Greek Avisor Tiffany Jones Resigns, Effective April 5th (Non-election News!)
The Greek wing of the Office of Student Life is about to be seriously understaffed. Currently, the office is run by Tiffany Jones and interim advisor James Walker, who took over when Rob Maneson departed last semester. The plan was to have a replacement found for Rob by the beginning of February, then mid-February, and I assume they are shooting for mid-March now.

James Walker seems to be doing fine as a replacement, and hopefully they can get someone found quickly to stand in for Tiffany. At the moment, there is quite a lot of stress in the Greek Community, and the hope is that a lot of that can be relieved by rewriting the Greek Social Code. Students undertaking an ambitious project like this without permanent advisors for the Greek Community from OSL represents a serious failing on behalf of OSL to provide students with a properly staffed advising office.

Furthermore, my impression (largely gleaned from a dinner I attended with him) of Birgeneau is that he is not a fan of the Greek community. (For further evidence, Greeks should be aware of the apparent increase in efforts by the university to shut down unregistered parties.) This could very well be Birgeneau's opportunity to seek to limit the role of Greeks in Berkeley's social atmosphere by using the lack of advisors as an opportunity to exert his influence from on high. For an opposing viewpoint on how this might play out (I disagree with Karasek's hope that we could achieve some autonomy out of this), here is a comment from Panhellenic VP of Public Relations Lauren Karasek:

We have very mature and capable Panhellenic, IFC, and NPHC councils that have made creative strides far beyond our predecessors. We will continue to act in a responsible, progressive and representative manner while being involved in the process to seek out the best qualified Greek Advisors possible. This is a unique opportunity for student autonomy within the Greek and campus communities, and it will not be squandered. Instead, it will allow us to display the height of student ingenuity and resourcefulness

[Full disclosure, the university has previously shut down a very large party my fraternity was attempting to throw.] P.S. Daily Cal, if you do an article on this, can you call some folks at U of T and find out how Birgeneau treated the Greeks there...Email This Post!