Changes in the rules for the annual Greek Political Action Committee debate have caused concern for some individuals involved with the campaign.

Colby Khoshreza, a candidate for Student Government president, said he spoke with SG Chief of Staff and Interfraternity Council President Ben Duncan about the details of the debate. The GPAC debate hosts SG presidential candidates and at the end of the event, votes to endorse a particular candidate on behalf of the Greek community.

In e-mails dated Feb. 6, Khoshreza suggested to Duncan having a non-Greek-affiliated moderator for the debate and expressed concern that leaders of GPAC were involved with SG presidential candidate Ryan Smith’s campaign.“I want the debate to be as unbiased and as neutral as possible,” Khoshreza said in an interview. “I talked with Ben and I would like to see some changes, like someone who was neutral to organize the debate so all the candidates would feel more comfortable.”

Duncan said he is in no way involved with any campaign and feels the debate structure is not biased.

“It’s definitely a fair environment,” Duncan said. “Colby was trying to organize the debate and he’s not part of our organization. It infuriated me that he was trying to organize this and politic the system.”

The moderator for the event is William Downey, a Kappa Alpha alumnus. Downey was the Interfraternity Council Executive Vice President in 2008. Duncan said Kappa Alpha has no member participating in any capacity with any candidate.

Panhellenic Council president Madison Deskins said the organization was very strict about involvement with SG campaigns. No event organizers are affiliated with any candidate, she said.

Deskins said she felt Downey was a more appropriate moderator than a faculty member as Khoshreza had suggested, since GPAC is a student-run organization.

“(Downey) is someone who has been on campus and knows how the community works,” she said. “But he has been gone for a few years and isn’t involved with any candidates.”

In the week before Spring Break, Khoshreza said he received a copy of the debate rules and was upset to find how they had been changed. The event is sponsored by Interfraternity Council, the Pan-Hellenic Council and for the first time, the National Pan-Hellenic Council.

“I talked to Krista (Hayes, National Pan-Hellenic Council president) and she didn’t know about the rule change,” Khoshreza said. “Ben created them and they were never approved. That is problematic.”

The rules were discussed by Duncan, Deskins and Hayes, whose participation was “minimal,” Duncan said.

This is the first year the National Pan-Hellenic Council has been involved in GPAC, Hayes said, and she understood why her organization was not as represented as the others. Since National Pan-Hellenic Council has smaller chapters than Interfraternity Council and Panhellenic Council, Hayes said it is hard to make GPAC fair proportion wise.

“My biggest concern is being worried about proportion,” she said. “Smaller chapters get less votes than larger chapters. GPAC is a wonderful idea but I personally don’t feel like it represents the whole Greek community.”

Though she hopes to have more of a say in the rules of next year’s debate, Hayes said she does agree with the idea of having an outside moderator for the Greek sponsored event.

“To avoid complete bias and speculation I think someone outside Interfraternity Council should be over GPAC, moderating it,” she said. “There could be a non Greek moderator even if (GPAC) is the ‘Greek voice’ on campus.”

The debate will be held Tuesday at 7 p.m. in Memorial Hall. It is free and open to the public.