All fraternity-related events were banned Oct. 1 through a collaborative effort by App State’s SGA and Interfraternity Council after a surge in COVID-19 cases.

The order condemns any gatherings over five people, which still remains in effect for another week.

At the time of the order’s announcement, App State confirmed seven new COVID-19 clusters, two of them from fraternities, and the total number of active COVID-19 cases was 181. 

“Obviously we don’t know exactly what the outcome will be until a few weeks, but I truthfully do believe, and the (fraternity) presidents all believe, that this is going to be a big help,” said Hudson Cobb, IFC vice president of programming.  

While SGA and IFC are enforcing the order, Cobb said fraternity presidents were the ones to create these restrictions.

“This was 100% on their own volition to self-impose these restrictions,” Cobb said. “This wasn’t the IFC board telling the fraternities they need to do this.  This was a bottom-up movement where the fraternities themselves said ‘We need to do something, we have to act and be responsible for our community.’”

Because the order is self-imposed, IFC President Sam Haggard said he isn’t expecting any backlash from fraternity members.

“If it was earlier in the semester, it would have been dealt with a lot more backlash. But, right now, I think everyone sees where we’re coming from, so there hasn’t been any backlash to my knowledge,” Haggard said.

Haggard says keeping members from going to the bars will be the most difficult part to enforce.

“It’s one thing for us to say you can’t hold any chapter events, but it’s a lot harder to say members can’t go out to bars.  Everyone that’s 21 and going out every night contradicts everything we want to do,” Haggard said.

At the end of the two weeks on Oct. 14, members of IFC and SGA will examine the COVID-19 case count in Greek life and campus as a whole to decide whether they want to extend or rescind the order.

“If I had to make a personal guess, I would say it is going to get extended and would prefer to see it be extended, but if trends start reversing it’s going to be a tougher decision,” Haggard said.