Greeks Advocating the Mature Management of Alcohol has significantly reduced its activity this year after being restarted last winter to deal with an increasing number of fraternity violations.
Last spring, GAMMA ran weekly patrols of fraternity houses in the North Village and did regular bus checks before raids and other Greek events, said former GAMMA chair Cory Brandt.
It originally consisted of officers from the Interfraternity Council and the Panhellenic Council, and during the spring, a member from each fraternity and sorority was designated to participate in patrols as well.
In the fall, GAMMA ran into increasing opposition from the Interfraternity Council administration, which caused Brandt to halt patrols.
However, Greek adviser Mande Adams said nothing changed during fall quarter, and patrols continue.
Theta Xi social chair Trevor Simcox said GAMMA continually checked safety precautions at parties during the spring, but he didn’t see patrols at a single party in the fall or this quarter.
“If they didn’t see patrols, then they weren’t looking,” Adams said.
Despite the apparent lack of surveillance, the threat that GAMMA may change a fraternity’s social status and recommend it be put on social probation causes fraternities to mostly listen to the group’s suggestions, Simtox said.
Because of this wariness, there was no increase in fraternity incidents despite the decrease in patrols, Brandt said.
“We didn’t really have to go out as much in the fall because we had spent so much time patrolling that people knew we would write them up if they broke rules,” Brandt said.
Currently, GAMMA is working on training its new officers in university rules as preparation to restart patrols later this quarter, said GAMMA co-chair April Eaton.
However, Simcox said his fraternity’s GAMMA officer has not received any notifications to attend training meetings for GAMMA.
Besides the training, GAMMA also intends to spend the quarter re-educating the Greek population as well as all UCLA students who may not be aware of the school’s rules.
“It’s not the executive board members (in the houses) that break the rules, it’s usually just the general population who don’t know what the rules are,” Greek adviser Troy Bartels said.
Nicholas Rose, co-chair along with Eaton, said this year he will concentrate on having more informational meetings for members of the Greek community to educate them about university policies.
By the spring, Rose said he wants there to be less interference necessary by both GAMMA and by the university, because Greek members will hopefully be more informed about the rules and less likely to break them.
GAMMA will focus on teaching all members about rules such as how many parties they are allowed to have a quarter and what safety precautions are necessary at events, he said.
Although Simcox said GAMMA patrols are generally well received by the Greek community, he said he thinks GAMMA policies are not effective because their restrictive policies lead to many of the parties being unregistered.
“The problem is that we’re only allowed to register one party a quarter, but frats want to have as many parties as possible, so some of them go unregistered and not enforced by GAMMA,” Simcox said.
In order for all parties to be effectively regulated, fraternities should be able to register more than one a quarter, he said.