While the Faculty Senate has got it right discouraging moving recruitment to the fall semester, its line of reasoning is skewed.

The biggest problem with Panhellenic’s proposal is that Fall Break will be eliminated next year-but put that aside.

The committee would like you to believe a party culture has engulfed the campus and that SMU students, particularly Greek students, are alcoholic drug addicts. They would also like you to believe students are spending all of their evenings throughout the school year at fraternity-sponsored bus parties.

Both of these positions are more inflated then our grades, and Ed Board has more faith in our fellow students.

To begin with, most back-to-school parties fraternities host happen within the first month of school. Once football season kicks off, they are few and far between. While many social functions occur on school nights, again the vast majority of bus parties are over by mid-September.

Many students go out and party on school nights. Many students do not.

The report states that in fall 2005, 213 first-years earned a GPA of 3.75 or above, and the average first-year GPA is 3.0. The report said the committee was disturbed that students seem to be able to go out multiple nights a week and still make good grades.

The problem is if the average GPA is 3.0, half of the first-year class is earning a GPA below a 3.0. Ed Board suggests these are the students that are going out every night of the week. If 213 students have a 3.75 GPA, another 213 students are hovering around a 2.25, a GPA below many Greek organizations’ standards.

Students use drugs and alcohol regardless of how many bus parties are available to them, and Ed Board questions the perceived availability of alcohol at the bars that Greeks are visiting at bus parties.

The bars ID students. No ID, no booze.

It is much easier for first-years to drink at fraternity houses than at bus parties. Alcohol is more readily available to minors at the chapter houses than at the bars. But the committee’s report doesn’t even address that issue.

The second part of the committee’s report addresses SMU’s stance on Student Affairs advising Greeks on these parties.

Ed Board is astonished that SMU’s lawyers would tell Student Affairs to play “see no evil, hear no evil” with student issues.

While it may hold up in the legal court, it sure doesn’t hold up in our moral court.

An institute of higher learning has a greater obligation to its community than the bare-bones burden the government places on it.

SMU must reevaluate its policy regarding Student Affairs’ participation and involvement in advising Greek students on how to effectively conduct off-campus parties.

Without more support from Student Affairs, Ed Board agrees with the committee that, “it is only a matter of time until one of these parties results in tragedy.”