By Jeanine Poggi
The Student Government Association (SGA) and African-Latino Fraternal Sororal Alliance (ALFSA) are creating a petition to change the one-to-one policy at Hofstra USA.
The current policy states that for each outside guest attending a USA party, there must be one University student accompanying them.
“We want to ensure that there will be enough room for our students,” Ed Bracht, the director of Public Safety, said. “So if they show up at 1 a.m. they can still get in. We don’t want outsiders filling up the place.”
This policy also makes the student taking in a guest responsible for their actions, Bracht said.
Before the fall of 2001, anyone with an ID from some local and City University of New York (CUNY) schools could come to USA parties, Danny Cardenas, a member of ALFSA and an SGA senator, said. However, this policy was changed, less beer and liquor were served, and a 500 person capacity was placed on USA, after President Rabinowitz took office.
For many organizations, primarily minority-based ones, this reduced the success of their parties, which they depend on for profit, Cardenas said. Since the University has a small minority population, he said, organizations such as ALFSA rely on off campus people to fill their parties.
Based on national rules, ALFSA is not allowed to hold bar nights, where many other fraternities and sororities make money.
In the past Cardenas met with Public Safety in order to try to come to an agreement.
“Public Safety didn’t really listen,” he said. “They appeased us by having the meetings, but they already knew what they would say, and that they weren’t going to change anything.”
At first, public safety proposed that ALFSA could only have a guest list of 20 people, including alumni, Cardenas said.
“That was just impossible,” he said.
They then agreed to raise the list to 40, not including alumni.
“This was better, but it’s still not enough,” Cardenas said.
ALFSA is not the only organization that has tried to fight the policy over the years.
“This issue has been addressed each year for the past 10 years by the student body,” Bracht said.
The one-to-one policy is not only inconvenient for organizations, but individual students as well.
“With the current policy people you don’t know sometimes ask you to sign them into USA parties,” sophomore Antoinette Babino said. “You feel bad saying no, but then if they do something wrong you’re the one who gets blamed.”
Security for USA parties is paid by student funds, Bracht said.”Why should their money be used for the security of outside students?” he said.
Public Safety used to charge organizations for security at parties, Bracht said, but to make things easier for the students they decided to drop the fee.
With SGA joining the fight, Cardenas believes they have a better chance of getting the policy changed.
“Now it’s not as easy for public safety to disregard our request,” he said.
“The more people complain, the more they have to listen.”What many students do not realize, however, is that Public Safety does not make up the rules.
“Students get confused,” Bracht said. “We enforce rules of the University, but we don’t make them in a vacuum.”
In an effort to get more students and organizations involved, SGA will be have a table set up in the atrium of the Student Center where a petition can be signed.
“It doesn’t matter if your white, black, or Chinese,” Cardenas said.
“Anyone who signs the petition will be of a help.”