BEER AND CIRCUSES. Three of the five dining halls in the Northern Illinois dorm system will not be serving dinner this evening.

Instead, students are encouraged to take a Huskie Line bus to the Campus Cinemas parking lot, 1015 Blackhawk Drive, for a barbecue-style dinner, carnival games, live music and information on NIU’s Greek chapters.

The transaction is Pareto-improving to some parties.

"The university gets to give a great gift to all the Greeks for their hard work and cooperation.

The Greek system in general gets publicized to the university and the community, which has not happened in the past.

The individual chapters themselves get to go out and wear their letters. And students get to see that the Greek system is actually very different from the movie ‘Animal House.’

"The aim of the carnival is to let new students find out for themselves what the Greek system is all about, said Craig Marcus, program assistant for Greek Affairs.

That explains the proliferation of red-and-black t-shirts with assorted Greek letters on campus today. Not everybody is impressed.

[One dorm resident suggests]that while closing the Grant dining hall would be understandable, closing down three dining halls puts unfair pressure on freshmen to attend, even if they are not interested in going Greek.

Looks like I get to continue this theme all semester.