Fraternities agree to ‘BYOB’

An informal agreement was reached among most of the presidents of social fraternities to implement a "BYOB" policy at mixers in order to limit the risks associated with providing alcohol for sororities.  

Junior Chris Wilson, Interfraternal Council President, said the fraternity presidents made a "gentleman's agreement" after last week's IFC meeting to start a BYOB policy, but the agreement was not an official IFC decision.  

IFC rules already prohibit common sources of alcoholic like kegs and cases of beer, according to the website for the Truman chapter of IFC.

Wilson said not providing alcohol limits liability for fraternities and will bring fraternities more in line with the University's Student Conduct Code and IFC regulations on alcohol.

The Student Conduct Code requires each student organization to "take all necessary steps to see that no person under the legal drinking age possesses any alcoholic beverages" at an event it sponsors.

However, Wilson said the informal agreement was not made with only those sets of rules in mind.

"The main thing I want people to get out of this is that free alcohol is bad for Greek relations, and Greek life in general," Wilson said. "A lot of girls, I think, go out not necessarily intending to drink a whole lot, but since there is essentially an unlimited supply of alcohol, it's setting the girl up to make a bad decision, and that's where problems arise."

He said this is not a new idea, and some fraternities already have a BYOB policy for mixers, but this is the first attempt to put it into effect on a large scale.

At least one fraternity, Phi Kappa Theta, has decided it won't comply with the informal agreement.

"Not that we don't support any of the BYOB, it's that we have risk management policies that we see best fit for our fraternity," said Ryan Johnson, Phi Kappa Theta president. "We felt that what they were trying to make us do was being shoved down our throat as well as the sororities so we just chose not to have any part of their agreement."

IFC advisor Marty Jayne said some chapter presidents started talking about the possibility of a BYOB policy at mixers a year or two ago.

"The primary motivator at the time I think was that the guys were getting sick of providing all the alcohol to girls," he said. "Since that time, additional motivation has come about. A couple fraternities have been in trouble with the University, not with IFC, when somebody was drunk at a party when they were providing alcohol so to limit their exposure with that problem they had an additional motivation to do this."     

Jayne said the BYOB policy could not be an official IFC decision because IFC already has rules against providing common source alcohol at parties.

"This is an interesting situation because what they're really talking about in some respects, is how to violate some rules differently," Jayne said. "IFC rules, and probably all the national rules for fraternities individually, prohibit providing alcohol to minors and prohibit having common-source alcohol at parties. So to the extent that those things are going on anyway, it doesn't matter who's providing it, that hasn't changed."

Dean of student affairs LouAnn Gilchrist said the Student Affairs office addresses violations of the Student Conduct Code when a complaint is brought to the department by conducting an investigation and a hearing.

Gilchrist said she supports anything fraternities do to be more responsible in their activities, and that a BYOB policy would reduce the risks fraternities run when they host parties.

"If the charges were serving alcohol to minor, and then when we got into the hearing we found out that the fraternity did not serve that alcohol, and that the minor brought their own beer, it is more likely that they would not be found responsible for that particular violation," she said.

However, she said fraternities could be in violation of other rules such as even if they do not supply alcohol, such as endangering the health and safety of other people.

"Requiring people to bring their own beer does not get at the underage drinking problem and doesn't provide for student safety as much as I would like it to," she said.