On October 15 1998, Courtney Cantor went out to party with friends at the Phi Delta Theta fraternity house. Late that night, she took a cab home with her friends. When she got back, she climbed up to her top bunk in her sixth-floor dorm room at Mary Markley Hall - and ended up falling off the ladder, out of the window, and on to the pavement below. She was found dead on the University sidewalk near the loading dock at 5:48 the next morning. Her autopsy revealed that she had consumed a date rape drug called Gamma-Hydroxy Butyric Acid, or GHB, which intensifies the effects of alcohol.

Courtney's death is a horrifying example of what can go wrong at any college party - and it does not stand alone in the University's recent history. In the fall of 2000, Engineering sophomore Byung-Soo Kim died after trying to consume 21 shots on his 21st birthday. In the fall of 2003, Kinesiology junior Evan Loomis suffered kidney failure, after being hazed at the Sigma Chi fraternity. That same year, 25 percent of University students reported that they binge drink on a frequent basis.

In light of these incidents the Interfraternity Council and the University's Office of Student Activities and Leadership have led a two-pronged movement to improve the safety of life on campus for students. The IFC recently passed a controversial revision to its social policy and SAL has recently reorganized its student groups to better protect the health and safety of students, and the liability of the University. The two movements, while independently prompted, executed and motivated, strive to remedy similar concerns.

Formalizing the University's group recognition process:

Susan Eklund, dean of students, said that the incident with Loomis was a wake-up call for the University, sparking it to take action. Two of the more controversial proposals the University discussed implementing were postponing rush until the winter term and having live-in guardians within fraternity houses.

"We thought that students might have time to find themselves a bit more, and maybe would be able to withstand the social pressure behind hazing," Eklund said.

Both proposals were wildly unpopular among students.

Deferred rush had been discussed at the University even before Loomis's incident. After the death of Courtney Cantor, her father, George Cantor, told the Michigan Daily that he hoped fraternities and sororities would delay rush until the winter term to give students time to adjust to life at a big University.

The idea of deferred rush was highly unpopular on campus, and as a result of the way in which the University recognizes student groups, deferred rush is not an option at this point in time, because fraternities and sororities are recognized the same way as any student group. If the University were to impose a deferred rush policy for the Greek system, they would have to restrict every group from recruiting new members until the winter semester.

Some Universities operate successfully under deferred rush. At Emory University in Atlanta, all sorority rush events are delayed until after winter break, and all freshman fraternity rush events are also delayed. While upperclassmen at Emory can rush fraternities in the fall, the big push comes after winter break, at the start of second semester. About a third of students at Emory participate in Greek life, compared with about 15 percent at Michigan. The bigger the school, the smaller the percentage of campus that participates in Greek life, because fraternities and sororities can only accommodate a limited number of people. At the University of Texas-Austin about 4,200 out of 52,000 students participate in Greek life - about 11 percent.

Emory IFC President Brian Espie said that the deferred rush provides several advantages.

"A pretty large percentage of the freshman class registers for spring rush," he said. Espie also said that a large number of those who register for rush eventually accept bids.

He added that the system is a good compromise between the Greek organizations and Emory's administration.

"I think that it's good . (because) you have a full semester to find your identity and invest yourself in different groups and organizations," he said. The administration likes it because they think it cuts down on the alcohol-related incidents."

The University has never taken steps to pursue this measure beyond preliminary discussion. Instead, it decided to revise its relationships with all student groups on campus, and treat its relationship with the Greek system like every other student organization.

Up until last year, the University of Michigan was one of the few universities in the country that did not have a formal recognition process for its student groups.

In the fall of 2004, E.