As a former fraternity President and Leadership Consultant for a major International Fraternity, my colleagues and I travelled each to more than 75 college campuses and chapters in the US and Canada in a calendar year. I started 3 chapters, mitigated 13 “troubled issues”–underage drinking deaths, hazing, drug problems, academic fraud, date rapes, credit card theft, wire fraud, etc. I inducted 3 chapters; refinanced 2. All good kids. But institutionally led to dysfunction by tolerance of idiocy and alumni contributions.
It is not confined to what are known as party schools–three of the most challenging situations I transported included an elite pac-12 school in the bay area not named Stanford, an elite engineering school in Boston not named Harvard, and an Ivy league school in New England not named Yale. Most of the elite liberal arts colleges where many greek organizations started have long abandoned a greek system.
How do I advise my son who starts college in Fall 2016?
Fact: I don’t hire anyone anymore from fraternities in the 21st century. Information and innovation–honors colleges, programs, interest groups with a rich groups of more diverse and talented students-- have opened up so many other rich avenues for leadership on a campus and in the community. Are single-sex fraternities still relevant? Has traditional Greek outlived its usefulness as a group of institutions on a college campuses in the 21st century?
@ConcertoinD I am not part of an MIT fraternity (yes, there have been many issues with MIT fraternities in the past few years), but I still don’t understand what is “Greek” about today’s frats other than the fact that their name consists of Greek letters. I might as well make a math club and call it Greek.
If you don’t like the greek system, don’t participate in it. Seems easy enough…
Also, I don’t know why anyone would put their Greek info on a resume but I’m not in the Greek system.
Personally, I never went to Greek parties and had no interest in having to do with them. I would advise my (future/hypothetical) kids to steer clear of them because I do think they tend to create dangerous environments and why put yourself in harms way.
@MITer94 They are called “Greek” societies because their rituals are patterned after ancient Greek rites that included what amounted to a pledgeship, initiation, and revelation of secret and eternal and guiding truths.
To the OP, it is very common for people who enjoy things earlier in their lives to come to the conclusion as older men that things like fraternities are sophomoric and in need of abolition. But sophomoric things are perfect for sophomores, and juniors and seniors, too. These are organizations designed for young adults, not to please old men.
I can assure you that there are underage drinking deaths, drug problems, academic fraud, date rapes, credit card theft, wire fraud, and even hazing outside the Greek system. The only difference is that when something bad happens in a fraternity house the entire chapter ends up getting the blame. Maybe we need to start blaming the entire dormitory when something bad happens in a dorm, and perhaps just go ahead and ban dorms as a way to solve these problems.
Seems like you have inside knowledge about which chapters at which campuses are trouble-prone, as well as the types of trouble that fraternity members are prone to getting into. If he is interested in fraternities at all, perhaps you can advise him on how to avoid such trouble-prone chapters and how to avoid the kinds of trouble that you have seen.
It was really just an open-ended question. After all these years, I still value the fraternity and am called in to transport issues with chapters. I just find myself, as I evaluate hires, many truly solid kids finding creative paths to leadership when fraternities continue creating negative press for schools and themselves. @EarlVanDorn has a good point (paraphrasing) that dorms are not held accountable for consequences for the actions of the few, while fraternities take the whole blame. As national fraternities, from the headquarter standpoint, we are trying to create programs of value, leadership, philanthropy, to chapters. But we haven’t done enough in a changing world, and the data is not yet clear enough to make the tough decisions that will be needed to make. Meanwhile, as kids enjoy consequence-free lines of coke in the treasurer’s room on a late friday night, we as parents and community leaders work to create ways to pay for education. Alumni won’t be happy when their fraternity or sorority closes. It will have to happen.
^exactly. My father is a former national president of my fraternity. When I was applying to college, there were some schools where he would have dissuaded me from joining his own organization (despite how desperately he wanted me to follow in his footsteps) and other schools where he would anxiously await to hear that I was pledging.
This is arguably one of the most important skills to be garnered by greek org membership. Greek orgs are a 24/7 group unlike most of the other things you mentioned, and learning the dynamics of running an organization around the clock with relatively loose goals is far better leadership training than being president of an interest group with very specific goals that meets with some frequency and then disperses. In my experience, the differences in ability with things like managing institutional memory, managing meetings (e.g. setting and sticking to agendas, limiting useless debate), dealing with intragroup conflicts, and generating policies are night and day between people who have greek house leadership experience in good houses and those who didn’t have such an experience.
Anyone who thinks the greek houses are getting worse wasn’t paying enough attention in previous decades. I don’t blame anyone for not doing so though, as it was very hard to stay in the know in previous decades. The internet, email, social media, and camera phones have made it easier to see what goes on and allows stories to garner national public attention vs. only local public attention like in the past. The houses are getting better (with of course plenty of room to improve), the difference is that a) what is acceptable in society is changing (coughdaterapecough) b) a much higher percentage of the negative things are leaving the confines of the house and c) the things that leave the house are far more likely now to sweep across the nation.
@ConcertoinD, if you feel so strongly about this, maybe at least you should mention which organization you are a part of. I know that mine doesn’t have nearly the rate of incidents that yours does and if you are going to advocate for the elimination of all organizations, the least you could do is make sure people beyond just your son know how bad your organization is.
“Meanwhile, as kids enjoy consequence-free lines of coke in the treasurer’s room on a late friday night, we as parents and community leaders work to create ways to pay for education.”
Because drugs don’t exist outside of Greek life? You might want to take a look at drug usage at the elite LACs you refer to. Some of them are notorious for that, although from what I gather, coke is out of style.
I can understand not wanting your son to be in an organization where you fear for his safety or reputation. There are other ways to accomplish many of the things you can accomplish through Greek life, but as pointed out above, it is difficult to find ALL of the experiences you get from Greek life melded into one activity/organization. It is not for everyone. It is your choice and his and I assume you have gotten a lot out of it to continue your involvement post graduation. Why do you feel the need to put yourself in a position to choose for others?
Wow - There are some really wild things said here about greek life. Look, I wasn’t part of a Social Greek organization, only an honorary one, but my son is and it has hands down been the best decision he made in college. They have pushed him to work harder in school, given him the opportunities to work in philanthropic endeavors and helped him to grow in ways to numerous to count. Greek life is vastly changed from even 10 years ago - They are very aware in most schools that there is a microscope on their every move and the vast majority no longer haze, have shortened pledge periods that are almost entirely about learning a few minor things about the organization itself and many ban alcohol altogether now.
“Maybe we need to start blaming the entire dormitory when something bad happens in a dorm, and perhaps go ahead and ban dorms as a way to solve these problems.” (#3)
But you can’t hold hold a whole dormitory responsible for the behavior of a few sick, twisted individuals. For if you do, shouldn’t the whole dormitory system be to blame? And if the whole dormitory system is guilty, then isn’t this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, EarlVanDorn: isn’t this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but I’m not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America.
Ban Greek groups and you will get the same thing with different names - study club, eating club, literary society, prayer group. The name is different but the function is the same. With NPC sororities, at least there is (or should be) some adult supervision, standards of conduct, academic standards, and consequences if the chapter does not live up to that. Fraternities, not so much. Local Greek groups, definitely not so much.
Kids - er, young men and women will still get together to party, and some will still behave badly.
@TehTexasRanger As I said in my earlier post, sometimes fraternity behavior is a bit sophomoric. Given the large number of fraternity men who are sophomores, it makes sense.
I met up with a large group of my fraternity brothers to attend a bowl game recently. Most of us had advanced degrees. We acted like 13th graders and had a blast.