SMU Administration Puts Attendance Limit on Greek Events, Party Rights to Be Fought For

Rob Fox12 years ago

Did you know that SMU has the number one college night life in the country? Well they do, at least according to whichever Playboy reporter got more bar bathroom handjobs in Highland Park than anywhere else in the country. Well done ladies of SMU, out-public handjobbing schools like Florida, Michigan State, Texas State (where bar HJs are so common they come with the mozzarella sticks), and pretty much any Arizona school is no easy task. That’s top tier is what that is.

Whether or not SMU actually does have the best nightlife in the country, it would seem that the members of SMU’s Greek Life are about to have their ability to rage be severely hampered.

The Social Event Registration Committee (SERC) announced a new rule that caps the maximum number of party attendees at 400. The move strengthens SMU’s risk management policy, but possibly alters SMU’s Greek party scene.

400 people!?!? How is anyone supposed to rage balls surrounded by a mere 399 people? What a terrible number. Too big for a casual night, too small for a full scale, violent, society shattering riot complete with looting and couch burning. I’m not saying I attend parties on the off chance chaos will spill into the streets and I can steal electronics from the homes of the elderly, but it’s nice to know that the night could take me anywhere. I once went to a party that had 400 people. It was a teenager’s funeral, and it SUUUUUUUCKED. I left early. Guess what Billie Joe Armstrong, your stupid song could’ve played all day at that service and I still wouldn’t have had the time of my life.

All of that sarcasm is to say that when you first think about it 400 people doesn’t actually sound like all that bad of a number for a party. Could there be bigger Greek parties? Sure, there are all the time. But 400 seems like a quality rager. That is until you take into account how badly that cap can screw certain events.

Joshua Sepkowitz, president of the Board of Chapter Advisors for Phi Gamma Delta, had many concerns about the rule. Sepkowitz cited Kite and Key, a formal hosted by Kappa Kappa Gamma and Kappa Alpha Theta, as an example. If each girl invited a date, the total number of people at the event would top 800, Sepkowitz said.

“Each of the women should have the right to go and invite a date,” he said.

“Kite and Key has been a part of SMU Greek life for what, 30 years? It would be a shame if it went away.”

And that’s where the cap becomes a problem. It might not affect a lone fraternity or sorority party, but any joint parties, which are often the best parties, would pretty much be prohibited at SMU under the 400 person cap. So why the limit? It makes sense from a risk management standpoint, something that Sepkowitz points out, though having been to SMU recently the only risks that I actually noticed were Range Rover fender benders and a potential Garrett Gilbert lynch mob.

“How THE FUCK did you ever play in a national championship!!!!!!!!” Shouted anyone stupid enough to leave the Boulevard to attend the football game.

According to the SERC, however, the party limit isn’t actually a limit at all! Even though it TOTALLY ACTUALLY IS! The 400 person rule was really put in place to expand the party potential of smaller groups and clubs.

Previously, each organization could have three guests for every one member in attendance. Statler said the old rule limited the amount of guests that smaller organizations could have. Non-Greek and minority Greek organizations seem to be the intended demographic to benefit from the new system.

“Everybody is on equal footing [with the new rule,]” Statler said.

Yes, everyone is on an equal footing, except for the people this rule doesn’t benefit, which is only like the biggest group of students on SMU’s campus. So, you know, it benefits everyone other than them. I suppose it would’ve been too easy to just arbitrarily increase the number of people the smaller groups were allowed to have at a party (since that’s basically what happened) while letting the bigger groups throw functions under the old rule. There could probably even be some sort of cut off for what constituted a large and small group. Say, I don’t know, 70 people? Obviously I don’t go to SMU, so I don’t know if that would realistically work, but it sounds nice. Plus since we’re all just making shit up here anyway…

Do all the groups really need the same cap? It’s completely understandable how unfair it was for a club that only has twenty members to operate under the same three person per member rule that the much larger fraternities and sororities partied happily under. Though I doubt the anime club is suddenly going to start throwing Gangam Style ragers that are wall to wall with brightly colored Asian hookers, why should they be (hypothetically) limited to sixty person parties? I don’t think any Greeks would care if next Saturday’s Poke-mixer exceeded whatever dumb school attendance limit was set for it. If those kids want to break the party limit rule, pound sake, take ecstasy, and watch intense Japanese animation until they all have crazy intense seizures then I say go for it, and the more the merrier! Just as long as all the guys make sure to be gentlemen and put their wallets in their dates’ mouths before everyone starts seizing, so that none of the ladies bite their tongues off. Manners are important in every culture, remember that fellas.

If the smaller groups wanted the limit changed, that’s fine, change it for them. But one blanket rule that applies to all clubs/groups/houses, even though they vary so greatly in size, makes absolutely no sense, and SMU Greeks agree. The Greeks agree so much so in fact that the orignal 300 person limit that SERC proposed, presumably because that’s the number they drew randomly out of their old timey raffle wheel, garnered enough immediate outcry that the number was bumped up to 400. This prompted one SERC member to complain, “Well then why the hell did I buy this raffle wheel at the antique shop if not to use it to make important decisions at my job? Is it still cool if I use my Magic 8 Ball to decide fraternity probations?”

SMU’s IFC was especially unhappy with the new limit.

Billy Embody, vice president of public relations for SMU Interfraternity Council had a different take on the rule, calling it a logistical “nightmare.”

“I don’t think it’s going to stand. They’re going to have to amend it,” Embody said. “[People are] pretty upset, angry, and even disappointed and confused.”

Neither Embody nor Sepkowitz knew why the cap on partygoers was put in place.

When it came to understanding enforcement of the rule, there seemed to be equal confusion.

“What they told us is they don’t really know how they are going to monitor it yet,” Embody said.

Nothing screams “well thought out” more than an unenforceable rule.

Considering the weight Greek Life carries at SMU it’s doubtful that the 400 person limit will last for long, but in the meantime the once revered SMU nightlife may take a hit, unless those SMU girls pony up some more HJs.

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