By Vincent DiFonzo, Editor-in-Chief
President Bob Iuliano opened Thursday’s faculty meeting thanking faculty members who volunteered to meet as part of a group discussing ways that the College can “approach the future given demographic and economic challenges” facing higher education.
He shared that on Tuesday, April 29 at 4 p.m., there will be an open session for community members to share their thoughts and ideas for the College’s future. He emphasized that the administration wants to hear from people across campus, from prospective students, current students, parents, alumni and faculty.
“My hearty thanks for the energy, the enthusiasm and the work with the faculty that have volunteered to do this work,” said Iuliano.
Next, Iuliano congratulated chemistry professor Kate Buettner, who recently received a Franklin research grant from the American Philosophical Association.
“This will fund research that Kate is going to do with collaborators at UCLA, ultimately directly coming back to the work she does with our students. Congratulations, Kate,” said Iuliano.
Iuliano also congratulated German studies professor Tres Lambert and other faculty who helped organize the 2025 Austrian Studies Association Conference which was held on campus last week.
“By all accounts, [the conference] was a smashing success on so many different dimensions,” said Iuliano. “Tres reports that both the intellectual energy was really intense, and it was an opportunity to show off our campus to folks, but also to give our students the opportunity to present their own work to a group of experts in the field.”
Provost’s Remarks
Provost Jamila Bookwala first spoke on a proposed change that would allow for tenure-stream faculty members to be compensated for supervising students completing 400-level independent research.
She stated that the proposal has the potential to be “pretty resource intensive,” so her office is proposing a pilot project that will be evaluated for “financial sustainability” over five years. The proposal will be presented in greater detail to faculty during two open meetings later this month.
Bookwala said she hopes the program will be in place for the next academic year.
Next, she shared that her office has been working with the IT department to allow faculty members to temporarily remove their contact information from the College website. This change is being made because of the Young America’s Foundation complaint letter sent to the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights two weeks ago.
Following this, Bookwala discussed compensation for student peer learning associates (PLAs).
“We have been hearing concerns and complaints from PLAs that wage rates that are earned by them are uneven across campus,” she explained. Bookwala said that the uneven wage rates are because some departments currently do not pay more than minimum wage, $7.25 per hour, to PLAs.
“[Minimum wage] is low for the kind of work that we expect our students to do as PLAs,” she stated.
Because of these issues, Bookwala shared that beginning in fall 2025, all PLAs across academic departments will start at $8 per hour. The College will have two tiers of PLA workers. “PLA 1” workers will earn the starting wage of $8 an hour, while “PLA 2” workers will earn up to $10 per hour “based on their experience and their responsibilities, and so long as the department has the funds to pay.”
Finally, Bookwala talked about “Get Acquainted Day,” in which prospective and accepted students are invited to visit the campus. Get Acquainted Day is being held on Saturday, April 5.
“It is a critical day to get admitted students to commit to enrolling at Gettysburg,” she said. She also thanked all participating faculty.
Proposal on First-Year Greek Life Recruitment
Iuliano then shifted the meeting to a proposal to allow students to join Greek life organizations in the spring semester of their first year at Gettysburg. Vice President for College Life Anne Ehrlich and Director of Student Activities and Greek Life (OSAGL) Jon Allen presented the proposal to faculty.
“Moving Greek recruitment from the fall of sophomore year to the spring of the first year, is something that students have been asking me since I first arrived on campus in 2021,” said Ehrlich. “They want more social opportunities available to them earlier in their college experience. They want the chance to find a sense of community and belonging through a group or Greek organization in their first year. They want the opportunity to create stronger Greek organizations on campus by developing leaders within those organizations earlier.”
She said that student Greek life leaders “want an opportunity to improve” and to demonstrate “how much has improved within the Greek culture on campus.”
Currently, only sophomores, juniors and seniors can rush Greek life. First-year Greek life recruitment ended at Gettysburg College between 1999 and 2002 because of poor academic performance among students and numerous College policy violations, including hazing.
“I am generally inclined to seriously consider reasonable requests from students, especially when we can do so with guardrails in place in case it doesn’t go well,” Ehrlich said.
Ehrlich and Allen proposed a two-year pilot program that would allow first-years to rush fraternities and sororities beginning in spring 2026.
“If we do this, we want to try it for two years, paying close attention to the metrics that we have up on the screen,” said Ehrlich.
Those metrics include academic performance, student retention and instances of “high-risk behaviors” including assault, alcohol usage and hazing. She said they will also consider institutional metrics including student enrollment and alumni donations.
“We know from [the Admissions office] that prospective families ask if their students can rush in their first year. Out of 14 peer institutions, we are only one of four schools that doesn’t allow this. The other 10 do. This is putting us at a competitive disadvantage for those matters,” said Ehrlich.
She also shared that on average, students in Greek life pay an average of $9,000 more in tuition, “so this could potentially help [the College] attract students who can pay more.” Many alumni have also indicated they would “view this change as an investment in Greek Life on the part of the college, and that they would increase their giving or start giving if they haven’t been in the past.”
Next, Allen spoke on why they are considering the change to Greek life recruitment now. First, he explained that there have been many changes at the national level in the past 25 years, citing anti-hazing laws as an example.
He emphasized that he believes “a lot has changed” at Gettysburg College since first-year Greek life recruitment ended. Allen referenced a 2004 “life-safety initiative” by the College and a 2014 effort to expand staff support for Greek life as the catalyst for “positive outcomes” such as higher GPAs, leadership development and alumni engagement.
