Center for Fraternity and Sorority Life to report to Office of the Dean of Student Life for increased support

The Center for Fraternity and Sorority Life will now report to the Office of the Dean of Student Life after eight years of reporting under the Student Leadership Initiative.

The move, which was made official August 1, will provide additional support for Greek Life and help align it with the First Year Experience.

Greek Life originally reported to the Office of the Dean of Student Life until 2006, when the SLI formed. At that time, CFSL moved under the reporting structure of SLI.

The center and students it serves are returning to the dean’s office for the additional support the office can provide, said the Interim Dean of Student Life Tracy Bentley-Townlin.

Colleagues such as Jonathan Stoll, director of Corvallis Community Relations, and Carl Yeh, director of Student Conduct and Community Standards, will help facilitate and coordinate connections across campus to benefit Greek Life, Bentley-Townlin said.

Greek Life is an off-campus organization with significant impact to the community, which is why a closer relationship between the Office of the Dean of Student Life and the CFSL is crucial.

Aside from offering additional support to the community, another reason Greek Life will report under the Office of the Dean of Student Life stems from the First Year Experience Initiative, which convened in spring 2012. FYE was designed to improve interactions and activities for new students. One such experience is the OSU FYE live-on requirement. Since Fall 2013, students were required to live in a residence hall during their first year.

“Greek Life has always housed freshmen,” said Eric Alexander, director of SLI. “(The CFSL) weren’t included in the thoughts about FYE. So the institution implemented a new program called the AHP.”

AHP, the Affiliated Housing Program, allows qualifying organizations to be included as an approved facility for students subject to the FYE live-on requirement. This would include cooperative residences, such as those OSU fraternities and sororities that have similar benefits to OSU first-year students as the residence halls.

The Office of the Dean of Student Life works with partners of the AHP and can coordinate to make sure requirements of the FYE Live-on program are met.

The transition makes perfect sense to Alexander, and SLI has no intentions of abandoning the Greek community.

“Our office is all about leadership development, community building, celebration, global citizenship, civic engagement and sustainability,” Alexander said. “Greek life still encompasses these things, so we’ll still be partners.”

Bentley-Townlin said that the Office of the Dean of Student Life will continue to work with SLI on Greek Life.

“They have great resources, great support and great leadership,” Bentley-Townlin said. “You will never have one department provide all the support for any student organization.”

Aside from reporting to a different organization, Greek Life will experience other significant changes this coming year. The interim assistant director, Brandon Lee, will be replaced, and the university is searching for a permanent dean of students. The new dean will be announced this coming fall, Bentley-Townlin said. At that time, Bentley-Townlin will return to her position as associate dean of students.

Ria Rankine, news reporter

news@dailybarometer.com