Following an alleged burglary at the Kappa Sigma fraternity house and alleged sexual assault at the Phi Gamma Delta house in January, members of the campus community might be concerned with the overall safety of the fraternity houses.

Thirty-seven alleged crimes have occurred at various university fraternity houses since October 2009.

The crime reports include minors in possession, assault, sexual assault and burglary, amongst others.

When an incident such as these occurs at a fraternity house, police reports are filed and investigations are conducted to find out who is responsible, said Julie Fletcher, assistant director of student engagement for Greek Affairs.

“The chapter is asked to file a police report with university police, and some chapters also file police reports with the Florence Police Department,” Fletcher said. “From there, (the Office of Student Engagement) would receive documentation from the chapters and their advisers and do some investigating to find out who is responsible.”

There were a couple incidents that happened during the fall semester, but most happened during the holiday break, Fletcher said. She declined to comment on the nature of the incidents.

Oftentimes incidents occur at night or during times when there are few people present at the house, Fletcher said. This can be problematic, because right now none of the fraternity houses have security cameras or systems because they are expensive, Fletcher said.

“(Having cameras) is the choice of the chapter,” Fletcher said. “I wish that was not the case and (the university) could provide them for everyone.”

Some houses might have codes to get into their houses, but that is also up to the chapter and is not required by the university. Students just have to make the decision to keep doors and windows locked for their safety, she said.

There is some gray area when it comes to who is responsible for maintenance of the fraternity houses, Fletcher said. The only university-owned houses belong to Alpha Tau Omega and Delta Chi, whereas the chapters or alumni and national associations own the houses for the remaining organizations, she said.  

Officials should know where they stand on the responsibility of maintaining the fraternity houses, said senior Rachel Kaufmann.

“They should know exactly what their duties, responsibilities and obligations are to ensuring the safety of the fraternity houses,” she said. “They need to be getting pressure on the fraternities to install security systems.”

There are policies in place to ensure safety at parties held at each of the fraternity houses, Fletcher said.

Sophomore Tyler Curtis questions the university policy regarding fraternity parties and safety, he said.

“They let freshmen drink at the fraternity parties, most of which are not 21, so their policies must not be too good,”  Curtis said.

If a fraternity plans to hold a party where alcohol will be present, they must notify the university police department and student engagement, provide a list of everyone attending the party and pay for university police officers to be present, said UNA Police Chief Bob Pastula.

“We give armbands to people who are old enough to drink so we can monitor that,” he said.

Campus fraternities implement risk-management teams to help ensure safety as well, Fletcher said.

“The job of our risk managers is to tell us how to prevent having overly drunk people, fights and drugs at our house and to implement our rules,” said Kyle Enloe, a member of Greek life.  

Risk managers are required to stay sober at all events, said Nick Lang, a Greek life member.

“We have a group of people who are designated to stay sober at each of our events so they can ensure the safety of everybody,” Lang said.

Fraternity members always know who goes in and out at our parties because we only have one entrance, so we can keep up with who is there, said Sam Satterfield, of Greek life. The cops are usually by the door.  

When something does happen at the fraternity houses, procedures are in place for how to deal with them, Lang said.

Students can help ensure their own safety at parties — whether on or off campus — by attending in groups, Pastula said.

“People should go to parties in a group and have one person designated to ensure the group stays together, leaves together and is taken care of,” Pastula said. “We could avoid a lot of unnecessary harm if people just acted responsibly. Bad occurrences at fraternity houses aren’t unique — they happen everywhere.”

Pranks are also a safety issue fraternities deal with, Satterfield said.

“Once we had firecrackers thrown at our house,” he said. “Nothing was damaged, so we didn’t have to call the cops or file a report or anything.”

A lot of people see a stereotype of Greeks pulling pranks on each other and acting wild all the time, said junior Paige Baggett.

“I know that fraternities do a lot of good things, but when they pull pranks on each other and do stuff like throwing firecrackers at each other’s houses, they’re just confirming that stereotype,” Baggett said. “The best thing is just for people to act like adults.”

*Editor’s Note: Editor-in-Chief Corinne Beckinger is a member of Greek Life, but she did not contribute to the reporting or design of this story in any way.