Correction appended.
Fraternities and sororities at Ohio University have not received specific safety guidance from the university for their return to campus due to their designation as off-campus housing.
However, many organizations have been given guidelines from their national chapters for how to safely bring members back to campus during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Delta Zeta, for example, has implemented rules and procedures to ensure the safety of all of the women living in the house and anyone they come into contact with.
Masks are worn at all times in the Delta Zeta house, except for while eating in the dining room or in one’s own bedroom. There is only one entrance that is open and it has a sanitation station and temperatures are taken every Monday.
When someone is finished with a room, they have to disinfect everything that they touched, as well as any of the other high touch surfaces, Maggie Old, a junior studying communications and president of Delta Zeta, said.
Delta Tau Delta has similar rules for its house. There are no visitors allowed in the house and masks must be worn at all times. Those returning to the house after leaving must go through a mandatory check-in station where they have their temperature recorded and receive hand sanitizer, said Henry Strosnider, a senior studying integrated math and who is in charge of apparel and formal planning for Delta Tau Delta.
“The university wasn’t super involved with our rules,“ Hannah Monk, a senior studying nursing and the director of housing for Pi Beta Phi, said. “It was WPA which set the rules for us, WPA is kind of like, who oversees all of the Greek Housing and Greek Life and stuff like that, so they were the ones who gave us the rules.”
Pi Beta Phi has 48 women living in the house right now, though it can usually hold 54. The women living there have to wear masks at all times and record their temperatures every day. There are no guests allowed in the house. Food is served individually, rather than buffet-style, to avoid cross contamination, Monk said.
There are only 12 women currently living in the Delta Zeta house right now, which normally houses 54, though 10 more women will move in as Phase Two students return to campus.
When the next 10 women move into the Delta Zeta house they will be required to make a 10-day to-go-bag. This will help in the case that any resident gets the virus or comes down with any symptoms of COVID-19, they can just pick up their bag and leave without contaminating the rest of the house, Old said.
Pi Beta Phi has two safe rooms that can be used by those in contact with someone who was sent home after testing positive for COVID-19. There is a separate bathroom that will be closed off near the rooms that will only be used by the safe room occupant, and her meals will be delivered to her to avoid spreading the virus throughout the rest of the house, Monk said.
“I don’t have a roommate, but if I did have a roommate, and she tested positive, she has 48 hours to leave the Delta Zeta property and then the roommate would go into the safe room, which nobody’s occupying right now and then they’d fog that room, disinfect that room, give it a few days and then the non-sick roommate would get tested,” Old said. “When they test negative they can go back into their original room. The student, or girl, who tested positive would have to stay off the premises for 10 days.”
If anyone leaves the Delta Zeta house and goes home for the weekend, or visits somewhere else, they have to fill out a screening form before they can return. Those forms then go to the Delta Zeta national chapter and are then accepted or denied to return back to the house, Old said.
Cleaning in many Greek Life houses is done either by the members living in the house or by hired staff who clean off all high touch surfaces. Delta Zeta has a worker come in every day to clean the elevator, the bathrooms and all the common areas in order to stay on top of things every day, Old said.
Delta Tau Delta had the house professionally cleaned before members arrived and since then, the residents have divvied up all of the chores and increased the cleanliness requirements, Strosnider said.
Most meetings for Greek Life organizations are taking place virtually to keep everyone safe. Delta Zeta’s chapter meetings, philanthropy events and sisterhood events will be virtual for the foreseeable future. The executive board has been adapting everything to be online in order to ensure safety and allow those who are not living in the house to participate, Old said.
“As far as our fraternity, there’s also programming and health presentations for the chapter on just everything going on and we cut all of our social events for the semester … we just try to have all of our events that we can online,” Strosnider said.
Correction appended: A previous version of this article included the name “Bi Beta Phi” but the correct name is “Pi Beta Phi.” The story has been updated to reflect the most accurate information.
