Last spring, nine houses failed the review, and three were passed "with exceptions." Delta Phi and Kappa Alpha Theta are repeat offenders, failing twice in a row.
This year, "no groups are in very egregious shape," said Richard Bova, senior associate dean of residential life. "Generally groups comply" with the review process, he added, and this year all of the houses were "remarkably cooperative."
Three houses failed the review - Spanish House, DPhi and Kappa Alpha Theta. Both DPhi and Kappa Alpha Theta failed because of low membership numbers, and Spanish House failed because they missed two of three Program House Council meetings.
According to Justin Glavis-Bloom '07, chair of ResCouncil, each house is required to have at least 22 members living in its residence hall, a level DPhi and Kappa Alpha Theta failed to achieve. DPhi also failed to "uphold community standards for cleanliness and behavior," according to the review report. The report suggests that DPhi establishes "a short-term and long-term plan for higher-level performance that takes into account behavior of members, party management and the requirement that they have 22 members."
Mark Connolly '07, president of Greek Council and a member of DPhi, said his house "failed right away" because of its low membership numbers - there are not enough people actually living in the house because many of the seniors live off-campus and many juniors go abroad, he said. He added that the house hopes to have a "solid rush" to up its membership this spring.
Connolly declined to elaborate on the "cleanliness and behavior" issues noted at the review, emphasizing that DPhi would have failed no matter what because of its low membership.
An additional four houses were put on notice. Theta Delta Chi was cited for "issues of cleanliness, party management and property damage," according to the report. Both Buxton International House and French House were put on notice for failing to hold regular house meetings.
Phi Kappa Psi was also put on notice, but for different reasons - according to Bova, the house had a pet snake in its lounge. "They took a little bit of extra time" to get rid of it after being told to remove it, Bova said, "and it resurfaced."
Glavis-Bloom wrote in an e-mail to The Herald that "a graduated member of Phi Psi had stored his ... non-venomous snake temporarily in the Phi Psi lounge."
Unlike during previous reviews, this time houses did not need to appear in person before ResCouncil. Instead, each program house filed paperwork with ResCouncil.
In the past, ResCouncil would call the houses in and ask them questions, a process Glavis-Bloom called "time consuming and sort of senseless." For one, it was hard for ResCouncil to verify the houses' claims on the spot.
ResCouncil has plans to post its form online for the spring review to further streamline the process. Glavis-Bloom said the new process "improved the means by which information is collected."
ResCouncil reviews the houses and makes recommendations to the Office of Residential Life, which then comes up with what Bova described as a "corrective plan." For instance, a house's party privileges might be temporarily revoked if they had trouble with noise or behavior issues.
Overall, Bova said he was pleased with the review. "Students on ResCouncil take it very seriously," he said. He added that there are "no foreseeable problems" with regards to last semester's review.
