Saturday, September 1st, was a very important day for Florida International University and its community; it was the football team’s first home game. Accordingly, it was also time for the anticipated tailgate season to begin. Following the Greek pause that happened last year, Dr. Rosenberg, along with many other administrators in the university, believed the tailgate policies were too lenient. Hence, an email was addressed to all the student body discussing new policies set in place to make tailgates safer and a more healthy experience, yet taking away all the key factors that made FIU tailgates so great.
The policies set in place included no DJ’s for any group participating in the tailgate, people with a group of more than 10 had to register and pay a fee to save parking spots, and these spots were randomly displaced through the Lots 4 and 5 to make sure more people were mixing with each other. Administrators also set up alcohol-free zones, the areas would have free food, activities, and giveaways. The policies tried to help the FIU experience, but the Greek community was not content, as the new rules would jeopardize them tailgating as a group.
Tailgating rules were the start of the whole ordeal. Following this past week, SGA MMC President Jose Sirven, upheld a new agreement for the GC area, where organizations life IFC, PC, MGC, NPHC and others were going to be mandated to pay for room reservations that were once free, and not be able to charge students for entrance in key events like philanthropy pageants. Lack of communication and a lot of confusion brought the Greek life council together and deciding to boycott the tailgate and football game, as administrators and the athletics team are working really hard to get students to participate in more games.
Sirven held a forum open to all of the Greek Community and key individuals like Dr. Rosenberg, Chris Medrano, Jose Toscano, Dr. Bejar, Dr. De Santis, among others. During the meeting IFC, PC, MGC and NPHC Council presidents were all present, as well as other members of their organizations. The forum was for the administrators to hear the concerns of the Greek community and amend the lack of communication that seemed to exist.
Sirven said in the forum, making the Greek community aware, that the reason for the GC Room Agreement was because for years FIU had been going against a statute of Florida in regards to the funds that SGA has over the area. Hence, for his term, his team and him decided it was time that the community worked by the rules. However, he acknowledged he had made a mistake of not being communicative enough in regards to this change and consequently hurt Greek and other organizations that used this money raised by charged entrance events to raise money and awareness for their distinct philanthropies. However, he was able to solve the problem with Dr. Rosenburg and the money for the room reservations will be taken from another fund, therefore it will not be funded by SGA and they will be able to abide by the rules.
Another urgent problem for the Greek community was them voicing concern in regards to the administration not trusting them enough to hold a safe tailgate due to all the newly implemented policies that were not discussed prior. As not attending games and boycotting tailgates affected athletics, they were also there agreeing with the cause for the communities’ concern but disagreeing with how they went by it since at the end it hurts the athletes and the community that has worked hard to increase school spirit. Administration pledged to hear the community more, and the Greek members agreed to become more united as a result of all these seemingly unfair challenges being thrown at them, that were threatening their existence rather than allowing the community to grow.
This forum was the first of many more open talks that are to come for the Greek-life community, its members and administration. The administration and Sirven all agreed their goal was never to get rid of Greek-life. If we can get one really important lesson out of this experience is that, communication is the base of everything and that a university cannot run without being in sync with what the students or the communities desire. There is and always will be a happy medium for both parties and I thoroughly hope an agreement can be met that benefits both administrators and the Greeks.