MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The new rush pilot program for WVU fraternities will be under significant scrutiny, said WVU Dean of Students Corey Farris.
“We’re intensively looking at them, and they know that if there’s any misstep,” Farris said Tuesday on MetroNews “Talkline” with Hoppy Kercheval, “we’re going to stop them.”
The new program announced Monday permits first-semester students to engage in a limited rush period with WVU fraternities in good standing that have also signed a pledge to remain part of WVU’s interfraternity council (IFC) — seemingly a direct shot at the five frats that chose to sever ties from WVU last month.
“We tried to have conversations with those who walked away from us,” Farris said. “We started out in great faith, and we thought we were having good conversation with them. Then they turned around and walked away from us. That means all deals are off.”
The five fraternities in question — Alpha Sigma Phi, Phi Sigma Kappa, Kappa Alpha Order, Sigma Chi, and Theta Chi — are now banned for at least 10 years.
“Those students that are in those dissociated fraternities, they are WVU students and they will always be WVU students,” Farris said. “But when they walk away from us and our concerns about safety, about being on good academic footing? That’s a deal breaker for us.”
Farris said the ongoing culture change with Greek Life dates back to 2014, when then-freshman Nolan Burch died as a result of alcohol poisoning at a fraternity event. Three years later, WVU placed a social moratorium on Greek Life in hopes of crafting a long-term reformation process that, as WVU President Gordon Gee said at the time, could save WVU’s Greek system.
That reformation led to ‘Reaching the Summit,’ a plan that drew the ire of the five aforementioned fraternities and resulted in the dissociation efforts and formation of a new independent fraternity council. Farris said the dissociated fraternities are likely now at greater risk of repeating the tragic events of the past.
“They are still WVU students, and we’re going to be there to support them,” Farris said. “I hope that tragedy doesn’t happen, but we’re not going to turn our back on them.”
Farris said the organizations that make up Greek Life are ‘great’ and needed reform to avoid a long-term collapse.
“We see the value in fraternity life and sorority life,” he said. “There’s never been a point that the President or anybody said, ‘let’s get rid of it completely.'”