WCU partying scene is changing, or at least the fraternities are trying.
WCU fraternities are cracking down on who can enter parties, aiming to keep the list of attendees to members of Greek life, friends and female students.
This comes after an issue of fights, drugs, needle roofying and high schoolers attending the parties at the start of the semester. Apparently, the new rules have been in the works as early as last year.
“What we’re basically doing is we’re adopting the standard operating procedures and the best practices set for by the NIC. That includes closed guest lists, checking IDs at doors, making sure that everybody that we’re letting in, we can vouch for. That the people who are attending our parties are people who we’re comfortable having in our parties and not just having an open door policy,” IFC president and recruitment chair for Pi Lambda Phi, senior Ryan Williamson explains. The NIC (North American Interfraternity Conference) is a trade association representing and governing fraternities both national and internationally, meant to advocate for and set standards for fraternities.
Each fraternity is free to make its own judgement call as far as party attendance rules. Lambda Chi Alpha, a fraternity registered at WCU, intends to keep track of who is allowed to enter parties.
“Basically, what it is, is only Greek males. Women are welcome because we never had any issues with women. And then each brother would have, like, five people. I’ve heard it happen differently with different frats. I’ve heard with some frats, each brother gets five or 10, like, buddies each to invite,” sophomore Simon Schrift, a brother of Lambda Chi Alpha, said.
A tactic fraternities are using to keep track of who is coming to parties is to keep lists on apps like Doorlist and WYA for students. A link poses as an invite to these lists, usually shared amongst brothers’ friends and school stories on social media platforms as Snapchat. The idea is that anyone can request to join a party’s list, and it is up to the fraternity whether or not to accept each student onto the list. That way, brother’s are able to take account of everyone at their parties, so safety risks are much less likely.
The frat parties were also connected to few photos that surfaced on social media of new form of roofy – needle spiking. I talked with a girl who visited a friend at WCU at the start of the semester and went with her to a party in January.
She wanted to stay anonymous so we will tell her experience but will not disclose what party she attended. She said that the party was crowded and hot, so she took her jacket and went dancing.
“We were just dancing. It was just me and my friend, and it was shoulder to shoulder, very crowded. And we’re dancing, having a great time. All of a sudden, I just started to feel really, really sick. And not at any point during this time did I ever feel like a prick in my arm,” she said emphasizing that they had very little to drink. She then went outside and remembers very little of what happen after that.
The following morning, she awoke feeling sick, and noticed an odd bruise with a prick in the center of it on her arm that had not been there before.
This is one of the several similar stories going around on campus – and none we could confirm. Few were that people got roofied at bar in the Prospects, Catamount Jaxe. People working there said they have not heard about it and that nobody has complained. Campus police had not received any information about cases of roofing.
All of the sources I talk to hope that the new rules will make everybody feel safer.
