Frat party tonight? Better bring your ID.
This year, fraternities are making a point of throwing significantly more registered parties than usual.
Since 2006, the number of registered events during the month of September has more than doubled, according to interim director of the Alcohol and Other Drug Programs Initiatives Julie Lyzinski. Fraternity officials suggest the trend may be due to recent crackdowns on unregistered events.
During registered parties on campus, monitors from the Office of Alcohol Policy and Initiatives are present to ensure that alcohol is distributed only to guests above 21 years of age, and several sober brothers are in attendance. No guests are allowed upstairs, and no hard alcohol or drinking games are permitted.
Registered parties contingent with University policies provide a controlled environment in which drinking is monitored and opportunities for unsafe behavior are limited, said College and Wharton senior and president of the Interfraternity Council David Ashkenazi.
He added that such events are among the safest on campus.
Officials say it is difficult to pinpoint a specific cause of this year's trend. There have been no changes to the University's alcohol policy or its policy on fraternities holding registered parties in the past semester.
Even so, many believe this phenomenon may be the result of the University's increased vigilance regarding unregistered parties during New Student Orientation.
During that week alone, close to 12 fraternities were written up for throwing unregistered events.
During NSO, the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs "came down on [the fraternities] fairly hard," said OFSA director Scott Reikofski, adding that in response he thinks many brothers "wanted to pull up their act a little bit."
Engineering sophomore and Sigma Alpha Mu brother Deepak Prabhakar agreed.
"I think this year NSO was a tough time for a lot of fraternities, OFSA really cracked down," he said. "They have been more vigilant with alcohol monitors. . Fraternities want to stay off the radar."
Lyzinski said another possible cause of the trend is increasingly strong relations between student organizations, OFSA and the Office of Alcohol and Other Drug Programs Initiatives.
"We have worked hard over the years to create strong partnerships with student leaders and organizations, which increases student responsibility and accountability," she wrote in an e-mail.
According to Ashkenazi, since NSO, fraternity members have tried to make the most of the situation.
"This is really a case Proxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0
fraternity presidents and their brothers on a chapter level saying they are willing to play by the rules and own the rules," he said.
He added that he has tried to frame the issue in a "less reactive and more proactive way." He wants to encourage fraternities to throw registered parties rather than punish them for having unregistered events.
"This is a really great thing for the Penn community," said Ashkenazi of the increase in registered events. "I really think that the praise goes to the presidents who have really stepped up and made the most of [the situation]. I give them a lot of credit."
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