Fraternities on this campus shouldn't even bother with recruitment efforts this fall, thanks to a new recruitment contract issued by the Interfraternity Council (IFC). The new contract is a near carbon copy of the contract used by the Women's Panhellenic Association (WPA) ' in fact, an early draft of the IFC contract obtained by this columnist still has some of the language of the WPA contract that IFC had initially failed to remove. It should be obvious that fraternities do not operate in the same way that sororities do, but aside from that this new contract is both unfair and invalid in that it constrains recruitment efforts without the express consent of OU's fraternities.
Readers may be asking, what's the big deal about this contract? There are actually many problems, but a few stick out like a sore thumb. For example, the contract limits recruitment budgets to $500 per quarter, far smaller than the budgets passed by many fraternities. Perhaps the most odious of these requirements are those related to silence
the period in which fraternities are not permitted to have contact with potential members. The contract's silence requirements would prohibit fraternity members, including recruitment officers, from having virtually any contact with potential members. Silence requirements even go so far as to limit contact between biological brothers!
Another major problem with the new contract is that no one in the fraternity community seems to know from whence it came or how it was passed by IFC. To be sure, there is nothing democratic about this contract ' my own chapter, Lambda Chi Alpha, never had the opportunity to vote on the contract and we were only alerted about its looming imposition by our recruitment chairman. Why does IFC believe that it has the right to impose such a burdensome contract upon OU's fraternities without their consent? Moreover, why does IFC expect that the fraternities upon which this is being imposed will respect its requirements? If IFC had been serious about drafting a contract that fraternities would have been happy with, consultation with fraternities should have been occurring every step of the way and each chapter should have voted on the contract in the end.
Nothing like that actually happened, however, which leaves OU's fraternities to face a serious question: What should we do with this contract? There are really only two options. Either each fraternity can accept the ridiculous requirements of this contract and watch recruitment go down the tubes, or each fraternity can refuse to sign. It seems obvious that IFC would have devised some penalty for refusal to sign the contract, although those penalties are as unclear as the questionable origins of the contract itself. Still, is IFC really prepared to impose penalties upon every single fraternity on this campus, or even a significant number of the larger fraternities? We'll never know until we try, and each of our brotherhoods should gather the courage to do just that.
Ultimately, whether or not this contract is accepted or refused will depend upon decisions made by each fraternity on this campus. For my part, I will be recommending that my fraternity refuse to sign an invalid, undemocratic contract that contains provisions that would unfairly hinder our recruitment efforts. I don't know what my chapter's ultimate decision will be, but I know that if enough fraternity members on this campus stand up and say no to this contract there will be absolutely nothing IFC can do about it except cast the contract aside and start over. That is what needs to happen for the healthy growth of OU's fraternities and for the democratic reform of IFC, an organization that is supposed to represent the needs of all fraternities on this campus ' not just a few of us, and not just the whims of OU administrators.
Nate Nelson is a sophomore political science major. He is the secretary of Lambda Chi Alpha and a member of its executive committee.
17
Archives
Nathan Nelson
200806068371midsize.jpeg
