TKE is Open for 2020-2021 School Year

Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity
University of Southern California

May 19, 2020

Dear TKE Members and Parents,

TKE Fraternity at USC will be open and operational for the 2020-2021 academic school year regardless of how USC conducts classes and learning.  If USC decides not to open the campus and holds all classes online, TKE will still offer housing, food service, cleaning service, live-in management and most importantly a place where college aged men can be together, in person, sharing life and having fun as brothers in a fraternal bond.

Our Chapter Leadership and Alumni Board of Advisors are planning on how TKE will stay open safely.  Our plan includes the following:

1. Oversight of all operations and protocols by our live-in House Director. Lee Snider is the only fraternity House Director at USC and has been instrumental in establishing and refining our cleaning and safety procedures for eight years.
2. A deep cleaning and sanitization of all rooms, kitchen and common areas during our 14 day shutdown period between summer move out on August 5, 2020 and the Fall move-in date of August 19, 2020. During this period all members and personal items are removed from the houses.
3. Continuation of our five day a week cleaning and sanitization service for the entire 2020-2021 school year. We are the only fraternity that uses professional cleaning services every day and have already developed detailed protocols for sanitizing door handles, bathrooms and other highly trafficked areas.
4. Working closely with our catering company to develop a detailed food service safety plan.
5. Providing important supplies such as soap, hand-sanitizer, paper towels, and toilet paper to our members in common areas.
6. Working closely with USC to understand and identify important services available to our members. USC will continue student health care services and provide isolated housing for students that might be infected this next school year.  That means that if one of our members does get infected, they will be removed from the property and moved into USC isolated housing which as of today is the USC Hotel.

TKE believes that we are uniquely positioned to operate safely during this period due to our policies, procedures, systems and support that we have developed over the last decade.  We also believe that fraternity is an equally important and equally valuable part of the college experience for our members.  And our decision to remain open is substantially based on our desire to not deprive our members of this once in a lifetime experience that has a profound effect on the rest of their lives.

We will continue to develop our plans and share them as they progress.

YITB and Fight On!

Undergraduate Executive Board and the Alumni Board of Advisors
Beta-Sigma Chapter of Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity
University of Southern California