Just over a week ago, things in the greek community of Iowa State changed — at least for one weekend.

All parties hosted by fraternities now have to be registered with the Inter-Fraternity Council.

Various provisions and stipulations, listed in the event policy guideline, must be addressed in order for the IFC to approve fraternity-hosted parties.

Prior to the Iowa/ISU football weekend, a small group of fraternities decided to register a 3,000 guest party, according to an IFC meeting held last month. However, IFC rules allow no party to be larger than 500 people, and the party was not approved.

Word of the proposed party made its way to ISU President Martin Jischke and Thomas Hill, vice president for student affairs.

Jischke and Hill were concerned about the possible out-of-hand parties that were scheduled to take place during the Iowa/ISU weekend.

“President Jischke was going to fly back from Washington, D.C. just to monitor the fraternity houses and the parties they were going to have,” Matt Fleming, member of the IFC, said.

To address the issue, Terri Houston, assistant dean of students, attended the IFC meeting held at the Alpha Gamma Rho house and informed the fraternities there would be no tolerance for large parties that were intentionally breaking the rules of the university and the IFC.

In response, IFC President Mark Holmes reviewed the rules concerning fraternity parties with all the fraternities present at the meeting.

Anyone who happened to take a walk through Fraternity and Sorority circle would have been shocked to see that no parties were taking place, Hill said.

“I walked throughout the fraternity area of campus and found no loud music, no wild parties and no people drinking in front of their houses,” Hill said, following the weekend.

All parties that were planned that weekend were canceled or postponed until another weekend.

“Many greeks were worried that a minor would manage to get their hands on a beer, despite efforts by the hosting fraternities to prevent this,” said Nate Laverty of Delta Tau Delta.

“With rumors flying that Dr. Hill was ‘charter-happy’ and just waiting for a chance to pull any fraternity’s charter, many people did not feel that one party was worth the possible penalty,” he said.

The Executive of IFC, an elected group of ISU fraternity members, is supposed to attend every party registered with them in order to watch for the same infractions Hill or Jischke would be looking to find.

In light of all the recent controversies at MIT and Louisiana State University, in which two fraternity members have died from alcohol-related incidents, many students and administrators wonder why the ISU Inter-Fraternity Council has not yet taken a more direct role in reducing risks and liabilities.

National Inter-Fraternity Conference rules dictate that individual fraternities do have a small role in reducing risks and liabilities, but the responsibility ultimately lies in the IFC.

“They have done nothing to educate us or help us have better events. I learned everything I know from my old social chairmen,” explained one of the fraternity social chairmen who didn’t want his name printed for fear of reprimand from the IFC Executive.

The IFC becomes liable when it approves parties and then allows the rules to be broken.

It is their job to represent fraternity members with the university administration or assess event applications.

It is also their responsibility to monitor and enforce the rules of the university and the National Inter-Fraternity Conference.

The IFC is supposed to facilitate and educate the fraternities on this campus so they may host the best parties possible — parties that do not break the law and endanger the lives of party guests.

This is not just a problem on the ISU campus, however.

Inter-Fraternity Councils across the nation are having the same problems.

Scott Bates, a traveling fraternity chapter consultant who has visited over 75 campuses nationwide in the past two years, explained, “In general, IFCs in America need to re-evaluate their event policies.

“The majority of life-threatening incidents concerning alcohol and hazing could be averted if the individual IFCs paid attention to the fraternities that they represent,” he said.

Mark Holm, president of the ISU Inter-Fraternity Council, was not available for comment.