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Page 3 // March 29, 2017 @bsudailynews
SORORITY HOUSING PLANS NOT MOVING FORWARD
Ball State sorority presidents informed that expected complex will not be built
Cameron DeBlasio NewsLink Indiana The fate of Ball State’s sorority housing has taken an unexpected turn. After all sorority presidents were requested to attend a meeting last Thursday, it was revealed that the national chapters were not allowing Ball State’s sororities to move forward with their housing lease agreements. Members of all the sororities were then notified by their officers that the national chapters were unable to agree on the length of the leases for the housing project.
The houses were originally planned to be built on Riverside Avenue as a part of Ball State’s Greek Village Project, which would also potentially include fraternity houses in the future. Only a few sororities currently have their own houses, and the university has been working with the international, national and local sororities to develop a housing plan that “meets the needs of current and future sorority members,” according to the project’s website. Part of the plan included razing three houses that are currently situated on Riverside Avenue and building new Greek Life housing in that same location. The university also intended to build on the empty lots next to those houses. Samantha Johnson, who is the
president of Delta Zeta, said the decision not to move forward with the project at this time is disheartening, but it’s nothing the sororities can’t handle. “It’s not the end of the world,” Johnson said. “We’ll pick up and move on from here, but we were definitely disappointed.” Delta Zeta does not have anyone living in any of the current sorority houses, but Johnson said this won’t be a problem in the immediate future because the sorority will still be given suites in Woodworth Complex. As of now, those suites will remain under sorority control for at least another year, and Johnson said this is one of the reasons why she knows everything will be business as usual for the sororities.
“At the end of the day, nothing is going to change for us,” Johnson said. “I guess the positive side of it is that things will continue as normal. Our community will continue to grow.” The university also released a statement regarding the current decision not to build the sorority houses: “The sorority housing project is on hold indefinitely. Ball State heard from the national sororities that they were not ready to sign lease agreements. The university is exploring other possibilities to continue with the project, but no decisions are imminent.” Contact Cameron DeBlasio with any questions or concerns at cbdeblasio@bsu.edu.
CAST
Continued from page 1 Harden said the need to dissolve FCS and other programs in CAST came when the nutrition and dietetics departments moved from CAST to the new College of Health. “Half of what this college used to be, under this college [of health], has moved. So it made [CAST] smaller,” Harden said. “The idea was whether or not there should be eight colleges or how it should be configured.” When programs move colleges, each affected party gets a vote that is overseen by University Senate. Last week, CAST voted to recommend its FCS programs be taken in by various colleges on campus. The receiving colleges will vote to pass or deny a recommendation to accept the programs. From there, members of the University Senate vote on whether to approve the recommendations and pass its resolution to administration before the end of the academic year. “The timeline [for the votes] has been very, very fast for us, and that’s, again, a huge challenge in terms of trying to gather as much information as possible to make the best decision on the very, very short time frame that we have to work with,” Harden said. The final decision rests with the president and the Board of Trustees. So far, votes from the sending department have recommended residential property management and hospitality and food management move to the Miller College of Business in the management department; apparel design and fashion merchandising programs move to the business college in the marketing department; interior design move to the College of Architecture and Planning; and family studies, child development, child life specialists, FCS education and the general program move to the Teachers College. The dissolution should not affect students in any way, so they “should not feel anxious at all,” Harden said. Class structure, registration and graduation progress will remain the same, as will the spaces in the Applied Technology Building where the classes take place. The university’s bottom line was not the underlying factor in the dissolution, Harden said. “We’ve been assured that this is not a cost-cutting process,” Harden said. “This is not a resource allocation. This is simply an organizational structure type of thing.” However, Harden said the future of donations to FCS programs has not yet been clarified. “The alumni, the donors, all those
Samantha Brammer // DN File
The College of Applied Sciences and Technology will be officially discontinued on June 30. All programs within the family and consumer sciences department will search for new homes in the colleges they fit best.
kind of things that have supported FCS as a whole now are being kind of forced which piece to focus on,” Harden said. “I hope that we can still make those connections.” Colleges receiving the programs are in the process of voting electronically, and once tallied, the result will be put on the last University Senate agenda for its last meeting of the academic year in mid-April.
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• Residential property management and hospitality and food management move to the Miller College of Business in the management department • Apparel design and fashion merchandising programs move to the business college in the marketing department • Interior design moves to the College of Architecture and Planning • Family studies, child development, child life specialists, FCS education and the general program move to the Teachers College
Contact Sara Barker with any questions or concerns at slbarker3@bsu.edu.
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