Cornell Greeks Host Amnesty Day

On Tuesday, the Greek community hosted an amnesty day for "fraternities, sororities, and other organizations/societies" to return any items they may have stolen from other groups. In plain language, this was a day for fraternities to return stolen items which belong to other houses.

Tuesday Dec 8th from 11am-6pm
Anabel Taylor Hall One World Room
For Fraternities, Sororities, other Organizations/Societies

- A chapter can do any of the following: Return "Lost" (Stolen) goods, Report goods "lost"

- You do not have to identify yourself if returning a good but if you know what house it belongs to, please write that on a post it on the item if it is not obviously written on the item already. You cannot get in trouble for returning something.

- If something comes back for a chapter, the president will be notified and it should be picked up ASAP (we don't want to have left overs sitting in WSH).

For all of the positives associated with the Cornell Greek system, there are plenty of negatives. Theft is one of them. I would guess that every fraternity has some items which were "borrowed" from another fraternity. Many of them were probably acquired before any of the current brothers arrived at Cornell. But it certainly continues today. During my year as fraternity president, one of the most common announcements at IFC meetings was "Chapter X lost their sign over the weekend. They just want it returned, no questions asked." We can chalk up most of these thefts to the combination of alcohol and a desire to prove one's own house's superiority.

I doubt that the amnesty day was successful. There really isn't much of a reason to let go of stolen items, unless you are concerned about being prosecuted. In that case, chapters are probably more likely to throw the items in a dumpster somewhere than actually return them to their rightful owners.

Even so, I was pleased to hear that this amnesty day occurred. It is the latest example of a significant, positive shift in the attitude of our Greek leaders. We no longer pretend that bad things never occur, or that rules are never broken. We call things for what they are and address issues head-on.

For example, for years the standard Cornell fraternity party was registered as a "non-catered invite." This was supposed to be a classification reserved for closed parties (with guest lists), which were the only types of parties which did not require the fraternity to hire an outside catering service. However, it became standard practice for fraternities to register their big, open parties as "non-catered invites" and to create a dummy guest list which was posted at the door. Everyone -- IFC, police, Dean of Students -- knew what was going on, but no one did anything about it. Recently, the IFC has moved to change the titles of the various types of social events, and to stop pretending that the standard fraternity party was a closed event.

Similarly, on the sorority side, Panhellenic has finally come to admit that recruitment does occur during the fall semester. There was a rule that sorority women were not allowed to discuss rush with freshmen until a certain date; it was obviously a little delusional to expect this rule to be followed. So, Panhellenic set up some sorority recruitment fairs this fall, and even has virtual house tours available to interested prospective members. Everyone knows that rush is going on in the fall, so why pretend that it isn't?

It is only by addressing these sorts of issues head-on, and not lying to ourselves about what really happens, that the Greek community will be able to solve its major problems and remain solvent in this time of national anti-Greek sentiment.