After A Year At The Helm, Dr. Binder Sees Reformed Greeks

Sam Davis
After a year at he Helm, Dr. Binder Sees Reformed Greeks
Since Dr. Ron Binder took over as University of South Carolina’s new Director of Greek Life, everyone knew change was in the near future. Now, nearing the end of his first year at the helm, its obvious that changes were made towards making Greek life a safer environment by prioritizing two major actions: education and enforcement.
“They say if you want to make a change there are two things you have to work on: education and enforcement. So we’ve really beefed up our education tremendously in terms of risk management,” Dr. Binder said. “That’s kind of what I go around the country speaking about so I go around and speak to a lot of chapters… But we also made it clear we’re also going to enforce the policies. Fortunately, we have the knew Greek judicial board to deal with that on the organizational level, and the university on the individual level.”
Since taking over, Dr. Binder has certainly taken care of the educational aspect. He’s made a visit to every fraternity and sorority’s chapter meeting to make a lecture about hazing and underage drinking among Greeks.
As for the enforcement, he’s been tightening up the reinforcement policies for when Greeks do break the rules. So far, two fraternities and one sorority have been caught breaking the underage drinking policies and were given sanctions as a result. Two more were disciplined for hazing. With the stricter enforcements on Greek behavior, Dr. Binder does believe that it is helping to clean up the social life of fraternities and sororities.
“Do I feel better about where we’re at? Yes. I feel like we’re getting much more compliance with the policies,” Dr. Binder said. “That’s something that’s a continual educational effort with our students.”
After working with Greek life at several other universities, Dr. Binder had earned a reputation for bringing down the hammer and correcting an out of control situation in which too many rules were being broken. Comparing Carolina to other schools he was at, USC didn’t have as bad of a situation coming in, he says.
“I’m kind of the person you hire sometimes when you have some problems. When I was hired at UGA and UNC it was kind of similar,” Dr. Binder said. “In terms of putting out fires, if you want to use that phrase, definitely Georgia and UNC were a little different.”
Dr. Binder thinks that in many instances, if one group is caught doing something illegal it will lead to other groups putting a halt to that same activity.
“With DU’s scavenger hunt, were they the only group doing a scavenger hunt? I don’t know; but it was the one that was brought to my attention. I can tell you this much: any other group participating in scavenger hunts probably doesn’t do it anymore.”
Sophomore Connor Allgood was the President of Delta Upsilon at the time when his fraternity was caught in a hazing incident in which the newly initiated members were sent out on a “scavenger hunt.” The chapter received punishments from its national headquarters, and the judicial board also doled out sanctions to several students involved, including the new members.
“In my opinion, our punishment from the international fraternity was fine. It just included us making a new associate member program, which I think was needed. It made us complete GreekEdu [an online course educating students about the risks of hazing and alcohol abuse] which was fair,” Allgood said. “But from the school, I thought that was a little too much - too many community service hours, especially because they told us we couldn’t do them at our philanthropy location, but only at another charity.”
In another instance, Lamda Chi Alpha had its social privileges revoked after supplying alcohol at a tailgate.
“Lamda Chi Alpha didn’t have social privileges for about an eight week period or so. We put that out there with the caveat that if any Greek out there notices that they are having a social event then here’s a phone number to call 24/7 anonymously to let us know,” Dr. Binder said. “And also, we told all the other groups, you can’t party with them because if you’re partying with them than you’re in trouble as well.”
Perhaps the reason authorities came down so hard on Lambda Chi was because distribution of alcohol by a chapter is now one of the more serious offenses as Dr. Binder sees it.
“What we’re really looking for is chapters providing alcohol. In terms of risk, when the chapter provides the alcohol, it is a priority for us to put a stop to that,” Dr. Binder said. “That’s why we say every event is BYOB. We also say it’s a twelve pack maximum to bring to an event.“
Football game tailgates during the fall are a prime situation for fraternities to supply alcohol. That’s why Dr. Binder has made special guidelines to follow in order to avoid distribution to underage students.
“Chapters aren’t stupid enough to get a keg… So what they were doing this fall at tailgates, was bringing numerous cases of beer,” Dr. Binder said. “Then, we had to make sure all the beer was kept in coolers so that everybody kept their own beer to themselves.”
Communication policies are another way in which Dr. Binder feels the new strategies are improving Greek life. He has it set up so that the entire campus knows exactly what transpired when a fraternity or sorority is disciplined.
“We’re also one of the few universities that are incredibly transparent about who gets in trouble. If you look at our Greek report which is on our website, it has which groups got disciplined as a group,” Dr. Binder said. “The summary of the case is sent out to all of the chapter presidents, all the advisors, and we encourage them to put them up on their chapter listservs.”
Yes, change is certainly prevalent in South Carolina’s Greek atmosphere. Slowly but surely, Dr. Ron Binder is bringing fraternities and sororities to comply with the restrictions while still having fun as a college student. Some of them just have to learn the hard way.