Dear Editor,
Monday I attended the Interfraternity Council (IFC) meeting to get educated on the new changes that are occurring in the event policy. I wanted to bring up some issues that I and many others in my house have with the hard alcohol ban. This ban needs to be on a house-by-house basis for many reasons.
First, all houses are set up differently with alcohol rules, living rules, etc. One thing that sets our house apart is that we live in the house the entire time that we go to K-State. IFC has repeatedly told us this is a huge asset to our house due to senior leadership, and I believe that.
This also means that at least 50 percent of our house is 21, unlike any other house. Every other house allows out-of-house status, which means most members have moved out by the time they turn 21. With the way the event policy now reads, this is an extreme disadvantage to us.
Keeping senior members inside the house would be harder than ever, and this applies to all houses. We would not be allowed to have hard alcohol, a very legal substance to us, in our own houses.
Second, Monday night, IFC referred to fraternity houses as a safe-haven for underage drinking. I couldn’t agree more with that statement. The reason Phi Kappa Theta has resumed wet is for safety of our members.
Students are going to drink in college if they want to; there’s no question about that. We would rather our members stay in our house if they choose to drink. This way members of the house can watch over their brothers and cut them off or even take care of them if need be, rather than having our members wander off to house parties where they would be walking all over Manhattan, at risk for MIPs, assault or God knows what else.
Case in point: For the first three years I was in Phi Kappa Theta, we voted for the first two weeks of the fall semester to be dry in the house, to get the new members acquainted to college without the influence of alcohol. Every year we did this, new members and older members alike would leave the house on the weekends only to drink at other houses. They would wind up lost places, sleeping at random houses, etc.
Now, I know they would still be able to have beer here, but I don’t want to have our members have to leave our house to drink hard alcohol. That only spells disaster.
Lastly, IFC should not have to make revisions to the event policy due to individual houses not being able to handle their own personal houses.
Phi Kappa Theta has never had to hospitalize a member in an alcohol-related incident in my four years here, due to the reasons above.
Members of IFC are presidents for a reason. They need to handle their own problems and put a hard alcohol ban inside their own respective houses instead of turning to IFC to handle their problems for them.
I hope all voting members on IFC seriously consider this when voting Monday. Please keep this ban inside each individual house, as it absolutely should be.