After almost two decades under the chill of the "Freshman Freeze," Northwestern's Greek community will finally see the lifting of a policy that has long-prohibited it from promoting itself, hosting events or permitting freshmen into Greek houses before the Sunday after the third week of classes.
This four-week ban on any kind of marketing or promotion has caused quite a stir within the university's four Greek councils for years. In the past decade, there have been at least four attempted proposals to amend the policy and shorten the Freeze. This time around, their requests finally caught the eye of the administration, marking a success for the Greeks community that has been a long time coming.
While this change is clearly for the better, why has it taken so long for members of the Greek community and the administration to see eye to eye on an issue that has been so frequently contested?
When the Office of Student Affairs set up a task force to conduct an 18-month-long investigation of the Greek community, it outlined a strategic plan for NU's fraternities and sororities, entitled "Vision 20/20." In this plan, to which the office of Mary Desler said it was "still dedicated" last March, there is a specific section that recommends an initiative to shorten the Freeze by half, formally ending it on the Sunday after the first week of classes.
But this is nothing new - it's the exact same recommendation that was proposed in 2005, a full year before. And it's the same proposal that was finally approved this year, two years after the "Vision 20/20" initiative's recommended completion date in June 2007.
Still, who's to blame for the delay is less important than the fact that change is finally happening. We commend the Greek community for the huge step forward this change marks. Whatever the new Freshman Freeze brings to NU, hopefully new students' first impressions of Greek life at NU will finally be something other than an alcohol-drenched, off-campus party.
Be the first to comment on this article!