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<p>Beside the obvious teetotaling schools, I would be real surprised that the suspensions for being wasted is more than an handful a year. In total.</p>
<p>This thread, Another Fraternity Death, was started on Oct. 23 with the news about the death of Clayton Real, 18, at a frat house at the University of Nebraska. Then we heard about the death of Vaibhev Loomba, 20, at a frat house at Cal. Now we have the death of Nolan Burch, 18, at West Virginia University.</p>
<p>That’s three dead of alcohol poisoning at fraternities in three weeks. Nice job, fraternities, but you can stop now. We have enough dead kids.</p>
<p>Run the numbers - how many die from suicide and how many from alcohol poisoning and how many die from car crashes? And does it seem like colleges are more likely to report any student deaths in the last few years?</p>
<p>I feel like the real question is, if 99.99999% of college students who drink don’t die, should we force all colleges to be dry? Is the problem education or wanton disregard by the hosting frats? </p>
<p>Any individual dying is terrible, especially when it seems “so obvious” that if there was no alcohol on campus, there could not be death by alcohol poisoning on campus. </p>
<p>NFN, yes I’m sure that it has happened to kids educated and raised “right”, but it almost happened to my parents and not only did they not educate me about drinking at all, they drank every night. Same thing about not letting a guy into your dorm room when you don’t know him that well, I almost found that out the difficult way.</p>
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<p>Is that the answer? If fraternities go away, will no one die from alcohol poisoning? Or is the problem the drinking age? If not, why do we even discuss the drinking age? Are there no alcohol deaths at colleges with no fraternities, or if the student is never near a fraternity?</p>
<p>I’m tired of the “blame game.” Colleges are not cops and cannot and should not be expected to enforce the drinking laws or solve the problem. College students often have fake IDs and buy their own alcohol, or lie or sneak to get it. Instead of destroying numerous lives by blaming everyone and everything around them, I suggest we stop doing that, and put the onus on the 18+ adults to stop killing themselves by drinking too much. </p>
<p>My kids had alcohol awareness instruction as part of mandatory high school health class, and all 3 had mandatory alcohol online education before starting their freshman semester at 3 different colleges. None of them has killed themselves drinking thus far, and all 3 are Greeks who drank while underage (as did I). It is actually quite easy to live through that experience, and the vast majority of students do. We need to demand more education and personal responsibility, and perhaps some kind of test added to the SAT to determine whether a student has enough good judgement not to drink him/herself to death.</p>
<p>I know that sounds harsh, and I’m sorry if it does, but we keep going around and around in circles. It can be a complex problem, or a simpler one if we place the blame and focus squarely on the adult who chooses to drink.</p>
<p>I agree with much of what you say @Bay but college administrations are certainly part of the puzzle, as is the whole Greek system which puts so much emphasis on the excessive consumption of alcohol. Consuming dangerous amounts of alcohol has become a rite of passage for pledges in many (not all) fraternities. It is the culture that has to change and that is hard. The vast majority of these deaths are incoming freshmen trying to find their place on a new campus, and unfortunately many are not strong enough to resist the peer pressure like your own 3 children were. These kids need help. This is when adults should step in. It is not a problem that is going to resolve on its own.</p>
<p>Thinking that this will go away if fraternities are abolished–something I am actually in favor of–is simple minded. </p>
<p>College students like to drink. College students drink in their dorms, at on and off campus parties of all kinds. College students binge drink on all campuses, including those with no Greek presence. Kids die of alcohol poisoning on those campuses, too. Our society’s attitude towards drinking does not help. </p>
<p>As Bay points out, 99.99% or whatever of college students consume alcohol underage and do NOT drink themselves to death. I think it is time to stop scapegoating fraternities, even though it obviously makes some people here feel good-- as if abolishing them would solve the problem–and start looking at the kids who choose to drink themselves to death. What distinguishes them from everyone else? Why do they do it? What do they have in common? How could they be stopped?</p>
<p>Maybe this is something closer akin to speeding, or not wearing a seat belt, things which claim many adolescent lives every year.</p>
<p>My question is: Do you want to actually solve the problem of binge drinking and alcohol poisoning, or do you just want to get off on fraternity-bashing for some personal reason?</p>
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<p>If you are referring to ME, I applaud the Greek organizations for taking steps to address the issues by making realistic proposals for controlling access to alcohol, making inexperienced students safer, and encouraging social events that do not include alcohol. This had little or nothing to do with the administration. Yeah, damn straight I am “determined to applaud” them.</p>
<p>BTW, adults who sanctimoniously deplore students who think that parties automatically involve alcohol, when was the last time YOU went to a party that didn’t involve any alcohol at all? I mean a party, not a bridge game or some other kind of social event.</p>
