Staff Edit: Strengthen campus

The overwhelming majority of Boston University students have little interest in becoming a part of Greek life, making the recent decision by BU administrators to declare a “moratorium” on all pending applications a reasonable action that will benefit existing Greek life on-campus.

Administrators are now recognizing that BU has never had, and probably will never have, a strong Greek culture after it announced that the university would not be reviewing off-campus fraternities’ requests to be considered official.

Administrators’ reasons for refusing all applications sprouted from the idea that BU’s Greek scene should strengthen in its quality, rather than quantity. The moratorium was announced as part of a plan to strengthen university-recognized chapters.

Though the moratorium will only last until administrators decide to overturn it, the university “wants to make sure [it has] a good, strong, solid set of fraternities and sororities on campus first.”

Even the president of the Inter-Fraternity Sorority Council acknowledged that though BU’s Greek community “may be the largest student group on campus, it is also one of the weakest.”

Greek life at other universities is far more ingrained into the school’s culture than at BU, and frats and sororities frequently organize formals, fundraisers and several events in which the student community can participate.

If fraternities and sororities wish to gain more support from administrators they should prove they will dedicate themselves to enhancing BU’s culture by organizing charity, social and community service events. Greek life should take a more active role in students’ lives if they want to be more fully supported.

Since the beginning of the fall semester, only few events have been sponsored by BU’s Greek life organizations, even though students arrived for classes four weeks ago.

Boston University already has 18 officially recognized fraternities and sororities, which should look forward to attracting more members now that students have a smaller desire to join off-campus fraternities and sororities that have no likelihood of moving on campus.

The moratorium should not be seen as a punishment to off-campus fraternities, but instead as a positive chance for the existing fraternities and sororities to find some balance in their operation. It should not be thought of as an attempt by administrators to weaken the Greek system of BU, but instead to strengthen it by focusing improvements on the 18 already existing on-campus fraternities.