Editorial: UNH Greek Life’s ‘transparent’ move

On Thursday, shortly after revealing sanctions for three Greek chapters that were agreed upon 11 weeks ago, MUB director MaryAnne Lustgraaf said UNH Greek Life did it in an effort to be "transparent." They wanted the public to know what was going on, she told The New Hampshire reporters.

What she should have said, though, was that they wanted to be transparent and that they wanted to keep the public informed, but that they failed at it.

How can she say that the move was about keeping the public informed and being "transparent" when the sanctions are so old that some of them the disciplinary actions have already expired?

Lustgraaf said that Greek Life has been operating short-staffed. This is true. The school lost then-Coordinator of Greek Life Adam McCready in October and he wasn't replaced until this month. Perhaps that's an excuse to delay the announcing of these sanctions a couple days – not 11 weeks though.

MUB officials emphasized that these moves did not come as a surprise to the chapters. Of course not. They happened nearly three months ago. It's a surprise that it took this long.

Don't mistake this lack of a move by blaming the chapters. It's not their fault that UNH Greek Life sat on this story for 11 weeks. That's why we won't name the chapters at fault on this page.

In the interview, Lustgraaf also repeatedly downplayed the violations for which the three Greek organizations took responsibility, which in the case of two chapters case included threatening or endangering the health or safety of another person.

Lustgraaf stressed the fact that these sanctions were put in place before the semester ended. They wanted the chapters to understand their sanctions before winter break. If Greek Life were truly transparent, though, and truly wanted to keep the public informed of chapters that violated policies, they would have announced those before winter break too. Instead, they sat on the sanctions the last week of fall semester. Then the five weeks of winter break. Then another five weeks.

Lustgraaf said they weren't written and distributed earlier because of a "lack of time."

"Dave (Zamansky) wrote them last month and Sarah (Pope) wanted to go over them with new presidents," she said.

Neither reason explains why they waited 11 weeks to distribute the notice.

What's even more troubling though is that they tried to play it off like they were doing the public a favor by being "transparent." The only thing that's transparent in this mess is the Office of Greek Life's poor excuse.