As we’ve communicated in the past, DKE’s alumni and student leadership work hand in glove to align ourselves with the Board of Trustees’ vision for Lafayette College. We closely monitor our progress fulfilling the Board’s directives from the October 22, 2011 Board of Trustees meeting which included the administration and faculty implementing 23 of 31 recommendations. Due to the severity of the threat if these directives are not met (potential elimination of the Greek system), the timetable to do so (less than 2 years remaining with 1 year already passed), and some recent troubling leading indicators, we’re giving the entire chapter and the public an unprecedented behind the scenes look of how we monitor and control the governance of our chapter.
Student and alumni leadership use a dashboard (download the full dashboard PDF or PPTX) to track progress in implementing the Board’s policy. We’ve been concerned for some time at the lack of progress in implementing the Board’s policy. Our concerns recently reached new heights.
We are deeply troubled that individuals in positions of power in the Faculty and Administration described in writing last month that what we believed to be the Board’s policy as, “merely a recommendation from a campus wide committee and is not in and of itself a college policy” (excerpt from the alumni DU documents posted on LinkedIn for alumni).
Given the time, resources and mentoring we’ve expended aligning our students with what we believed to be College policy (i.e. the Board of Trustees’ directives from the October 2011 Board meeting including the subject the above statement is written about), we need to either immediately realign with the folks who do set College policy if it is not the Board, or alternatively assist the College in removing whatever roadblocks remain in implementing the Board’s directives – including the institutional inertia resisting change that makes it possible for people in positions of power at Lafayette College to make statements like the above.
People not simply ignoring the Board’s directives surrounding well being in the Greek Community but actually acting in diametric opposition to the Board’s directives is particularly troubling because it places the well being of students at risk.
If you have any feedback, direction, or questions, please do not hesitate contacting us at the contact information contained within the document below. We need to work together towards the vision but first we need agreement on who sets the vision and policy of the College.
PowerPoint: Board of Trustees Greek Life Directives 2011-2012
Leave a Reply