The Interfraternity Council's "Bring Your Own Beer" policy, which was implemented earlier this year, was met with mixed reactions by the community.

"I think things are working better now than they were before," said senior IFC President Andrew Myers. "The policy is working well within the fraternity houses, with brothers bringing their own beer to parties."

However, Myers said there has been difficulty in maintaining support from the larger Vanderbilt community.

"We still have a lot of work ahead of us, especially with regards to encouraging the sorority members, non Greek guests and the Vanderbilt community as whole to support and abide by the BYOB program," Myers said. "It would be nice to see more people outside of the fraternities supporting the fraternities by bringing their own beer as well."

Fraternity presidents agreed that policy would only work with the cooperation of all guests at parties.

"I'm really proud of our brothers for the effort they've made to make the BYOB policy work by bringing their own beer to parties," said junior Jaime Masters, president of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. "I just wish that more of our guests would help us out by also bringing their own beer, instead of expecting to get free beer."

Junior Stephanie Miller, however, said she has not noticed any changes since the policy's implementation.

"I haven't seen a difference," Miller said. "I think (the policy) is stupid."

But senior Tim Wile, member of Zeta Beta Tau, said that the commitment to the current policy nevertheless has been a significant improvement on the way fraternity parties are run.

"The main way that I see the policy working so far is in the simple fact that, if people haven't brought their own beer, the only way that they can get beer is if individual brothers are giving up their own," Wile said. "People can't just go up to the bar anymore if they haven't brought their own beer, which is a huge improvement that will cut down on the liabilities of the fraternities."

Several students disagree and said they do not think the policy works at all.

"(The policy's) never really applied," said freshman Anghirad Ames.

Freshman Ellen Tremaine said she does not think the policy is "very strongly enforced."

Anghirad also said she has not seen people bringing their own beer to fraternity parties.

"No one does that," Anghirad said.

The current policy is under constant evaluation, said Greek adviser Clayton Arrington.

"The situation is better, but not where it needs to be," Arrington said. "With any program that we implement, we are constantly adjusting it in order to try and make it better. Right now, we're working to improve the system, so as to make it safer for students and bring it more in line with fraternity insurance policies."

Arrington has suggested some alternative options.

"One alternative is to do away with bars as a centralized location of alcohol altogether," Arrington said. "It would become the individual's responsibility to handle his or her own alcohol, like how Rites of Spring is run."

Another system would involve storing beer in a separate room that the fraternity can monitor. The beer would stay in a centralized location, and the fraternity would control distribution.

"Both of these systems have a lot of merit, but so far they have only been discussed and haven't been formulated into any kind of potential policy," Arrington said.

"We will continue to evaluate the current BYOB policy, and we'll continue to be creative in looking for new improvements and alternatives."

And while the fraternity houses are the focus of attention right now, this issue is really a campus at large problem, said senior Stu Chapman, president of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity.