Memorial Building 325
345 Boyer Ave.
Greek Life Reports
During the 22-23 academic year, the Dean’s Advisory Committee on Greek Life—a dedicated group of trustees, alumni, faculty, staff and students—spent time considering the best ways to support Greek Life at Whitman College. Their recommendations include new protocols for social events, new requirements for safe spaces and bystander intervention, enhanced new member education and ongoing training, facility improvements, and establishing formal agreements between chapter leadership, alumni leadership, and the college to ensure new practices are followed. The college will support the work of Greek organizations in the ways outlined in the following report. Members of the Whitman Community can access the report here by logging in with their whitman.edu email address.
In response to the Greek Life External Review released in Spring 2022, Whitman College’s Student Life Committee, made up of faculty, staff and students, released their own recommendations. Members of the Whitman Community can access the Student Life Committee report here by logging in with their whitman.edu email address. Whitman alumni can find a link to the Student Life Committee report in the May edition of Whittie News.
Members of the Whitman Community can access the Greek External Review here by logging in with their whitman.edu email address. Whitman alumni can find a link to the Greek External Review in the April edition of Whittie News.
Frequently Asked Questions
External reviews are a standard assessment of both academic and co-curricular programs at Whitman College and other colleges. Some examples of recent non-academic external reviews conducted at Whitman include the Counseling Center, Intercultural Center, the Center for Career and Community Engagement, Institutional Research and Athletics.
The purpose of an external review is to gather information and evaluate a program’s effectiveness, thoroughness and relevance. It’s an organized way to gather input on resource allocation and planning, and it provides an opportunity for experts to learn firsthand about Whitman’s needs while sharing their knowledge of best practices.
In 2018, there was a call through faculty governance channels for a review of the Greek system. At the same time the Greek Life working group of the WIDE (Whitman Inclusion, Diversity and Equity) committee noted that there was no external review of Greek Life on record, and therefore it should be reviewed as a way of learning more about the impact of Greek Life at Whitman.
The Student Life committee, which is a faculty committee that also includes staff and students, will facilitate the external review. This committee attends to matters of student experience outside of the curriculum and outside of disciplinary proceedings. That group was charged with facilitating the review of Greek Life.
The Student Life committee has invited three Greek affairs and student life professionals to conduct the review: Lisa Holliday, associate dean of students and director of student engagement and leadership, Willamette University; Brian Joyce, director of fraternity and sorority life, George Washington University; and Moe Stephens, director of student activities, University of Puget Sound.
The external review will be Feb. 10–11, 2022. A report will be prepared by the external reviewers for the Student Life committee, a month after the on-site visit.
The Student Life committee began arranging for reviewers to visit campus for the spring of 2020. They also surveyed recent alumni, facilitated a self-report from Greek leaders and surveyed current students, faculty and staff about experiences with Greek Life.
As arrangements were being made to bring experts to campus in 2020 for the review, COVID-19 was emerging as a serious health threat around the world. Students were sent home, travel was halted and the review was postponed to a later date.
The report will inform the Student Life committee who will, in turn, produce their own short report with recommendations for Greek Life at Whitman by the end of April 2022.
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