Speaking to a first-year mentor friend of mine, I learned that he is, or rather prior to rush was, frequently contacted by freshmen with the question, "Do you know what frats are registered this weekend?"
Word usually gets around: Sports Night this weekend, Halloween tonight, Christmas tomorrow, etc. "Registered" is itself a very vague term. We know a few things about these registered parties.
They tend to be larger than non-registered parties. Hard alcohol is not allowed, and these events must be on weekends. Fraternities now have to hire external security, and a per-semester limit exists on these parties.
Many fraternity social events-my high-brow way to say "party"-meet all of those criteria but are not registered. Why have the system if its rules are applied in a seemingly arbitrary manner?
My inner iconoclast begs me to paint a vision of a safe and registration-free party culture, but we all know that would be disingenuous. Event registration attempts to provide accountability and safety, both noble goals. The strict rules around registration, however, ensure that these well-managed parties remain rare.
The university should revamp its registration process to cover any and all social events hosted by a fraternity (or sorority), regardless of their size, choice of alcohol and time.
I imagine a system in which fraternities submit party registrations a week in advance with some key information: time (weekdays now welcome), accessibility (open to all or by invite only), level of drinking (dry, beer, hard alcohol, grain alcohol from a bathtub), expected turnout and the presence of outside security.
This list should be available to Public Safety, fraternity presidents and administration for accountability purposes. All registered events must feature robust risk management, with parties that have a certain expected attendance requiring external security.
Public Safety and Interfraternity Council should then strengthen the system by both verifying that all social events feature risk management and cracking down on unregistered-and thus unsafe-parties.
The benefits to a more encompassing party registration system are twofold: increased accountability and better risk management. The current system hamstrings safety and accountability by placing an outsized emphasis on fraternities' three registered parties and pretending that every other social event does not exist.
By creating a comprehensive list of all social events, the new registration system would allow both fraternities and the administration to judge the extent and effects of social gatherings. Furthermore, by requiring disclosure from fraternities, the university would ensure that all fraternity events, whether it be a Monon pregame held by a whole house or a Tequila Tuesday held by a single room, include risk management in their social plan.
Initial adoption will be slow, but with both increased transparency and scrutiny, fraternities should be able hold safer social events without fear of being punished for unregistered and informal events.
The approval of countless informal and weekday social events might seem a bitter pill for the university to swallow, giving off the impression that they approve of frequent partying, but acceptance will in this case provide more benefit than harm.
Codifying and regulating what is, for the most part, illegal underage drinking will only give the university more power to act in the interests of students should an emergency arise. Of course, I am also dying to know if anyone else has stolen my entirely original (and entirely clever) name of "Wine Wednesday."
-McMurtry is a sophomore conflict studies and Latin double major from Fort Wright, Ky.