Alec Ward | Saving Mr. Banks-Crosson

Talking Backward | An open letter to the new OFSL Director

By Alec Ward 09/02/15 11:12pm

Dear Mr. Banks-Crosson,

First of all, let me wish you the best of luck. In the ongoing feverish tug-of-war over Greek life at Penn, you have just volunteered to be the rope. It is a job which, frankly, I do not envy.

On one side of this tug-of-war, pulling with all their might, are the University’s lawyers and PR staff. They fear the legal liability and potential bad press which social clubs for college students — for this is essentially what fraternities and sororities have become — inevitably represent.

I suspect you would agree with me that Greek organizations should be about more than parties. They have strayed, in large part, from their origins as associations dedicated to moral values, and they need to refocus upon those origins. You may hope, in your new position, to lead the effort to put Penn’s chapters back on track. It is a worthy goal, but I fear it is a futile one. Like all human associations, Penn’s Greek organizations resist change when it is imposed from without. Even if this were not the case, the trust between the office you now lead and the students it supervises has been deeply damaged in the past several years. Penn’s Greeks need space to reform from within, guided by mentors whom they respect, not administrators whom they have come to resent.

This you may also hope to change. It is not, however, in the interests of those to whom you are accountable to allow you to take the actions necessary to rebuild trust. In that space, they see only liability. It is in their rational interests to eliminate Greek life completely, to drive it from campus and wash their hands of the risk it represents. That your office has, in the past five years, become far more punitive in character than it had been before, despite no change in leadership, shows that the University has reached this conclusion. The sudden departure of the previous director — an enthusiastic proponent of Greek life — suggests that the authority of your position is insufficient to stop them.

On the other end of the rope, pulling just as furiously but with less far success, is a coalition of those who believe that despite everything, Greek organizations retain the potential to be powerful forces for good in the lives of their members and the communities within which they reside. But this team is out-muscled and growing weary. In this game, convictions about what is right and what is good rarely outweigh financial interests.

And so the rope has slid, inch by inch, through their hands. If the game doesn’t change, this team, to which I believe you belong, is not only going to lose, but is going to collapse in a heap.

You have a chance to change the game. The essential relationship between Greeks and the institutional University has to be amended. The legal ties between Greeks and Penn must be cut without sacrificing the guidance structures which represent the best hope at lasting cultural change within the Greek system — which is what happens when chapters go underground. Maintaining ties with national organizations is essential if chapters are to fulfill their highest potential, but current recognition agreements do not allow chapters to operate without University sanction.

What you must do, if you wish to save to the system you profess to cherish, is put yourself out of business — gradually. Work with national organizations to restructure recognition agreements so that chapters may operate as private social clubs, answerable to national leadership but not to the University itself. Only this will end the tug-of-war without destroying Greek life entirely. Only this will give chapters the space and the resources they need to begin re-discovering their moral centers. Only this will avert a plague of unaccountable, unsupervised, underground organizations which stand for little else besides hedonism and indulgence. Only this will save the system you have said you believe in.

I hope you are able to do what must be done.

ALEC WARD is a College junior from Washington, D.C., studying history. His email address is alecward@sas.upenn.edu. Follow him on Twitter @TalkBackWard. “Talking Backward” usually appears every other Wednesday.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.