Interfraternity Council implements new system to handle policy violations

In Fall 2018, the Interfraternity Council (IFC) introduced a new system to internally deal with reports of Greek Life policy violations: the IFC Standards Board. The IFC Standards Board solves problems with Greek Policy offenses internally as opposed to bringing violations to the Office of Student Life.

The change was initiatied in response to the North American Interfraternity Conference (NIC) mandate that all chartered IFCs have a formal conduct process in place as of September 2018.

The IFC Standards Board is comprised of one justice from each of the IFC’s 10 fraternities and is chaired by the IFC Vice President (VP) of Standards. The IFC Standards Board is trained to deal with policy offenses such as alcohol violations, disruptive behavior, and unregistered events.

Applications for the role of justice include multiple questions regarding the applicant’s experience with accountability systems, reasoning for becoming a justice, and their response to a case study policy violation incident.

Preliminarily, when a report of a potential policy violation involving one of the IFC-affiliated fraternities arises, the IFC VP of Standards and IFC Advisor determine potential violations, conduct an investigation, and meet with the involved chapter President. Following this, the chapter President has three options: to plead responsible to all the charges, to plead responsible to some of the charges, or to deny the charges. Based on the chosen plea and the outcome of the investigation, a punishment is determined by the VP of Standards and the involved chapter President, or a hearing of the issue is held with a quorum of justices. The chapter will then receive a sanction letter from the IFC.

“The IFC Standards Board is a way for the IFC to take more responsibility for the Stevens fraternal community by holding its member chapters accountable to their actions. It also improves the communication and collaboration between the IFC Executive Board and the Office of Undergraduate Student Life,” said Craig Shook, Advisor to the IFC. “[The new system] has been effective with the incidents that have been reported so far this academic year.”