<p>Well, there are several lines-of-argument I could make. I will pose one of them. </p>
<p>For one, I think freedom of choice is more important for the incoming freshman than it is to allow upperclassmen free reign to design the experiences of the freshmen. Maybe the freshmen males would like to live in a place which has a party every week, to be around people who value being social more, and which fulfills the social component of their resume’ if they’re premed, BUT where they don’t get hazed or have to sink a huge amount of time doing stupid crap to prove they’r worthy of the house.</p>
<p>Maybe they would like to spend their spare time doing a varsity sport or in a UROP rather than doing stupid pledge activities. Right now, only ZBT is a fraternity without a pledge program. There are a limited amount of ILGs, which is good, but it isn’t quite the same experience. </p>
<p>Why does the hazing have to be packaged with stuff the freshmen like, like Microsoft packaging a lousy browser with its word processing program? Why does being in a social place like a fraternity have to be packaged with only knowing the people in your house? Before FOC, they dominated your time so much that it was hard to meet anyone else, especially if you had any serious extracurricular activities. If they can’t eliminate the hazing, they should alter the choices so that hazing is less likely to occur. And this is why I think FOC is an improvement. At least freshmen, even the ones in fraternities, have the opportunity of having a broad group of friends so they aren’t so isolated.</p>
<p>The freshmen are going to have limited choices either way; it’s up to MIT to determine which ones they are. Instead of giving the upperclassmen the freedom and autonomy to limit the choices of freshmen in one way, I think MIT should take an active role in ensuring that the freshmen have better choices. I think FOC is a small step in that direction.</p>
<p>collegealum314, an awful lot of your argument appears to be predicated on the assumption that there is a lot of hazing in the MIT fraternity system that is not optional for pledges. Although I have no direct experience being a member of a fraternity, I do know many people who are, and no one I know went through the kinds of things you are describing. I also know for sure that there is at least a subset of fraternities that are very strict about no hazing of any sort, or anything that could even appear to be hazing. Not just having no drinking rituals, but not having any kind of ritual servitude. I think the entire FSILG system has worked very hard to stop hazing.</p>
<p>So while it is possible that this kind of thing exists in the fringes of the system, I think it is way less common than you think. Further, I experienced something very close to hazing inside the dormitory system, though I will hasten to add that I also think that hazing in dorms has declined markedly since I went through that system as well.</p>
<p>In any case, I really really didn’t mean to start a conversation about Freshmen on Campus. There are lots of other reasons to be concerned about MIT’s attitude towards its students, which was the point of my original comment.</p>
<p>Freshmen who choose to live with their fraternity (and spend a lot of time on it), pre-FOC, could do so if they wished. Nowadays, freshmen cannot choose to live with their fraternity. I still don’t understand how you see this as more choice.</p>
<p>Yes, they could live in their frats as soon as they step on campus if they chose to join one. But they couldn’t live in a dorm for one year and then join a frat. Or they couldn’t join a frat when they got on campus and live in a dorm while they were pledging. It was not possible. </p>
<p>They have a choice of 36 frats, but in reality, 2 days is not enough time to visit the ones you might like. In order to get a bid, you’re going to have to spend like one day with a whole frat. So at most you can get a couple of bids, and you can’t visit a whole lot and meet people before you have to start investing time there to try to get a bid.</p>
<p>If freshmen were given a choice, “Would you like to have a month to choose a fraternity or 2 days?”, I would guess they would choose a month. But they didn’t have this choice, because the upperclassmen were given freedom on how they want to run the fraternities. Either the upperclassmen or the freshmen get freedom of choices, but not both.</p>
<p>Well, first, we have to define what hazing means before we can talk about it.</p>
<p>I define it as:
mandatory drinking rituals
physical abuse
3 planning activities without notice, such as weekend trips that you are told about when you are supposed to leave.
4.)elements of “breaking them down to build them up” mentality, which can include 1-3. It can also include an inordinate amount of verbal criticism of what the pledges are doing not being good enough.</p>
<p>I’d say the majority of fraternities have one or more of the above. And no, they don’t do a job of eliminating it. Just last year one of the pledges complained about hazing at their fraternity, the fraternity got penalized, and then they appealed and the penalty was retracted. All this happened and was reported in the Tech, yet it was never mentioned what the hazing was. It was swept under the rug. Keep in mind it is extremely rare for a pledge to actually report a fraternity; they generally just depledge.</p>
<p>And I don’t think people would talk about it to their friends, especially if they decide the hazing was worth it. How many people were hazed, joined the fraternity, then hazed the incoming freshmen? It makes you look like a jerk to accept being hazed, and even moreso to continue doing it after you get full membership. Psychologically, I think people minimize what happened to them when they decide to stay. They decide it’s “no big deal.” </p>
<p>Since this is a tangent from the original post, I’m going to step back now from the discussion.</p>
<p>“I’d say the majority of fraternities have one or more of the above.”</p>
<p>I know that you said you are stepping back, but it really bothers me that you are asserting this - a really really serious and bold accusation - without providing any evidence for how you are drawing this conclusion (one possible incident is not evidence of a majority problem). Are you currently involved in the MIT FSILG system in any way? As a parent of a current member, or on a house corporation? </p>
<p>I apologize if your current involvement is well known on this board, as I am new.</p>
<p>Although I agree that this discussion isn’t particularly productive; I will add that while there isn’t much hard evidence of hazing there are definitely rumors circulating at MIT that hazing exists to some extent at some frats.</p>
<p>As to my earlier claim that MIT was a state, in retrospect that could have been much more clear. In terms of housing for MIT students, MIT is in many ways like a municipal government in that it provides security, some utilities, some roads and can restrict where students can live. It can also resolve collective action problems much like a state (I and possibly collegealum as well would consider the freshmen on campus policy to be a good solution to a collective action problem rather then treating freshmen like children. Unrestricted choices can lead to bad results when either individuals make poor choices or when individually rational choices lead to bad equilibrium). Hopefully this make things more clear.</p>
<p>Just wanted to weigh in here as the mom of a current fraternity member. Collegealum, it is clear you have a bias against fraternities, and maybe a bad experience. Not sure when you attended MIT, but I do think the atmosphere is not what you portray it to be. Son’s fraternity in no way hazes. Is there drinking at parties? Yes. Are they forced to drink? No. Can people who are scholars, and varsity athletes also participate in UROPS AND fraternities? Yes – my son is all of this. In fact, he’s experienced the opposite of what you assert – a supportive community that has encouraged him to apply for internships, UROPs and mentored him throughout his freshman year. It has probably been the best part of his freshman year at MIT, and I am thankful that he found a fit with a group of friends he enjoys. While fraternities may not be for everyone, rest assured that from our experience, they have been a very positive aspect of MIT.</p>
<p>There is a wide variety of frats at MIT. I’m not saying that any of them haze pledges, but a positive experience at one frat does not necessarily rule out a negative experience at another one and vice versa.</p>