Out of the basements, into the bars

The frat party many IU students once knew is now officially dead. Beginning this fall, the administration stepped up enforcement in an effort to force parties out of basements and into local venues, where a third-party vendor can sell alcohol only to those students who are legally of age.\nBut how has this transition from loud, boisterous parties with free-flowing beer for all who could hold a cup into a primarily off-campus, legal party scene happened? \nThis semester of change has not passed without struggles. But both the administration and greek leaders see the shift as a positive one which will bring fraternities and sororities back to the ideals on which they were founded: brotherly and sisterly friendship, leadership and scholarship.\nThe beginning of the end\nThe frat party did not bite the dust overnight. According to Stan Sweeney, associate director of student activities for greek affairs, it began in 1997, when three national fraternities decided to become substance-free by the fall of 2000. This sparked the National Panhellenic Conference (NPC), the governing body of national sororities, to pass a resolution in 1998 that all sororities must stop attending functions at fraternity houses if alcohol is served.\nIn reaction to this local PHA resolution, IU's Interfraternity Council (IFC) passed its own resolution supporting NPC and PHA and adopted a new policy toward social functions.\nThe fact that the greek leadership at IU was taking a proactive stance towards alcohol management got the attention of the administration.\n"The University policy has always been the same for us," Sweeney says. "But what's different is that students are buying into it." \nJim Gibson, assistant dean of students and director of student activities, was proud of greek leaders since IU was one of only two universities in the nation to pass such a resolution. \n"That led Dean (of Students Richard) McKaig and I to sit down and say, 'Guys, what needs to happen? What do you need from us to help make this work?'" Gibson said.\nInvitation to the \'enemy\'\nAfter meeting with both sorority and fraternity leaders last spring, the administration realized the greek leaders wanted two things to help them function under their new resolutions. The first part was a list of local third-party vendors who would accept their business.\n"The students understood, and this is absolutely true, that their reputation preceded them," Gibson says. "Very few businesses in town wanted to touch the greeks with a 10-foot pole."\nThe greek leaders also asked for more even enforcement of the alcohol policies already in effect. \n"There was a perception out there, I would say a misperception, that only certain houses got checked on and certain groups got picked on more than others," Gibson says. \nIn the past, Dean Gibson and his staff were responsible for checking up on fraternities and only went on party patrols about four or five times a semester. Fraternity leaders asked the administration to make this enforcement more consistent. \nThe problem that kept the administration from cracking down on alcohol abuse in the past was money. There were not enough funds in the Student Activities Office budget to cover the assistance greek leaders were requesting. That changed last spring.\n"We got really lucky, to be very blunt," Gibson says. "The IU Foundation was able to identify a benefactor, a gentleman who was a greek member at IU and was very supportive of greek life." \nWith these new funds, Bill Eggleston was hired over the summer as a consultant to initially work on identifying third-party vendors in the community. When classes began, he took on the enforcement aspect, visiting fraternities six nights of the week and ensuring that each house received a visit at least once a weekend, every weekend. Eggleston has since resigned and has been replaced by Scott Thiery, who continues the patrols. \nGetting used to The Gables\nEach sorority and fraternity chapter has made changes in social policies in order to adhere to the new policy. Moving functions to third-party vendors has brought its own set of challenges.\nJennifer Urbanski, a senior and president of Alpha Phi, says although her sorority has been successful in adapting, the cost of functions has risen significantly.\n"It's a different way of planning social functions," Urbanski says. "It's more expensive in a sense because you have to use third-party vendors, but the experience is something we've all learned from."\nAll sororities have struggled with the changes on some level. \n"Our members weren't happy about it at first," senior Meghan Hasser, president of Kappa Alpha Theta, says. "They're still not happy about it. We're looking into different types of social functions. We'll go bowling or roller skating. But programming this year has been really difficult because it's so new."\nFraternities are adapting as well. \n"Our new parties are much like the traditional parties," senior Eric Christopher, president of Lambda Chi Alpha this fall semester, says. "We've had lots of themes, like a beach party. We went camping. We're trying to do a traditional frat party but taking it out of the house."\nOther fraternities have had more problems finding new ideas for social functions. \n"We've had a couple of functions at the house," senior Matt Hanson, who was President of Acacia this fall, says. "We started doing third-party vendors in the beginning of the year and found that it was a huge hassle with cost and holding people accountable. Now we're treading water trying to find out what else is out there."\nThe appearance of problems\nNongreek students have moaned and wailed that without fraternity parties to occupy them, greek students have overcrowded the bars. \nHowever, local bar owner Linda Prall, who runs Kilroy's Sports Bar and Kilroy's on Kirkwood, disagrees that there is overcrowding.\nWhat Prall has noticed is an increase in the attempted use of fake IDs by underage students.\n"We have absolutely seen an increase, almost a doubling in students using fakes," Prall says. "We've increased our training to help employees spot them better and we're working with excise to stop it."\nDavid Wilkerson, head bartender of the Bluebird Nightclub, agrees. \n"Our attendance varies night by night, and it was pretty high when the parties were going on," Wilkerson says. "We based our numbers on how many people came to see a particular band in the past, and we haven't really seen an increase due to the parties being shut down."\nThe problem of increased drunk driving has been another misconception. Lieutenant Jerry Minger of the IU Police Department reported that the current number of drunk driving arrests for 2000 is 54, almost double the 31 arrests for 1999, but comparable to the 50 arrests in 1998 and 43 in 1997. \nMinger insists that this rise cannot be attributed to the lack of fraternity parties.\nBack to basics\nGibson said one positive result this change will bring is a return to focusing on the values fraternities and sororities were founded upon.\n"To underage members who have told me that part of the reason they joined a fraternity was so they could have a place to drink underage and not get caught, I have advised them to resign," Gibson says. "That's not what this is all about, if that's why they joined, it's for the wrong reasons."\nOverwhelmingly, leaders agree that although members are struggling with the changes now, this new approach will bring positive effects in the future.\n"Everyone pretty much realizes that this is supposed to be the progressive step to deal with the alcohol issues within the greek system," junior Tyler Mensch, president of Sigma Nu, says. "Alcohol isn't the main reason that most of the people here joined the house; if it had been, we might have had problems."\nNo one will know the difference\nGibson and Sweeney agree that the program is working. They have seen far fewer instances of large-scale fraternity parties than in past semesters. Individual violations have been found in the fraternity houses, but the beer busts of the past appear to have died for good.\n"It's gonna take some time," Gibson says. "One of the wonderful things about a college campus is that it only takes about a year and a half to establish a tradition. Next fall, it's going to be easier than it was this fall. A few falls after that, no one's going to know any different"