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<p>That is the wrong question to ask. It’s the wrong question for a lot of reasons. First, and most obviously, if we reduced the alcohol death rate, but not to zero, that would be a good thing. </p>
<p>Moreover, it’s silly to imagine that alcohol poisoning is the only campus problem caused by alcohol-- there are many others, including vandalism, but most notably sexual assault. And no, just because your daughters have not been raped (I hope) doesn’t mean campus sexual assault is not a serious problem that is linked with excessive alcohol consumption and fraternities, as we’ve seen in this thread with the reports about campus rapes by fraternity brothers who first plied their victims with alcohol or drug-laced alcohol. </p>
<p>And furthermore, when I said, “You can stop now, fraternities,” I mean that fraternities can stop killing people with alcohol, or at least having dead alcohol-poisoned bodies turning up in frat houses. I didn’t mean that frat houses should be eliminated. There may be better alcohol policies that can mitigate all these deaths and rapes without getting rid of the Greek system entirely.</p>
<p>The evidence that changing the drinking age would be one of those policies is pretty much non-existent. It’s far from obvious that the culture of drunkenness which obtains at some campuses and some fraternities would be eliminated by a change in the drinking age. As I’ve mentioned before, the drinking age in the UK is 18, yet Britain has a horrible binge drinking problem among youth. </p>
<p>Higher taxes on hard liquor might help.</p>
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<p>How many have died from drinking in dorms? </p>
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<p>With that, I disagree. Many colleges have real cops on campus; if they are not there to enforce laws…or, are you suggesting that the only need enforce laws that they choose to?</p>
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<p>Exactly. Right now, there is near zero responsibility. Maybe a few punitive reactions from college Admin – instead of group hugs – will instill that responsibility. </p>
<p>The sorority house I lived in was not dry when I joined, because the drinking age was 18 for 3.2 beer. We were all pretty happy having a keg every once in a while. Then they changed it to dry. That’s when everyone started hiding liquor in closets, car trunks, chugging it down at the end of a night of drinking.</p>
<p>Most sorority houses are dry. My daughter isn’t allowed to post any pictures on social media of her drinking. She had a picture of herself with a drink in a coconut with a little umbrella, and had to take it down even though it was a virgin drink, from a vacation with family friends when she was 16. They have someone at her sorority who checks all these things. Also people checking their grades, study tables, ‘sober’ rides if they need them.</p>
<p>Reading this topic was my catalyst for joining this forum as I feel strongly about the subject.</p>
<p>A month ago, I received the call no parent wants to receive. My son was on his way to the hospital via ambulance. His friends called 911 (thank goodness) when they could not get him to wake up after they had been drinking for two hours that afternoon. He is fine today, thank the good Lord.</p>
<p>My son is 22 yrs old, is quite gifted academically, is a senior in college taking graduate level courses, is very very anti frat and yet he and his buddies quite often are doing the exact same thing during the weekends as the Greeks are.</p>
<p>My husband and I were both in a fraternity and sorority in college. Some people drank, some people did not. As for the independents (or GDIs as they called themselves), some of them drank and some didn’t. </p>
<p>My daughter is a freshman at a different college. She nor any of her suitemates are in a sorority. They are also not of legal age. Yet 7 out of those 10 girls are drinking on the weekends (my daughter’s text to me her first week there: “am I the only one here with morals and convictions?!”). </p>
<p>My point here is that anytime and anywhere you have large groups of teenagers and young adults together, in an independent environment (for the first time), there will be nefarious things going in regardless if they’re Greek or not.</p>
<p>Looks like the chapter at WVU had its charter revoked by its national just before for unrelated misbehavior (given the typically low standards for fraternity behavior, such misbehavior was probably quite blatant). The campus, upon receiving notice from the national fraternity, derecognized the chapter. These actions were just before the incident when the student died.</p>
<p><a href=“Death of West Virginia University Student at Frat House Stuns Campus”>http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/death-west-virginia-university-student-frat-house-stuns-campus-n249001</a></p>
<p>Meanwhile, on the Greek Chat Forum, 57 student deaths since the beginning of this semester are a big joke:</p>
<p><a href=“At Least 57 College Students Have Died This Fall Semester - GreekChat.com Forums”>At Least 57 College Students Have Died This Fall Semester - GreekChat.com Forums;
<p>I won’t be supporting any child who belongs to a fraternity or sorority. </p>
<p>The poster who compared the Cee Lo Green song " F- You!" was perhaps calling to mind his recent legal problems. He pleaded no contest to slipping ecstasy in a woman’s drink (felony) and prosecutors agreed to drop the rape charge. He then made insulting posts on Twitter. An adult doing the same things the frat boys are doing. And getting away with a slap on the wrist.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.theroot.com/blogs/the_grapevine/2014/09/ceelo_green_people_who_have_really_been_raped_remember.html”>http://www.theroot.com/blogs/the_grapevine/2014/09/ceelo_green_people_who_have_really_been_raped_remember.html</a></p>
