Fraternities and sororities will continue to reimagine chapter meetings, events, recruitment, and activities using physical distancing and virtual options for larger groups or students who are unable to participate in person.
Fraternity and Sorority Life staff will continue to hold virtual meetings on a regular basis with: chapter and council leadership, alumni advisors and faculty/staff advisors, and (inter)national headquarters staff, etc. Monthly meetings with chapter and council leaders will also be virtual. All chapter meetings will be held virtually.
As a support for Fraternity and Sororities, OSI will send updates to chapter leadership as State of NJ and Ewing Township guidelines change so that chapters can continue to abide by the most current and necessary protocols and maintain this information in a central accessible location.
Social Activity:
All off-campus social events, including formals, will be advised to follow physical distancing guidelines and maximum occupancy guidelines from the State of NJ and Ewing Township. Reported failure to abide by these guidelines will be referred directly to the Office of Student Conduct.
Service and Philanthropy:
Students will be encouraged to creatively approach service and philanthropy. Whether working with charitable organizations to perform services from home or engaging in group activity that complies with NJ and Ewing guidelines for events, students will have the opportunity to continue to live the service related missions of their organizations. Philanthropic efforts will need to follow the Interim Fundraising Policy that was implemented in Summer 2020.
Educational Programs
Educational programs can continue to happen in a virtual settings.
Assessment Packets
Assessment Packets will still be submitted and graded, but will be modified to reflect the current pandemic and campus changes. A revised packet for Fall 2020 will be provided to chapters within the first 3 weeks of the semester and may be modified to reflect potentially changing conditions.
Cross Council Training
The Cross Council Training for the four council executive boards will be held virtually at the beginning of the Fall semester. More information will be provided in the coming weeks.
Leadership Retreat
The annual Leadership Retreat for the council executive boards and chapter presidents will likely be held virtually at the conclusion of the Fall semester. More information will be provided.
Recruitment/Intake
- Membership will still be restricted to second semester students and beyond (no first semester, first year students). Transfer students with the appropriate completion of units/credits will be eligible to participate in recruitment and intake efforts.
- All councils will be required to modify their council-wide recruitment activities to be virtual, including but not limited to Meet the Brothers, Meet the Sisters, and Meet the Greeks.
- All students interested in joining will still be required to complete a grade release form ensuring that they qualify by both GPA and credit/unit to join.
- All students being offered an invitation to begin a group’s affiliating process will be identified to OSI ahead of the invitation being made. Once invitations are made, a maximum of 6 weeks may be used to complete the affiliating process.
- Students that are accepting invitations will be required to complete hazing prevention online course within the first two weeks of their affiliating process or sooner, depending on the organization’s affiliation process.
- Students will be required to complete an alcohol related online program from the ADEP office.
- Any students wishing to discontinue the affiliating process will still be required to fill out a “new member drop form.”
- The New Member Paperwork will be modified to include a section to educate students on COVID-19 protocol for chapters and new members processes.
- The use of alcohol and/or drugs is still prohibited in the new member recruitment/informational process and in the affiliating process.
- Any chapter may request an in-person recruitment/information session. These requests will be reviewed using the same Risk Assessment and Planning tool for Book.it requested events. These events would require a virtual component for students unable or unwilling to attend in person.
- All chapters must submit dates/times/methods (locations or virtual format) of their recruitment/information sessions to OSI.
New Member Education
Chapters will still be required to submit new member education/intake programs to OSI for approval. These programs must comply with all New Member Guidelines. These programs will still be required to detail date/time/content/method (Zoom, Google Meet, etc.).
All chapters will need to provide plans to initiate (virtually or in accordance with current NJ state and Ewing township guidelines), with initiation to take place no later than November 20, 2020. At the conclusion of the affiliating process, chapters will confirm their initiation process plan with the Assistant Director of Fraternity and Sorority Life, who will confirm that the initiation process still conforms with the current State of NJ, local, and TCNJ event and distancing guidelines. Within 48 hours of completing the initiation, chapters will notify OSI with the name and PAWS ID of every successful initiate.