Bold and Decisive Action

We "who fervently believe in the value of fraternities stand at an important crossroads: If we intend to preserve all that is right with today's fraternity movement, we must improve our efforts to address that which is wrong." -- NIC President and CEO Pete Smithhisler

The NIC House of Delegates meeting (left).
Allen Groves NIC chairman and me (right).

I recently attended the annual North-American Interfraternity Conference (NIC) House of Delegates meeting in Atlanta, Ga. The NIC has 74 member organizations, five million alumni and 800 campuses. I appreciated the opportunity to hear presentations on the Gallup Research Project: Advancing the Fraternal Movement and Sexual Assault Prevention in Higher Education. These are areas of collaboration for NPC and NIC, as we both seek to promote lifelong values associated with fraternity and sorority membership and recognize the need for more education on issues, such as sexual assault, that impact college students.

At the annual meeting, NIC announced the formation of three commissioned panels to address the areas of alcohol abuse, hazing and sexual assault. These independent panels will include experts in higher education, public policy and public health and research, among other fields. The goal is to set up these panels by May 1. I applaud the NIC on this recent announcement. 

NPC and NIC have regular communication about campus issues and important topics, like the three areas noted as panels. We agree that our approaches to campus situations may be different at times, but there is benefit to ongoing dialogue so we can coordinate responses and be unified in our stance on student safety. We want to advance sorority and fraternity – together.

These are bold moves at the inter/national level. It is also refreshing to see College Panhellenics and IFCs getting involved and taking bold actions at the local level. Stay tuned in the coming weeks as we give kudos to campus communities that have launched sexual assault awareness campaigns.