After current IFC President Luke Pierce resigned from his previous University Park Undergraduate Association (UPUA) position as director of greek life last semester, UPUA has divided the position into two separate jurisdictions, UPUA President Gavin Keirans said.
The director of greek life, mainly in charge of linking greek life and UPUA and advising UPUA's executive council in all greek matters, will now be divided. One director will only deal with National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) and Multicultural Greek Council (MGC) and the other will deal with all Interfraternity Council (IFC) and Panhellenic Council (PHC) issues in UPUA, Keirans said.
The IFC and PHC director will be Chris Caswell (junior-energy, business and finance), and Bryant Poland (senior-psychology) will be the director dealing with NPHC and MGC.
"The greek community represents one-fifth of the student body at University Park, so we feel it's important to have someone on UPUA to advise Gavin on issues pertaining to all segments of greek life," Caswell said.
Caswell, whom Pierce recommended to Keirans, was formerly president of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. Caswell said he is focusing on restructuring the process in which greek councils place representatives in UPUA.
Currently, UPUA representatives from greek councils are picked at the discretion of the councils, Caswell said, adding he would like to allow all fraternity and sorority members to vote for their council's UPUA representative. The elections for this position would coincide with elections for other UPUA positions, Caswell said.
"We really need to get the greek community further involved in UPUA to make it a unified voice for administration," Caswell said.
Poland said he would like to see greek councils revise their bylaws to state they must have representatives in UPUA, since UPUA has already added it into its bylaws.
This would ensure open communication between greek life and UPUA, Poland said.
Poland was formerly UPUA's NPHC representative and also served as president of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. last year.
"Since the beginning, the greek council seats have not been as engaged or had as active of a voice as they wanted to have," Keirans said. "[Poland's] going to help make that a reality."
Both Caswell and Poland have been approved by UPUA's internal development committee to serve as directors of greek life, said Andrew Karasik, internal development committee chairman.
UPUA will also have a new special events and programming chairman, because the previous chairwoman, Hillary Gupta, is studying abroad this semester. John King (junior-marketing), last semester's vice chairman of the committee, will take over the position.
