<p>What happened? Article in Wake newspaper this week.</p>
<p>"On Feb. 26, the All Greek Council met to discuss the recent concerns about Greek life at the university. In theory, the idea of bringing together executive members of the Greek community with the administration as an attempt to formulate a plan for the future of Greek life would be an effective way of dealing with the situations at hand. However, we felt the meeting ultimately produced no beneficial results.</p>
<p>The meeting brought up a few possible solutions to prevent another pledge night debacle. One major idea was the implementation of sophomore recruitment, which we feel would be detrimental. For one, freshmen would miss out on the opportunity to join an intimate community at the university for their entire first year.</p>
<p>Additionally, Greek organizations would have significantly smaller budgets, due to the fact that they would only represent three grades of students. We are open to the idea of trying to prevent the events from pledge night from occurring again. Nevertheless, we feel that there havent been any great solutions brought to the table thus far."</p>
<p>Regarding the “pledge night debacle,” I heard that a large amount of students were treated for alcohol poisioning that night; supposedly, Student Health had to turn away patients and a good portion of Forsyth County’s EMS response was tied up with transport to Baptist that night. There are always some students that drink too much on that night, but this was far more than in previous years.</p>
<p>Hatch is supposedly considering moving rush back from second semester freshman year to sophomore year.</p>
<p>Granted, I have graduated, so this is somewhat hearsay…</p>
<p>'During this year’s pledge night held at the Millennium Center, several students were rushed to the hospital as a result of high blood alcohol contents (BAC). While some were checked in with 0.2 BACs, the majority arrived with 0.3 and 0.4 BACs. The highest number of the evening came from one student with a 0.6 BAC, causing him to temporarily fall into a coma that nearly ended his life.</p>
<p>“The worst part of my job is seeing a dead teenager or hearing stories about young people involved with alcohol-related accidents,” Jessup said.</p>
<p>Though rumors speculated that ALE and/or the university were the sole reason(s) the party was shut down, according to Ken Zick, vice president of student affairs, the event was considered a “public health crisis” by Dan Ozimek, director of public health in Forsyth County, and was shut down by his assessment.</p>
<p>Based on the fact that seven out of 15 ambulance vehicles available that evening were tied up with transporting university students to the hospital, leaving only eight for the rest of the city and county, was reason enough. ALE agents were called on to facilitate in evacuating students from the function.'</p>
<p>Wow, guess I saw the follow-up article and missed the original piece. Thanks for posting it. My son did not pledge a fraternity, which sounds like a good thing to me at this point.</p>
<p>My son has heard the same as Juba- the situation on pledge night put all of Forsyth County in a terrible situation. My son is graduating, and never joined a fraternity- has had a great time without being in a fraternity, has friends that belong, and some that do not. Very sad for parents to pay for their children to have the privilege of attending college, and then have them be so irresponsible.</p>
<p>As the mother of a high school junior, it is hard for me to assess the Greek situation at a college. My children are extremely unlikely to choose to go Greek. After reading such bad news about pledge night, I appreciate hearing those comments above about students who had a great time in college outside the Greek system.</p>
<p>I feel a little guilty about starting this thread now - I don’t want to dissuade anyone from applying to Wake or deciding to go there for the fall. My son absolutely loves it. There is plenty to do without going Greek. He has made wonderful friends on his hall - they do ordinary things like seeing a movie and going out to eat, playing intermural sports, playing golf and tennis, working out and going to all of the football and basketball games. He has gone to some parties, but that is clearly not his focus. He has joined one club and also found an on-campus job. He is happy with his classes and has been impressed with the small class sizes and the quality of his professors. I really have not heard any complaints. I think the incident with pledge night was very unfortunate, and I do intend to ask him more about it when he comes home for spring break this weekend, but I also realize that this type of unfortunate incident does happen at many colleges. So please, take this incident in context, and don’t let it tarnish your opinion of a truly great school.</p>
<p>I also hesitated a bit to post what I did but figured someone would post the older OGB article about it eventually…</p>
<p>I want to echo what nj and rockvillemom posted; I did not participate in sorority rush, but was very involved in other groups - a job, club and IM sports, music, attending all the FB/BB games, volunteer EMS, and some others I’m forgetting right now. I had friends that were Greek and non-Greek. Honestly, as busy as I was with other activities, I really didn’t have time for a sorority. I don’t want to slam Greek life; I think it has its place, and I might have considered rushing had I attended a different university where I didn’t have as many opportunities to get involved in groups like I did at Wake.</p>
<p>I recently spoke with the President of a sorority at Wake who attended the meeting mentioned in the original post.</p>
<p>I just wanted to add this: She said that the administration was doing everything in their power to move the majority of parties back on campus. They believe that off-campus parties segregate the student body too much and they want to be more in control of the parties.</p>
<p>First of all, I doubt some of the things stated in that article. Some things are being confused from another night and pledge night.</p>
