The greek community will have to wait a bit longer for the creation of greek identification cards because of the social security conversion for new Penn State ID+ cards.
After the fall semester delay, former Interfraternity Council (IFC) President Andy Hackett said he expected the cards to be completed at the start of this semester.
Current IFC President Brian Bertges said he hopes the cards will soon become a reality.
"We know we want to do it, and will," Bertges said. "We need to relook the situation and figure out what's best."
Hackett said the greek IDs will be made this semester; however, ID+ office manager Cynthia Kellerman said they have yet to hear from the greek community on the issue.
"We have gotten no confirmation," Kellerman said. "It wouldn't be this semester because we have no design."
Jared Brown, assistant director of fraternity and sorority life, said the cards are a goal for the executive board's spring agenda.
He said purchasing the cards from Penn State's ID+ office is less expensive than buying them from an outside business.
"The ID cards are not a dead issue -- it's the budget that's the issue," Brown said. "It is most effective to use an in-house solution, even if that means having to wait."
Hackett said the cards will be financed through IFC funds and advertisement sale opportunities.
"We will be working with the ID+ office to create the cards at a rate much lower than going to a private company," he said. "All that remains to be done before we have the cards is to design the look of the card, including what information we plan to have on the card, like chapter affiliation, and to gather the updated rosters from all the chapters."
The greek IDs are not meant to exclude non-greek students," Jane Nietz, assistant director of fraternity and sorority life, said.
"The whole idea behind the card is to help fraternities and sororities with social events," she said. "They should now be utilizing guest lists, but with the greek IDs, a host organization can have a separate guest list for unaffiliated students."
Bertges reinforced the idea of ID cards as a tool for safety rather than for division in the Penn State community.
"The ID cards will help us manage risk when it comes to any events that we host," he said. "As fraternity members, the biggest issue facing us is what we are doing to make things safer for students at Penn State."
The ID system also provides potential benefits for greek students like local store discounts.
Hackett said the use of ID cards may play a role in determining chapter affiliations for spirit points at greek special events and may help to build a stronger greek community.
"The greek IDs have been seen as a product of an elitist greek mentality, and by moving forward with them, we potentially provoke this stereotype," he said. "Let it be said again that these cards are a way for greek organizations to reduce liability ... [to] allow us to more fully concentrate our efforts on other areas such as service and leadership development."
