Restrictions on Greek parties have left some students frustrated when trying to plan events. While over a third of students participate in Greek life, a strict policy limits the number of social events that can be held in one night.

In a single night, three on-campus and three off-campus Greek events can be registered. B&D security is also required to be present at these events.

Although the policies are intended to prevent fraternities and sororities from serving as a social hub for all undergraduates, some social chairs argued that, with 11 fraternities and eight sororities, those policies were inhibitive when groups tried to organize social events.

David Stetter, coordinator of student involvement and leadership, said these restrictions are in place in part to limit the emphasis on nightlife within the Greek community.

“We don’t want to have an overabundance of social events happening at one time. It’s not the job of the fraternity and sorority community to provide the social aspects for the entire community,” Stetter said. “[A fraternity’s] job is to be a support network to their members, their job is to do philanthropy service, their job is to focus on their academics and provide an opportunity for students that are members and their friends to create interpersonal relationships with each other.”

Many members of the Greek community find these restrictions to be impractical and unfair.

Junior Oliver Baltay, social chair of Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, has come into conflict with these restrictions while trying to plan events for his organization.

“Twice we tried to register mixers, but there were too many events, so we had to just cancel the mixers. It was actually pretty frustrating, because it reflects poorly on us,” Baltay said. “I don’t think that there should be a limit on how many events there can be per day. Especially if two fraternities and sororities are mixing, that just limits the social life for the rest of the campus, because that’s a whole group of people that are blocked off.”

Junior Kabir Samtani, social chair of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, also finds the rules to be both frustrating and ineffective.

“I understand the reasoning behind it, because they don’t want people constantly partying, [but] I’m not sure how effective it is in actually keeping people safe,” he said. “I know there are many fraternities that still throw parties unregistered. We do not, because we follow the rules very strictly, but it is something that happens, so I’m not sure that it is something that is actually effective in keeping people safe.”

Another issue that many within the Greek life community find troubling is the requirement to use B&D security.

“The role of B&D ultimately is to help provide crowd control, provide identification verification…and monitor alcohol consumption,” Stetter said.

Junior Ethan Rinchik, social chair of Sigma Nu fraternity, said that despite the low cost of hiring B&D, he has had numerous negative experiences with the security organization.

“B&D is pretty terrible. There are alternatives and SIL [Student Involvement and Leadership] has expressed that they are willing to explore alternatives with different student groups,” Rinchik said.

Baltay said requiring fraternities to pay for B&D services at off-campus events is redundant and excessive, because most venues include the cost of their own provided security as well.

“There have been numerous times that B&D has been so rough to work with. It’s almost like they viewed themselves as the authority rather than going through us. They made some guests uncomfortable, and I’ve just heard horror stories of the past,” Rinchik said.

However, Baltay agreed that the presence of B&D can be helpful at on-campus open parties.

“I think it’s unfair to make us pay for [B&D], but for open parties I think it’s helpful. When there’s hundreds of kids outside, you sometimes need someone there to tell them what to do or else it gets overrun,” Baltay said.

Stetter said that security is especially important for open parties because they are typically the events that carry the highest risk.

“They are opening their doors to people who potentially drank before coming. And if someone were to get injured or sick or things like that, the chapter could face repercussions,” Stetter said.