Socializing at college is so fraught it requires paperwork before partying

The “Cornell 7” case has thrown a spotlight on safety efforts at schools, many of them student-led, like sober monitors and consent officers.

To get into a party at Stanford University, students are often asked to recite a “consent pledge” aloud.

The pledge, read off a large sign, reminds partygoers that consent can be revoked at any time, and includes a promise to hold others accountable. Some fraternities have gone further, creating short quizzes about the pledge, said Lee Rosenthal, a 2025 graduate and former frat president.

“They actually wouldn’t let you in unless you said it out loud,” he said.

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The Chi Phi Fraternity building located at Cornell University.

Trisha Addicks, who runs a sorority recruitment consulting firm and regularly speaks with sisters at campuses nationwide, recalls a “wild west” when she was in college in the late 1980s. Now she often hears about a mandated ratio of sober party attendees for every event, typically one for every 25 people. At some chapter meetings, sorority members spin a wheel to designate “sober sisters” for a coming party.

Those meetings also include game-planning for the party and mapping out responsibilities, Addicks said. Sober sisters sometimes run a check-in desk where members can store drinks. The monitors ensure drinks aren’t spiked, and dole out beverages in timed-out windows to curb binge drinking, Addicks said.

Sober sisters walk around the party, intervene when necessary and ensure members get home safely. National fraternity and sorority organizations, and colleges, sometimes require sober monitors too.

“I’m not the hawk, watching everyone’s conversations, but it’s just kind of a role of: ‘Be more aware of your surroundings,’” said Charlotte Smith, an Alpha Chi Omega member at Southern Methodist University.

It can be a big ask to expect a few sober students to police dozens of peers who have been drinking and partying, especially if they haven’t received bystander intervention training, said Tracey Vitchers, executive director of It’s On Us, an organization to combat sexual assault on college campuses.

At the University of Chicago, a woman alleged she was sexually assaulted at a fraternity last weekend despite the presence of sober monitors and a risk manager on-site, according to a statement from the fraternity.

Some sorority executives keep do-not-admit lists for parties naming people who acted inappropriately at prior events or made members feel uncomfortable. Sometimes, sororities share those lists with each other.

“They would say, ‘OK, we don’t allow this guy into our parties,’” said Addicks.

Smith, the SMU student, is president of the college’s It’s On Us chapter. Smith and others give a presentation on “fraternity bid day” about consent and sexual assault. They have other events like trivia nights to do outreach, particularly within the Greek life community.

The group also put up stickers on bathroom mirrors in frat houses and throughout campus with resources and helplines.

“It’s On Us” started in 2014 and has grown to more than 200 campuses, in part because students feel there is a gap that schools aren’t filling, said Vitchers.

Schools often adopt “cookie cutter” risk-management programs to fulfill compliance, but they emphasize legal definitions and lack cultural relevance and specific scenarios, Vitchers said.

Students have tried to step in, she said. Some specialize in certain trainings—there may be a “consent captain” and a “bystander captain” within a chapter—and lead those conversations on their campuses.

Beyond Stanford’s consent pledge, the school has workshops on recognizing and responding to sexual assault, and hosts drop-in hours at fraternities and sororities, said Samuel Santos, a senior associate vice provost for student affairs.

The college, like many others, also has extensive rules for throwing parties, including a required review by a party committee. At University of Pennsylvania, students have bemoaned the 100-person limits on parties since the school started widely enforcing the policy last year.

Some people worry that too much regulation will just prompt students to party off campus, where the rules won’t apply. Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff warned in a recent faculty town hall meeting that pushing social events into private houses beyond the school’s purview—“into the shadows”—could exacerbate problems. Still, the school decided to suspend all frat parties this year.

At Boston College, where seniors often live on-campus, a decadeslong policy requires parties to be registered in advance. Parties can’t begin until a resident assistant inspects the scene to ensure requirements are met—like offering a proportional amount of food if alcohol is served.

The RA then has an “additional harm reduction and education conversation” with the designated sober host, said George Arey, associate vice president for residential life. The RA returns later that night, at a designated end time, to confirm guests left and the party has been shut down.

Arey said the school has reduced limits on both the number of attendees and amount of alcohol in the past decade. They also cap the number of events approved on the same night to minimize “party hopping.”

“Students understand that hosting a social gathering is a privilege and are generally cooperative with the requirements because they want to maintain that privilege,” Arey said.

Write to Roshan Fernandez at roshan.fernandez@wsj.com