Students attending fraternity parties must now check in on iPads before they enter the houses.
An Interfraternity Council policy mandated that fraternities use iPads to scan BruinCards at the entrances of chapter parties beginning Feb. 21. The policy aims to help fraternities keep better track of their guests by creating digital guest lists for each chapter’s in-house events, said Josh Kaplan, the Interfraternity Council president.
Non-UCLA students must present government-issued identification at the entrance and sign in to the iPads with their name and email.
Kaplan said the system documents names and entrance times for all IFC event attendees.
“In the case that something were to occur, we could have an understanding of who was at which chapter at a given time (and) could do a better job in assessing the appropriate steps,” Kaplan said.
Charlotte Isidore, a first-year religious studies student and Delta Gamma sorority member, said she thinks the check-in system has good intentions but may not fix issues that she said are prevalent at fraternity parties, such as drunkenness and sexual assault.
“I trust the security to handle any kind of dangerous situation well without the iPads, so I think they’re just an added hassle,” Isidore said. “If they really want to deal with issues of safety with parties I don’t think they can do it at such an impersonal level because no matter how many safety measures you put in, the real issues come from social elements.”
Isidore added she thinks the real way to address issues seen at fraternity parties is to educate students about consent and the dangers of alcohol and drug use.
“I would like to think that all UCLA students are socially aware and educated enough to help out someone who looks too drunk, or to stop someone from getting into dangerous situations or situations where problems with consent may arise,” Isidore said.
Christian Israelian, a first-year political science student and Sigma Pi fraternity member, said he thinks the new check-in system has caused unnecessarily long lines and wait times.
“I think the iPads are useless. I don’t understand why IFC must know every single person going into a party,” Israelian said. “IFC finds everything to be a liability.”
Grace Skalinder, a first-year history student, said she has never used the check-in system but can see how it could be useful.
“Hypothetically, if there were an assault case or something and they needed to see who was there, because somebody said they weren’t there, they could prove it that way,” Skalinder said. “But they’d have to be sure only certain people could access that and it wasn’t just made public.”
Ada Chen, a second-year civil engineering student, said she thinks the system could be beneficial if just used for security purposes, but that she was worried the collection of information could be abused.
“It’s just a record of names and stuff, but maybe if people are more private, and if you have a record of all those names, it has a potential to be used for maybe not good intentions.” Chen said, “Only the people who need the information if something were to happen should have access to that information.”