<p>Interesting list of college student deaths. Of the 57, one was a fraternity member (pledge) who drank himself to death. </p>
<p>And another was a frat member who fell while drunk and died at Berkeley. </p>
<p>A lot of those deaths are about alcohol, if you look more closely. Some of the falls, the fights, some of the car crashes and probably some of the homicides involved drunk people.</p>
<p>When I almost died from drinking, I purposely wanted to get drunk - not really having been drunk before - so I could forget about a bad breakup. I didn’t know how much I could drink being around 110 pounds and not eating at all and just scooping grain punch by the cupful. </p>
<p>I think from posts here, and having been to college and now teaching college, a lot of freshman in particular have a rough time. Note that in addition to my near miss (no medical care was necessary luckily, and it was a Saturday so I didn’t miss classes), years earlier my brother broke his shoulder falling down stairs when drunk at his frat house. FWIW, a friend of a friend, a 50 year old guy, died after falling down his stairs while drunk. He was a lawyer…</p>
<p>The thing is, it is still kind of difficult to get alcohol as a minor, especially if as a college student you are likely not local to the town. Frats and sororities have ways to get alcohol - just one person with a connection can get alcohol for several frat houses and make a tidy profit. But if you are an individual student, or even several students having a party on a floor, you have to get the alcohol. My point is that the grouping of young people together, frat or sorority or other social organization (can we have a marching band?), makes it far more likely that at least one will have access to alcohol and want to make a profit.</p>
<p>Except for the clearly criminal cases of giving someone alcohol or a drug without their knowledge (yeah, some people unschooled might not “get” that a fruity drink has alcohol in it), it is a dice throw if you do something to impair yourself, at all, in an environment you have little control over. We all need to make our own mistakes - I was offered cocaine and marijuana in high school, for free, and turned it down both times. Both times were when with a friend (two different friends) and not at a party. The more we can teach our kids to say “no” or at least “let me think about it”, the more we can protect them. And when they have kids, they can teach their kids to be careful about substance use and abuse.</p>
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<p>If you’re a pledge and you’re being pressured to drink by the brothers of a house in some kind of pledge activity, it’s not really peer pressure. It’s pressure from superiors and that is an entirely different dynamic. I think that’s the key reason why the people who die of alcohol poisoning are almost always fraternity pledges.</p>
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<p>I didn’t find any sources that verified this. There was one line published that his mother said he was intoxicated, but nothing official that he was “drunk,” and I don’t think his mother was present at his death, so her information would have been hearsay. I think it is poor form to write things like that about this young man who has been identified by name, unless you have a coroner’s report stating it is true. And apparently he died while attending a concert with some friends; there was no mention of a fraternity party. The reporter just happened to identify him as a member of a fraternity.</p>
<p>The point is, of the 57 college student deaths thus far, only one involved a fraternity member (pledge) who drank himself to death. Obviously, one is too many, but it is not as many as one would have expected, from reading this thread.</p>
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<p>Be careful about blog sources. The link below reports 3 deaths related to frats in the top half of the list. (Not sure its any more accurate, but just an example of anecdotes…)</p>
<p><a href=“http://compelledtoact.com/Tragic_listing/Main_listing_Spring_2013.htm”>http://compelledtoact.com/Tragic_listing/Main_listing_Spring_2013.htm</a></p>
<p>“If you’re a pledge and you’re being pressured to drink by the brothers of a house in some kind of pledge activity, it’s not really peer pressure. It’s pressure from superiors and that is an entirely different dynamic. I think that’s the key reason why the people who die of alcohol poisoning are almost always fraternity pledges.”</p>
<p>There have been 2 deaths (to my knowledge) in the last 5 years at my son’s university that were due to excessive consumption of alcohol. (My son knew one of them.) Neither of them were involved with the fraternity system at all.</p>
<p>Do we really know, of the deaths due to alcohol at the college level, what % of them were due to hazing pressure to drink? </p>
<p>Because I have to tell you - and I’m <em>not</em> being naive here – that in both H and S’s fraternity, the “pressure” was light-hearted and if you really didn’t want to partake and just drink soft drinks, that’s what you did. There are a couple guys in S’s class who don’t drink at all - that’s just not their thing. No one is <em>making</em> them drink. We need to stop mixing the situations of “hey, guys, let’s all have some beers and hang out and talk trash” with actual pressure to drink X amount with “punishment” for not doing so. </p>
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<p>Blog? The source is the Huffington Post, and it lists all student deaths from the start of classes in August through Nov. 3, then updated to add 3 more (none fraternity related), through Nov. 14.</p>