TO THE EDITOR:
In regards to the article concerning grade point average rules for fraternities and sororities recognized by the University: the GPA rules, as they stand, are removed from the real problem, which is that some Greek students are falling behind academically.
If the rules were to be amended to instead focus on a mandate that each individual member of a Greek organization maintain a GPA above some certain benchmark, and the sanctions would be refocused upon the individual, then every student would be encouraged to succeed. With a 3.0 average requirement, it is possible that more than a few members could maintain GPAs barely within good standing, with many grades in the “C” range, while the chapter escapes any punishment due to some members’ Dean’s List status.
In addition, it is well-known that the average GPA varies between courses and even majors; in this case, students are disincentivized to pursue challenging majors and incentivized to take easy classes, which may limit their personal intellectual growth. If it was required that every Greek student was within the top two-thirds of the GPA distributions of students pursuing their particular majors, lest they be required to abstain from attending social events, cocktails or the like until their grades improve, the University could ensure that Greek organizations foster academic excellence, as some of them claim to do.
Illirik Smirnov
Freshman
Computer science
