Timothy J. Piazza Center for Fraternity and Sorority Research and Reform S T E V A N V E L D K A M P, E D . D . Hazing tragedies of the last two years have left campuses and headquarters in a quandary as to what policies and practices will create safe, successful, and sustainable fraternities and sororities. Questions about campus staffing ratios, recruitment policies, and effective anti-hazing prevention loom in the thoughts of student affairs professionals, university presidents, and trustees. These practice and policy questions are just a few examples of the compelling matters Penn State’s Timothy J. Piazza Center for Fraternity and Sorority Research and Reform (Piazza Center) is poised to address to inform professional practice. In January 2019, the multidisciplinary research center was named in memory of Timothy J. Piazza, a sophomore at Penn State who died in February 2017 following alcohol-infused hazing activities.
A New Center Since 2017, Penn State has undertaken a series of aggressive measures to overcome challenges in its Greek-letter community related to hazing, misuse of alcohol, sexual assault, and overly large and disruptive social events. The Piazza Center extends local efforts by providing the scholarship required to study and learn from common reform actions such as deferred recruitment, as well as develop and manage a national scorecard on fraternities and sororities, host national conversations on important and pressing topics, collect and distribute best practices, and sponsor original research to inform fraternity and sorority professionals’ advising practice. The Piazza Center is primed to create unbiased answers to perennial questions regarding professional practice and policies. “Our aim is to make the center a valuable resource for colleges and universities across the United States, as well as for members, chapters, and organizations. The center will focus on research to support positive educational outcomes, student safety, and the reduction of highrisk behaviors. What everyone in this field really seeks is sound, professional practices,” said Damon Sims, Vice President for Student Affairs and a primary advocate for creation of the center at Penn State. “The Piazza Center will study best practices in creating safer chapters, as well as the positive impact fraternity and sororities can create on campus and in the community.”
An Old Idea This new center builds upon the Center for Fraternity and Sorority Research, located at Indiana University in Bloomington since 1979 and transitioned to Penn State in 2019. This transition allows for dedication of full-time staff and resources to develop best practices in fraternity and sorority life. Penn State’s trustee and presidential leadership chose to pick up the mantle of finding grounded practices to enduring and contemporary challenges, and surfacing opportunities facing fraternities and sororities. After Piazza’s tragic death, university administrators were determined to fix the serious lack of research available to inform how fraternity and sorority affairs should most effectively operate and guide decisions on policies proven to work. Proposed by Penn State President Eric J. Barron and Vice President for Student Affairs Sims, 34 university trustees voted unanimously to support the creation and funding for the research center (see Penn State’s Commitment to Funding Fraternity and Sorority Research). The idea of a fraternity and sorority research center goes back more than 44 years. In 1975, higher education and fraternal leaders convened with a goal to create a national agenda for fraternities and sororities. Indiana University Chancellor Herman Wells, Dean of Students Robert Shaffer, and a commission of well-known names in the higher education and interfraternal world led the effort. The agenda, speeches, and subsequent book Issue #4 PERSPECTIVES 18
