When Eric Godfrey, vice provost for student life at the UW, stated in a Seattle Times article in July that the UW hoped to bring together experts and community leaders to address safety concerns in the Greek community, Don Jensen and his family were glad to hear the news.

Six years after his son Brett Jensen’s fatal fall, Jensen had nearly given up hope that the University would ever see a need to take a more direct role in ensuring safety in the Greek community.

“It is a subject that too often disappears from the radar after the tragic event occurs and, therefore, nothing changes as to improved safety guidelines and modifications in the fraternities,” wrote Jensen in an e-mail to Godfrey on July 13th, 2008. “It just goes away until the next young student falls to their death.”

Jensen’s sentiments proved to be eerily timely.

Only four days after Jensen sent the e-mail, and nine days after Godfrey made public statements about improving the safety of Greek houses, another tragic fall from a fraternity house occurred. The victim suffered a fractured skull, broken vertebrae and broken ribs.

While Jensen was initially hopeful about Godfrey’s statements in the Times, that hope is beginning to dwindle as all of the proposed ideas have yet to be put into action.

The project of carrying out Godfrey’s initial ambitions has since been given to Lincoln Johnson, assistant vice provost for student life. Johnson said the process of creating any type of oversight committee is a long and difficult one.

“We certainly haven’t been able to get as far in [the process],” he said. “But there is still a plan.”

The UW is unique in its relationship with the Greek community because the University does not directly own any of the houses or the property on which the physical structures stand. The University therefore has no way to directly enforce standards in the community without consensus from members within the community.

The group that the University wanted to create would have consisted of experts who would be available to the Greek community regarding concern for safety standards. Inspections and recommendations from this group would have been voluntary. However, the group was never put together.

“What basically happened, is the people that the Interfraternity Council gave us as experts didn’t respond,” Johnson said. “I’m actually quite disappointed that we haven’t made more progress on that plan.”

Jensen, however, believes the UW has other options it is not utilizing.

“It seems like there are ways that the University could take a more active role in the conduct of the Greek system,” wrote Jensen in an e-mail to Godfrey. “Even though they don’t directly have supervision or management over the chapter houses.”

In the past, the University has attempted to get more involved in overseeing the Greek community.

Fifteen years ago, the state legislature passed a law that required the University to hold recognition agreements with all chapters that affiliate themselves with the school. The actual contents of the agreements were left up to the University and Greek community to work out.

Jensen proposed altering this initial agreement, giving the University greater authority to revoke a house’s recognition if they do not meet stricter safety inspections and alcohol-use guidelines.

“The University promotes Greek living,” said Jensen. “Why not exert some pressure on those fraternities who don’t conduct the survey by not recognizing that particular chapter?”

Jensen is also a proponent for challenging the status quo of alcohol use in the Greek community. He believes the culture of accepted alcohol use and tragic accidents go hand-in-hand. Jensen feels that the University could pressure the houses to have more oversight by requiring fraternities to have full-time, live-in advisers, similar to sororities.

“There’s no designated person to watch over and be concerned with their safety,” Jensen said.

Johnson said the recognition agreement hasn’t been revised substantially for a couple of years.

“There’s a timeline to revise the agreement that we are now beyond,” said Johnson of the charter agreement currently in place. Johnson said the window of time acceptable for altering the agreement will open again during winter quarter.

“What I suspect is that we will meet in the winter and revise,” said Johnson. “But all parties have to agree on the changes going into effect.”

With a new Greek Relations Coordinator in place, and the creation of the Office for Fraternity and Sorority Life still underway, the University’s involvement with the Greek community this year has the potential to be drastically different from years past.

But after six years of waiting, Jensen feels that only time will tell.

“I think it’s just a matter of putting pressure on the University to make sure that this is a priority,” said Jensen. “Otherwise history will only repeat itself.”

Reach reporter Casey Smith at news@dailyuw.com.