<p>If you look at the Daily Princetonian online, one of the top 10 articles describes a criminal assault by a male student of a female student upstairs at one of the eating clubs. I do think it’s a bizarre double standard for the Princeton administration to actively discourage one form of social groups and to ignore another that is far more dangerous.</p>
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<p>Jeez… I’m no fan of the selective eating clubs (only 1/2 the clubs are selective…the others assign membership randomly) but the clubs are certainly not far more dangerous than the frats. </p>
<p>BTW my son is a sophomore and he thinks the frats are really stupid, they don’t do much besides lots of drinking, but also no big deal since they have little effect on the campus as a whole.</p>
<p>They’re not banning frats; they’re banning freshman rush. It hardly seems like a double standard to bump rush back to the same year as bicker.</p>
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<p>Sometimes yes, sometimes no. How can you make that a blanket statement?</p>
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<p>That may be a factor in Princeton’s decision considering what I heard about the degree of social stratification/consciousness from older high school classmates who went there. However, from what I’ve heard from more recent graduates, Princeton is much much better about that nowadays than it was in the early '90s. </p>
<p>Interestingly enough, most Oberlin students during my time there would not have seen much of a difference between Greek organizations and more entrenched exclusive institutions like Eating Clubs/Final clubs…they’re both part of the bourgeois capitalist establishment to be disdained and mocked as far as they were concerned. Only difference is one prefers beer while some others prefer chardonnay, Johnny Walker Blue, or some vintage wines dating back to the time of Charlemagne. ;)</p>
<p>“They’re not banning frats; they’re banning freshman rush. It hardly seems like a double standard to bump rush back to the same year as bicker.” –
thats probably the primary reason why they are banning freshman rush. Too much drinking can and does happen elsewhere on campus, without any push from frats. Most of the frats and sororities are feeders to the bicker eating clubs. Since the majority of students affiliated with a greek organization gets into a bicker eating club, those that didnt know enough to rush (i.e. those that may have come later to the social aspect of Princeton life, and perhaps nerdier and lower on a socioeconomic rung), loose out on bicker. That’s what is getting the administration. IMO</p>
<p>The Daily Princetonian headline for February 9, 2009:
“13 go to hospital post-Bicker”
The article describes the alcohol-related transports necessary after pickups.</p>
<p>The Daily Princetonian, February 2010:
Tower reports a 45% acceptance rate, Ivy reports a 50% acceptance rate.</p>
<p>Daily Princetonian, February 1, 2011:
David Mendelsohn describes his experience waiting all day in his dorm room the prior year for the invitation that did not come at the end of the bicker process…“Disappointment evolved into depression and despair. I realized that, although I didn’t care about the club itself, I sought its acceptance as much as any of my peers. Rejection left me wounded, not because I couldn’t be in the club, but because its members didn’t want me there”.</p>
<p>I fail to see how the bicker process is healthy and yet sorority recruitment that welcomes everyone is not.</p>
<p>This is one of those issues that leaves me feeling bewildered and alienated. Why on Earth do colleges tolerate the greek system and why on Earth do parents pay for their kids to participate? I honestly cannot fathom why people are still so devoted to such a stupid institution. And please, no lectures on all the community service the frats and sororities do. </p>
<p>I have adult acquaintances on their third or fourth failing marriage still engrossed in their frats and sororities, still drinking way too much, lost in some sort of endless loop of their beloved youth. </p>
<p>Obviously the whole rush thing is exclusionary and ridiculous. Those fortunates who get in then squander time and brain cells partying to excess and feeling good about being in an exclusionary tribe. Kids who need this sort of crutch to feel as if they “belong” are not ready to be at college, imo.</p>
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<p>So you correctly point out that bicker is a problem. I fail to see how this makes the eating clubs in general a problem.</p>
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<p>What is TI’s? Cottage’s? What are the acceptance rates, if you can even call them that, of the sign-in clubs? How many students in Charter, for example, have gotten hospitalized for intoxication as a result of activities at the club?</p>
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<p>This is a total strawman for several reasons. First, you are conflating bicker with the joining processes for all the eating clubs. Second, you are conflating bicker with the experience in general at the clubs. Third, rejection is not an experience that the administration is trying to eliminate, nor is the university administration stating that per se.</p>
<p>Certainly, if all the eating clubs were sign-in with a lottery, the situation would be much different. That would be no different from housing draw at many colleges. So perhaps it’s more fair to compare Greeks only to the bicker clubs.</p>
