Welcome to You Op to Know, The Daily Orange Opinion section’s weekly podcast.  

This week, The Daily Orange Opinion section brought on one of our student life columnists Patrick Linehan to discuss his column “Student transparency needed during Greek audit”

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to submit a letter to the editor at opinion@dailyorange.com.

Check back next week to listen to a dialogue about the most viewed column.

WEIS: Hello everyone, I’m your host and co-producer Allison Weis and welcome to The Daily Orange’s opinion podcast You Op To Know. Tonight we have Student Life columnist Patrick Linehan to discuss his column “Student transparency needed during Greek audit”. Welcome Patrick!

LINEHAN: Hello Allison.

WEIS: So how did you get involved in the Daily Orange, and why did you want to write the Student Life column?

LINEHAN:  I got involved last spring because I think it’s really important that students have a voice on campus. I started as a business columnist and came over as student life columnist this fall I think it’s important that students have a say in what’s going on in the university especially in regards to student programing and with student life improvement.

WEIS: Yeah definitely now after the theta tau controversy. Bringing into this column, so why did you choose to write this column specifically?

LINEHAN: I think it was really important moment for the university to face honestly the structures in the university and to address the issues of exclusivity that we saw with Theta Tau. So I thought it was an awesome moment to write greek life and write about the review. When I started doing it, I became more passionate about it. It’s a topic that really needed to be covered and I’m happy about it.

WEIS: What did you think about the results that came out of the Greek survey this week?

LINEHAN:  I think we’ll see what actual changes to be made institutionally as a result. I think that’s what I’m more interested in. Moving forward I’m excited to see how that turns into actual action.

WEIS: What do you think about the difference between the responses from the people who are in Greek Life and out of Greek life in response to the survey.

LINEHAN: I think people within greek life have a particular view of it.  I think, rightfully so and speaking to people, anecdotally, you could tell greek life meant a lot to them as a place they could find a home and an inclusive space for them on campus. I think those that aren’t involved in greek life find it a lot more daunting and exclusive. That comes with a lot of organizations. I’ve been thinking about how all organizations on campus are somewhat exclusive. If you want to be in SA you have to be elected, if you want to be in Orange Seeds you have to be chosen out of a pool. I think there

is some set of exclusivity for every club. Greek Life holds a different measure of it, and I think that was reflected in the results of the survey and in conversations with people.

WEIS: Do you think Greek life is a positive addition to life on campus?

LINEHAN: In its current form, I don’t. I don’t think that greek life in its current form helps the community as the whole. I think it helps certain people. Certain people particularly who have access to the financial funds to be apart of those organizations. And I think that’s one of the biggest problems of it that it tends to attract people who can afford to be in those organizations. I think we can do more to make Greek Life more accessible to all types of students who attend the university. I think that will help Greek life because it will make Greek life more diverse and more inclusive of the entire community which will help everyone in greek life and it will help people who aren’t in greek life because it feels less exclusive.

WEIS: You said 10 members of Greek Life declined to comment for this article. What keeps members of Greek Life from being transparent?

LINEHAN: It seemed to me that greek life members, especially those who did not hold leadership positions within their fraternity or sorority, were being told not to talk about the greek life review. Which I think, I was obviously writing for a public audience so if it was more a conversation between friends they would have been more okay talking to me, but because they knew I was writing for The Daily Orange I think they were more reluctant to share their opinions. I think it was in part because they did not want anything negative to be said about greek life from a greek life member in a public forum. So I think some greek life members were being censored from their groups.

WEIS: What are some tangible ways that will members of Greek Life can be more transparent? Do you have any suggestions?

LINEHAN: Well, I think when it comes to transparency in general the university can do a better job at being transparent but i think greek life in particular needs to share what they’re doing with a wider audience. I think particularly the office of fraternity and sorority affairs needs to do a better job at taking whatever information they get from those institutions and sharing it with the public. I think, going onto the website for the office of fraternity and sorority affairs there’s no place to find meeting minutes, or what’s going on at the panhellenic meetings or the processes these organizations go through during recruitment. It’s different for every organization and there’s no clear place to go to find that out and I think it would hold tonse institution  more accountable. So if I am someone who is rushing or is interested in rushing i can see online this is how it is supposed to be done and i go there and I see it is not actually how it is being done. I can more clearly understand that this isn’t right. We see examples of hazing and we see examples of xenophobia and racism. Individuals would be more empowered if they knew what the process was supposed to look like.

WEIS: It’s very much a behind closed doors organization.

LINEHAN: That’s what it feels like at least.

WEIS: What changes do you think are necessary in order for Greek Life to be improved.

LINEHAN: I think one thing, they need to make it more financially accessible and I think they need to be more transparent with the process of recruitment, how they choose who they choose. They need to open up the process between the time someone get a bid and they are initiated. I think that process needs to be standardized and made more transparent by each individual house and shared with the public in a way that they can be held accountable.

WEIS: Was there anything you didn’t get to discuss in your column and wish you could go deeper on?

LINEHAN: I think the biggest thing is that this is not just about greek life. I mentioned earlier that making all organizations on campus more inclusive and all organizations on campus more diverse is important. We are in a highly segregated city in a highly segregated university. I think that greek life is one modocum to improve that institution so that way we can have a process to go through with other institutions, it’s really a starting point. I tried to make cleas in my article that it really not about taking down greek life or making greek life an enemy. It’s really about improving greek life because in its current form, in my view it’s not going to last the next five years with the changes that have been coming down from the university and really society in general. In order to make greek life last on campus there has to be changes and I think the same is true of many institutions and many organizations on campus.

WEIS: Thank you so much for joining us this week Patrick!

LINEHAN: Yeah! It was a pleasure talking to you.

WEIS: Stay tuned for next week’s podcast where we will begin discussing more of our columns. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to submit a letter to the editor at opinion@dailyorange.com. We’ll talk to you next week!

Published on October 3, 2018 at 8:15 pm

Contact Allison: alweis@syr.edu