@circuitrider, how have frats survived this long at Wes? Is it simply appeasement of wealthy alumni donors?
I suppose part of their reasoning has been, why bother banning them when students have been voting with their feet for well over half a century? If you read Argus articles from the period, in between all the ones cataloguing student speak-ins and sit-ins against the war in Vietnam, there was a steady drumbeat of articles paying witness to the closing of one fraternity after another from about 1967 through the 1980s. When I arrived in 1969, there were 12 active chapters, if you include the self-described, “literary societies” and upper-classmen were bemoaning the fact that membership had dipped below 50% for the first time in since the turn of the century Fun fact: Wesleyan didn’t build its first dining hall until 1962 - it was assumed students would take most of their meals at student-run eating clubs. Out of 2,800 undergraduates today, I doubt there are more than 100 members of traditional, single-sex, Greek societies at Wesleyan.
When I was at Bowdoin, just before they did away with frats, about 1/2 the students were Greek affiliated. After a year I transferred to Wes, where the frat population was incredibly small and seemed a quaint, incongruous presence at such a radically liberal school. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Was Mocon the first dining hall? It pained me to see pictures of its demolition.
Yes, Mocon (1962-2010) was the first university-owned building designed and built to be a dining hall. Downey House had been the de facto student center for several decades. The grill, with its wooden benches and tables, was incredibly cozy and it was a real treat to splurge on a cheeseburger there (or, better yet to have a faculty member pick up the tab) until it was over taken by the growth in the student population. It’s now part of the Humanities Village.
True dat @circuitrider.