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<p>Such organizations do foster closer social networking bonds which are seen as handy for future employment prospects from what I’ve heard from older cousins who are fraternity/sorority members. Most schools/colleges tolerate them because many alums who belonged to a frat/sorority are sometimes huge donors to their respective schools’ alumni fundraising initiatives on many campuses. Few admins want to risk jeopardizing so much in guaranteed alumni donations. </p>
<p>Also the same reasons why Eating/Final Clubs aren’t eliminated despite the fact some admins have
been trying to do so for decades as the Woodrow Wilson quote has illustrated.</p>
<p>Also, some of these organizations have slowly liberalized with the times, such as by admitting a more diverse group of people, or even by going coed (Princeton’s eating clubs and Yale’s secret societies). At a lot of colleges, Greek systems have also made changes that make things better.</p>
<p>It is silly to argue that there is no need for sororities and fraternities or that they are stupid institutions. If there wasn’t a need, they would not exist. If they were stupid institutions, there would not be so many smart people participating in them or continuing to support them throughout their lives and into old age.</p>
<p>In my view, simply pushing the time at which students can join social organizations–such as eating clubs, fraternities, sororities, and coed non-greek houses–to sophomore year goes a long way towards eliminating the potentially negative effect of such organizations on students.</p>
<p>Having a year to find one’s feet on campus and come to know the available organizations and their members in a much more natural way is infinitely preferable. Situations like that described in the “Rush Disappointment” thread would not occur.</p>
<p>I must say that I find it ironic that as president of Princeton Woodrow Wilson did not find the intestinal fortitude to do something about Princeton’s eating club situation, when as president of the US he had no qualms about quashing civil liberties during the war…</p>
<p>There’s a general need for affiliation, as well, so if I were a university president and desired to get rid of a Greek / bicker / finals club situation, I would be doing a lot to try to establish (more randomly-assigned) smaller affinity groups on campus, and promoting “belonging” in different ways. (Dorms or residential colleges with identities and friendly competition, etc.)</p>
<p>Who does this well, by the way? I always hear a lot of loyalty towards one’s house at Harvard and Yale. Are there other schools that create such loyalty / bonding to smaller groups within, or to the larger organization?</p>
<p>"Sometimes yes, sometimes no. How can you make that a blanket statement? "</p>
<p>Okay, substitute “can have” “often has” or whatever. I was simply answering the silly comparison of “greek life” to a “lifestyle” that Bay made. I did not mean to quantify the impact, let alone to imply that the extent of impact is the same on all campuses. I thought that was clear, but I guess not.</p>
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<p>If we’re talking school generated, the closest things Oberlin has are the program houses based on Academic interest and/or cultural heritage, being a Conservatory student, academic departments*, and to some extent…the dining/housing Co-ops…but the last is completely student run and led. </p>
<p>If we’re being more general, I’d also add campus activist organizations. </p>
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<li>Computer Science and East Asian Studies are two departments with strong bonds within their respective communities of scholars, students, and anyone exhibiting any interest.</li>
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<p>"Who does this well, by the way? I always hear a lot of loyalty towards one’s house at Harvard and Yale. Are there other schools that create such loyalty / bonding to smaller groups within, or to the larger organization? " Residential colleges at Yale, Houses at Harvard. </p>
<p>My vague impression left over from our college tours is that there are some places trying to imitate the house system, but none spring to mind. There are also colleges within colleges like Lehighs South Mountain College, the various State U honors colleges, but their primary purposes are somewhat different. </p>
<p>It should be noted that in origin the houses/RCs at harvard/yale were meant to be even MORE autonomous than they now are - they were to be academic units, like the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge in England, but that never worked. They still have House based seminars, and academic counseling from house based Tutors, but those Tutors are mainly grad students - the actual faculty is (usually) less tied to the Houses.</p>
<p>yes, what cobrat said.</p>
<p>Also at many campuses with multiple undergrad “schools” (school business, school of engineering, etc) those schools create a loyalty. We have been strongly told that the School of Architecture at RPI is a “community” At Harvard all undergrads arein the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.</p>
<p>Princeton’s most famous President had the countries first overseas war of that scale, and a population that included a huge segment originating in one of the enemy countries (not to mention lots of people whose origin left them very unsympathetic to Great Britain) Faulting him for mistakes made at the time seems rather unfair, especially when many of the folks doing so are big fans of Teddy Roosevelt, who at the time was harder line than Wilson. I think Princeton is right to be proud of the (imperfect) man for whom their school of public affairs is named.</p>