“It’s not just about the reduction of bad behaviors. We’ve been seeing a lot of positive outcomes come out of [Greek life],” explained Allen. “Things like our organizations really focusing on inclusion, trying to break down barriers for access.”
Allen also discussed increasing financial support for low-income students who otherwise could not afford to participate in Greek life. He cited the Panhellenic Council passing $3,000 in scholarships to help students pay dues as an example of this.
He also stated that social opportunities outside of Greek life have increased, citing the changes to Plank basement, the opening of the Attic and an increase in OSAGL social events as examples.
“Students are now saying they don’t feel like they need to be a part of Greek life in order to have a social experience,” said Allen. “That’s helpful if we move to first-year recruitment because it’s not forcing them into something, it’s really a choice, and they want to get involved earlier, as we’ve heard already.”
Next, Allen cited improving College’s recruitment and retention as another potential benefit, saying that first-year Greek life recruitment could lead to less first-years leaving the College.
Finally, Allen stated that first-year Greek life recruitment will benefit culturally-based Greek life organizations. These include Alpha Phi Alpha, Chi Upsilon Sigma, Delta Sigma Theta and Zeta Phi Beta. He explained that these organizations have a different recruitment process that happens “much less frequently.” This makes these organizations “not really sustainable” because they do not recruit enough students.
Three of the four culturally-based Greek life organizations will have all their members graduate in May, according to Allen. However, OSAGL is “going to work with those organizations to rebuild in the fall,” stating that there is alumni and student interest.
“Moving to first year recruitment would give them more opportunities to bring more people in, which we know our first-year students, especially our underrepresented students, are looking for; they want to build that community.”
The floor was then opened for faculty questions and comments.
One professor asked about financial resources available to students to help pay Greek life dues. Allen explained that the Interfraternity and Panhellenic councils both give out about 10 scholarships per semester. OSAGL also gives scholarships from their operational budget. Allen said that OSAGL has been able to cover Greek life dues for “pretty much [any student] who’s come up to [OSAGL].”
Another professor asked about student interactions with police, saying that there have been many “hostile” interactions between the Gettysburg Police Department (GPD) and students. He questioned whether allowing first-years into Greek life will worsen this problem, and asked if either Ehrlich or Allen are “[working] with the police department to stop harassing our students.”
Ehrlich explained that herself, Iuliano and Executive Director of Campus Safety Alex Wiltz have been in conversation with GPD police chief Robert Glenny Jr and Gettysburg Mayor Rita Frealing on student-police interactions. The College has been logging all “problematic” interactions between the College and GPD, and according to this log, most negative interactions between students and police are not involving Greek life.
Another professor brought up problems with Greek life at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The College experienced a large amount of policy violations during the fall 2020 semester, which eventually resulted in the two-year suspension of Phi Gamma Delta (FIJI).
Allen responded, acknowledging problems during the pandemic, but also stating that all the former students who participated in COVID-related policy violations are no longer students today. He also stated that Greek organizations have changed since 2020.
Another professor spoke on problems with Greek life during the pandemic.
“It seems to me that the actual spread of COVID on campus in the fall of 2020 came out of the Greek system,” said the professor. “A couple of our organizations, even though they were asked many different times not to do an in-person rush, they did do it. And those were the nodal points for the outbreak of COVID on campus.”
Another professor, in response, stated that College policy violations during the pandemic were not exclusive to Greek life. He argued that faculty advisors to Greek life organizations should get more involved.
“If we want better behavior of the system, we should be more engaged and not less engaged, right?” he said. “The organizations that had the biggest problems are the ones that had absent faculty advisors.”
The issue of transgender and gender non-conforming students was raised by another faculty member. In response, Allen explained that all Gettysburg College Greek life organizations accept students based on their expressed gender identity, which means that trans and gender-nonconforming students are able to get involved in Greek life.
The last faculty member to express his opinion that sophomore Greek life recruitment “has been a net positive for Greek culture on campus.” Further he stated that he is “concerned about our institution possibly backsliding in terms of behavior.” He also argued that students’ first years can be “difficult and stressful” as they adjust to life at college, and adding Greek life recruitment could add even more stress.
Proposals on Academic Department Name Changes and Mergers
The meeting then shifted to four motions related to department name changes and mergers:
- “Department of French” to “Department of French and Italian”
- “Department of Philosophy” and “Department of Religious Studies” to “Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies”
- “Department of Classics” to “Department of Ancient Greek and Roman Studies”
- “Department of Chemistry” to “Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry”
The rules required that the faculty consider each motion one at a time and in order. Iuliano first explained that unanimous consent would be needed to move forward.
“Our rules require us to take [each motion] one at a time, and whether we vote on them today depends upon whether we have the unanimous consent to do any of that,” he said.
If the faculty were to pass the first motion with unanimous consent, they could then move on to the next motion. If there were any votes against, Iuliano explained that the meeting would adjourn because the rules require that they not move past a pending motion until it is resolved.
After reading out each motion, Iuliano opened the floor for discussion on the French and Italian merger. No faculty spoke, so they immediately moved a vote. The vote failed to pass with 93 in favor and a single vote against.
Iuliano explained that the rest of the motions will be discussed at the next faculty meeting before he adjourned the meeting.
