On Monday, Late Night BU hosted Greek Night BU to provide an alternative choice to traditional “Blackout Monday” activities that occur after InterFraternity and Panhellenic recruitment is completed.
For many, it was an opportunity to unite, socialize and catch up with members of the greek community in one central location, which is unlike any other greek event Bradley has seen.
The event, in our eyes, was a success. Many students attended, making the expense worthwhile. Even though attendance at the event was made mandatory by several greek houses, the large amount of students who stayed past getting food showed their interest in the event itself.
In today’s article “Greek Night BU” the Assistant Director of Student Activities Dain Gotto is quoted saying typical LNBU budget is about $7,000 and that SABRC contributed an additional $5,000. That’s a whole lot of money for an event that is catered to only 30 percent of the student body.
Greek Night BU was funded by student activities fees, which every student pays, both greek and non-greek, as well as funds from SABRC. Since student fees were used to sponsor the event, all students on campus were entitled to attend.
With that being said, there were few in attendance who were not of greek affiliation.
This doesn’t seem fair.
We place the blame on the way the event was promoted. It was advertised as a greek event, for greek houses to celebrate the conclusion of recruitment.
The title of “Greek Night” creates a sense of exclusiveness that others could not participate in. Even though being a part of a fraternity or sorority is an exclusive process, the late night event didn’t need to be too.
One could imagine that underclassmen who had just rushed and didn’t join a house or chose not to participate would feel uncomfortable attending an event for the greek community they chose not to join.
If student funds were used to put on an event for a community which only makes up a small percent of Bradley’s student body then it should have been hosted by Panhel and IFC, not Student Activities.
In order to keep Bradley’s campus unified, events funded by Student Activities should not be geared towards any particular group on campus. Rather, their funding should go toward events that all students, no matter what their extracurricular and interests might be, will want to attend.
The alternative to that would be having a LNBU on Blackout Monday, without a greek-life theme. If the LNBU was advertised as a regular event, without the greek affiliation, the exclusive feeling towards the event could have been eliminated.
Not to say that LNBU shouldn’t have activities or vendors targeted towards the greek community, it just shouldn’t have been advertised as solely a greek event.
Blackout Monday is not an exclusively greek celebration, so an event trying to dissuade it shouldn’t be, either.