Augustana’s Greek Life Task Force, composed of faculty, administration, Greek and non-Greek students, have changed policies concerning the hours spent pledging. The hours during the five-week pledging process were reduced to create a more manageable schedule.
“It is healthy to review a community every so often to make sure the community is healthy and policies do not need to be changed, added or deleted,” said Katey Bignall, leadership director of Greek Life. “The hours of the new member period were out of balance with academic hours and that needed to change.”
The Greek Life Task Force was created last year to review the Greek community. Prior to the task force, the Greek community was last reviewed seven years ago.
Worried about the effect that long pledging hours can have on students’ academic work, the Task Force decided to reduce the weekly pledging hours. The pledging period is the first five weeks of spring term, and previously, the Greek Life new member
activities averaged to 125 hours.
“The new member process will still be five weeks long, but the hours will be 10 hours Monday through Friday and 10 hours divided between the days of Friday and Saturday,” said President of Greek Life Arsal Shareef. “We realize that academics do come first because that’s what we are all at Augustana for.”
Due to the hour cuts, overnight activities will also be cut to fit the allotted 100 hours. While these hour changes were decided through the Task Force, the Board of Trustees played a part in recognizing the need for change.
“The Board of Trustees wanted to make sure the Greek Community was healthy, much like the administration did, so they were in favor of the Greek Life Task Force being created,” said Bignall.
The reduction of pledging hours is intended to free up time for students to do the average 115 hours of academic work per term.
“We hope that this will allow students to still stay highly active in the other activities they are involved in on campus,” said Shareef, a senior. “With all these adjustments we still believe students will be able to benefit from all the things Greek Life has to offer.”
Another topic that has been discussed is the alcohol policy during the pledging period. Although details of the potential rule changes have not been fully refined or disclosed yet, Shareef said that they “are working with the wording of it. I have been working closely with Evelyn Campbell and Katey Bignall on what we need to do.”
Shareef said the main goal they wish to accomplish is “to eliminate any problems that we have faced in the past that include alcohol.”
Through these policy changes, the administration and Task Force aim to support academics and student learning inside and outside of the classroom.