<p>I think that it is important to note that Wake Forest does not tolerate hazing. Many students who drink do so on their own accord. Several students took it way too far that night, but that is most certainly not a good representation of Wake as a whole.</p>
<p>Most students are very responsible drinkers and many students do not drink at all. Hopefully, this whole situation will be resolved and freshmen spring rush will still be allowed. Greek life is huge at Wake, and contrary to the way this and other articles make it seem, it does NOT revolve around drinking. Many fraternity and sorority members do not drink, get great grades, and are involved in many activities on campus.</p>
<p>I would not be dissuaded from attending by the news as of late. Greek life is an awesome way to make friends and participate in various events. I’m a girl, and a lot of my friends are in sororities (they are in 5 of the 8 sororities on campus) and none of them have ever had to do a single thing they didn’t want to do. </p>
<p>Of course, if joining a Greek organization is not your thing, over 50% of the campus isn’t Greek anyway. :)</p>
<p>The incident of pledge night is not indicative of every weekend at Wake Forest, but rather one unfortunate part of the culture of Greek Life (which happens once a year) and misguided choices on part of the administration.</p>
<p>It was decided that Pledge Night would be moved from Friday to Saturday night which I think was the cause of this. If it was on Friday night (as usual) folks would still drink in excess, but they would start after classes in the early evening. Furthermore, they would not have been binge drinking the night before (as was the case on Saturday). Yes, I know that individuals should be more responsible, but this decision on the timing of pledge night made no sense. </p>
<p>Also it is important to consider that Greek life matters less and less as you go on. At one point, i did regret not joining a fraternity. But now, with a few years of retrospect I can wholeheartedly say that I am glad I did not join one–not to knock them, because some of my friends have had great experiences–but they were just not for me.</p>
<p>It’s hard to believe that the drinking culture could be any worse at WFU than it was at my alma mater - a large state school in a state where the drinking age was 18 and there were bars on campus. Frats were not closely monitored and it was a free for all every weekend beginning Thursdays. Incidents of people over drinking, alcohol poisoning, fights breaking out, etc. were not infrequent.</p>
<p>I agree with the posters who say that at least private schools are open about what’s going on and are trying to address the problem. Give Wake credit for not attempting to bury the incident.</p>
<p>Those students determined to drink are going to find a way to do it, no matter where they are. I would feel much better knowing my son was in a school with kids who value academic achievement, as do the students at Wake, because the party eventually must end in order to make room for all the studying that’s necessary to succeed at Wake.</p>
<p>If people think this is exclusive to Wake and its greek scene they are wrong.</p>
<p>This happens at just about EVERY college. I’ve seen it happen at city schools with no greek scene, i’ve heard about it at huge state schools, i’ve heard about it at small liberal arts colleges.</p>
<p>This is college. You will find excessive drinking at most of them</p>
<p>For those of you who say “This is college. You will find excessive drinking at most of them”, are you saying that it is ok to drink and get wasted, and break the rules (for those that are under 21). When I hear about these kind of issues at college campuses (the one at Wake, as an example), it tells me a lot about the character of students who attend there, and therefore the character of the school. If someone under 21 will break the rule on drinking, what other rules are they going to break: cheating on exams, plagiarism, etc…, you name it. If they can’t obey the rules in college, what about when they get out of college. And so forth. I guess I just can’t understand what is so great about making oneself so foolish and stupid (some kids make mistakes while drunk they regret their whole life).</p>
<p>I do not think that is really a fair assessment. There are always going to people everywhere that are going to push the envelope. It is just the nature of college–drinking will be common. I am not saying I condone it, but it is a fact. If drinking and whatnot bother a person to that level there are plenty of fine alternatives including military academies, BYU, and Wheaton Colleges where that will not be part of the culture. </p>
<p>I also see a huge difference between underage drinking and breaking the honor code–which I can assure you people take very seriously.</p>
<p>Agree with willmingtonwave. Quite honestly, KJV, if you’re going to judge the entire character of a school AND all the students who attend it by an incident like this, you’re going to end up with a pretty short list of acceptable colleges.</p>
<p>Please do not put all Wake students in your “drunk cheater box”. My son a current freshman is neither one. Why don’t you go to the campus paper "the old gold and black "and read about the students who gave up their spring breaks to do service work for the underpriviledged. Or read about the campus wide event called Wake and Shake and how the proceeds raised go to fight cancer. Doesn’t that tell you something about the character of the students that attend there? Do college kids drink, Yes but to classify all students as irresponsible drunks is just…well… irresponsible. Didn’t you go to college? I went a long time ago and drinking was everywhere. Part of growing up is making responsible choices and sometimes, yes, sometimes you make a mistake (which I hope is how the kids who drank too much and had to be medically treated feel). The actions of a few do not in any way represent a majority. If students didn’t make mistakes there would be a “perfect college”. If you know of one, please let me know, I have a daughter that will be looking soon…</p>
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