.
Beta Theta Pi and Sigma Alpha Mu who are already on interim suspension for underage drinking and an unregistered party respectively, will be giving a plan based on their own situations.
But these chapters were reinstated:
Multicultural Greek Council (MGC)
- Lambda Theta Alpha
- Sigma Lambda Gamma
- Omega Phi Beta
- Sigma Beta Rho
- Phi Iota Alpha
National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC)
- Iota Phi Theta
- Phi Beta Sigma
- Sigma Gamma Rho
Panhellenic Council (PC)
- Alpha Omicron Pi
- Delta Phi Epsilon
- Phi Mu
- Phi Sigma Sigma
- Sigma Kappa
Interfraternity Council (IFC)
- Delta Sigma Phi
- Sigma Phi Epsilon
- Zeta Beta Tau
All these reinstated chapters are allowed to resume normal activities as of the Thursday of the meeting which was the 1st of the month. The organizations who were not taken off suspension have an additional 30 days to submit their packets again and will be allowed another opportunity to present themselves and their organizations. If they are not reinstated at this time they will no longer be recognized by Fraternity and Sorority Life of FIU.