Brown and White Vol. 133 no. 2

              The Brown and White Vol. 133 No. 2
Tuesday, September 12, 2017 ‘All the Lehigh News First’
Class officer program discontinued
By REBECCA WILKIN
Managing Editor
Administrators in the Office of
Development and Alumni Relations
decided last semester to discontin-ue
the class officers program, said
Ricardo Hall, the new vice provost
for Student Affairs.
While the incoming freshman
class will not have the opportuni-ty
to elect a class president, Hall
said the 15 current class officers
who hold positions for the classes
of 2018, 2019 and 2020 will retain
their titles.
Joe Buck, the vice president
of Development and Alumni
Relations, said current class offi-cers
will assume the same roles
they had in the past, with the
exception of managing the senior
class gift. Class officers are primar-ily
responsible for soliciting dona-tions
from their fellow classmates.
Buck said the decision to discon-
Greek council presidents share this year’s goals
See OFFICERS Page 3
Taylor Gym
sewer leak
See Page 4
By CATE PETERSON
News Editor
The start of an academic year
brings change to the Lehigh commu-nity.
Among these changes are new
executive boards for clubs and orga-nizations
that bring fresh ideas and
perspectives to their groups.
Three Lehigh seniors — Bryce
Macomber, Djenne Dickens and
Molly Bankuti — started their ten-ures
as presidents of the universities’
Greek councils this year. The indi-viduals
hope to promote inclusivity
and progress in their respective orga-nizations.
Interfraternity Council
With the removal of Kappa
Sigma fraternity this summer, the
Interfraternity Council (IFC) now
represents 16 chapters. IFC presi-dent
Bryce Macomber, ’18, said the
loss of a chapter will not have a
huge impact on the council, but he
said unrecognized chapters present
a challenge to the Greek community.
“It’s hard to manage because you
can’t hold them accountable to the
same standards because they’re not
in the meetings,” Macomber said.
“They’re not a recognized organiza-tion
so they can kind of undercut
everything we’re pushing for. If we’re
trying to implement new policies, we
can’t hold them to that same policy.”
Under current Lehigh guide-lines,
unrecognized chapters are
not allowed to affiliate with recog-nized
chapters. Macomber said while
individual members can certainly
remain friends, organizations are not See GREEK Page 3
Courtesy of Djenne Dickens, Bryce Macomber
TOP: Members of the Cultural Greek Council pose after attending
the Fraternity and Sorority Leadership Awards dinner on May 2
at Iacocca Hall. BOTTOM: Members of the Interfraternity Council
stand after helping with MOOV-in Aug. 24. Members of the Greek
community, along with other volunteers, helped move first-year
students into their dorms.
allowed to plan events with unrecog-nized
chapters.
Along those lines, IFC hopes to
increase personal responsibility
throughout the Greek community
this year.
“As the first week has shown,
there’s a responsibility problem
within ourselves,” Macomber said,
“because people are involved in irre-sponsible
consumption methods, and
we need to hold each other account-able
to start being more responsible.”
Macomber said they want to work
on social reform and challenge the
pregame culture.
“You shouldn’t feel inclined to
drink a whole water bottle of alcohol
before you go out,” Macomber said.
“That’s not the environment we’re
trying to have, so we need to figure
out ways to reform that.”
Corey Gant, the assistant direc-tor
of the Office of Fraternity and
Sorority Affairs (OFSA), echoed
Macomber’s sentiments.
“Together, this year we want to
focus on both holding our organiza-tions
accountable as well as serv-ing
as an advisory board to educate
chapters on best practices, risk man-agement,
etc.,” Gant wrote in an
email.
The council also wants to improve
relationships within and among the
IFC, Greek and Lehigh communities
as a whole.
Macomber believes one way to
do this would be through campus
philanthropy and community ser-vice.
“So something like the Homework
Club, which is something we do with
the South Bethlehem community
where we go to one middle school
and a church and help deliver food,”
Macomber said. “It’s a great oppor-tunity
for different members of dif-ferent
chapters to meet one another.”
Macomber also wants to see
improvement in member education.
OFSA, along with IFC, is focusing its
efforts around chapter and council
development this year.
Macomber said chapters should
continue having challenging con-versations
and push themselves to
expand member development beyond
the six weeks of new member edu-cation.
He said things like bringing
administration officials to chapter
meetings could encourage fraterni-ties
to continue these efforts.
Cultural Greek Council
Previously known as the
tinue the class officers program
deals with issues involving resource
allocation.
The Lehigh Fund, a committee
under the Office of Development
and Alumni Relations, manages
both the class officers program and
the Association of Student Alumni
(ASA), a group formed in 2002 to
promote alumni engagement and
spirit traditions.
Jennifer Cunningham, the assis-tant
vice president of alumni rela-tions,
said the lines between these
two groups have become blurred
over the past 15 years.
“We were managing two groups
that were supposed to have unique
goals and objectives, and they start-ed
overlapping,” Cunningham said.
“We decided to devote the resourc-es
into one group and give class
officers the chance to join ASA and
work on that group.”
Buck said the class officers pro-gram
was involved with initiatives
that did not fall under the scope
of the Office of Development and
Alumni Relations.
William Pemberton, the presi-dent
of the class of 2020, said he
has spearheaded an initiative to
save the program and restructure
it for future classes.
“We rejected the idea of having to
join ASA if we wanted to survive,”
Pemberton said. “The great part of
being a class officer is that we are
able to be our own bosses. We’re
able to represent the class in a way
that we see fit, without having to
report to an executive board.”
Hai Le, the president of the class
of 2018, doesn’t think the class offi-cers
program should be absorbed by
any other organization.
The class officers were informed
of the program’s dissolution during