Today you are going to see something that you rarely see, a member of the greek community here at Iowa State openly criticizing its leadership. I have finally realized why the rest of the student body at Iowa State doesn’t trust the greek community.

How can they when we can’t trust our own governing body? For the uninformed, a little background: over winter break the newly elected Vice President of Public Relations for the Interfraternity Council, Nate Hertel, was arrested by the Ames Police on charges of attempting to steal the sign of another fraternity.

In the Executive Council’s infinite wisdom, the decision was made that Mr. Hertel should, in essence, keep his job. The only sanctions leveled on Mr. Hertel included apologizing to the involved parties, having a discussion with Assistant Dean of Students Alisa Frandsen and planning a couple of presentations to promote “interfraternalism” here at Iowa State.

Obviously, it’s hard to accept the idea of interfraternalism from a member of the executive board who is supposed to represent the greek community as a whole, and yet has poor enough judgment to attempt to steal the property of another fraternity.

While the Executive Council may have felt the sanctions leveled against Mr. Hertel were “appropriate,” we felt that the only appropriate action to try and save what dignity the council may have had left was to ask for the immediate resignation of Mr. Hertel, as he was not willing to do so himself.

When a motion was brought before the Council of Fraternities, however, it appeared that the level of apathy from member fraternities had reached an all-time high when they failed to achieve the two-thirds vote required to remove a member of the Executive Council.

Until changes are made in the leadership of the greek community, and to the way those leaders are chosen and disciplined, the rest of the student body will continue to distrust the community as a whole — just as we have come to distrust the Executive Council. I hope Mr. Hertel is man enough to own up to his actions and resign his position. Then maybe we can return to the way greek life should be.

Bill Jansen

Graduate Student

Civil Engineering

Graduate Student Adviser

Adelante Fraternity