In its meeting Wednesday night, the Interfraternity Council announced that a new fraternity will likely come to campus in Spring 2011. The council also passed an addendum to the University Recognition Policy that puts into concrete terms the IFC’s privilege of self-governance.

The new fraternity, Phi Kappa Sigma, was invited by IFC Executive Vice President Rustin Rodewald ’11 last weekend to speak to the IFC general body later this semester.

“They’ve been talking with the [Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs] for a while now,” Rodewald said in an interview after Wednesday’s meeting.

Phi Kappa Sigma was founded at the University of Pennsylvania in 1850. A Cornell chapter was founded in 1891, but Rodewald said that the house was shut down in the 1980s. By coming back this spring, the fraternity hopes to associate its refounding class exactly 120 years after the original Cornell chapter was founded.

“I think it’s really exciting and good for the Greek system,” Rodewald said. “It’s good to have more chapters. In the past several years, there have been chapters that have tried to start and failed.”

Rodewald said that officials from Phi Kappa Sigma, which is a dry fraternity nationally, expressed enthusiasm for the new University Recognition Policy rules.

Also discussed at the meeting was an addendum to the University Recognition Policy, which was passed almost unanimously by the council. The addendum acknowledges the University’s new rules to the Recognition Policy, which include zero tolerance for hazing, zero tolerance for alcohol in recruitment and new member education, and the establishment of a shorter maximum time period for the new member education process. 

But the addendum also asks the administration to “formally recognize or renew its commitment to the council's privilege of self-governance,” listing a number of executive board abilities including the creation, dissolution and enforcement of council rules, and holding the right of "original jurisdiction" in judicial cases. 

Additionally, the addendum asks that the administration work with the IFC to “interpret and define the terms ‘recruitment’ and ‘new member education/intake.’”

More than just a response to the administration, the addendum is a show of solidarity for the Greek system as a whole, which has long existed under a "self-governing" rule that has never officially been outlined, according to Allen Miller ’11, president of the IFC.

“Last week, when we were discussing this whole concept of self-governance, chapter presidents were concerned. ‘Self-governance’ isn't written anywhere,” Miller said.

Miller explained that the Board of Trustees will not officially review the addendum when they meet later this semester to vote on the Recognition Policy changes. Rather, the hope is for a “formal recognition” of the addendum from Vice President for Student and Academic Services Susan Murphy ’73 and Dean of Students Kent Hubbell ’67.

“More or less, it’s a document that defines what the concept of self-governance is,” Miller said.