Btw I should add that my attitude and that of my roommates when I was in school was that frats were great. Because they gathered up all those types of people in one place on the opposite side of campus from where we lived :)) So I’m hardly pro-Greek, but try to understand that’s it’s just a few bad apples and not the whole system that’s bad.
Sorry for the provocative headline but why would any parent pay for their kid to be in a fraternity?
Last year my daughter was headed to the same university as my friend’s daughter. The girls had been in the same grade school class but had grown apart as friends over the middle school/high school years. Friend was convinced her daughter wanted nothing to do with Rush and since only 5% of the students participate in Greek life it was no big deal either way. My daughter definitely wanted to at least go through Rush and then decide. Sadly, my friend was killed last summer just weeks before the girls went to school. My daughter convinced her to go through Rush and they ended up in the same house. Friend’s daughter has just flourished at the house, and in fact moved out of her dorm and into the house at Christmas because she didn’t like her roommate in the dorm. It has provided a big support network for this girl.
I do not have any knowledge about fraternities, but sorority was one of my D’s best experience in UG, she is still in tough with her sorority sisters 4 years after graduating from college. No regret paying for D’s sorority, I would do it again in a heart bit.
I was nervous about DD rushing and pledging, but it went smoothly and she loves it. Each school and each organization are different though. It also seems that the sororities tend to follow the rules more closely than the fraternities do.
I also have the impression that Penn State continues to do a terrible job of self policing until someone goes to the real police and they have no choice. They seem more concerned about keeping things quiet.
I had Penn State on DD2s initial college list, but I have removed it. It does seem in the press that PSU continues to fail make student safety a priority. To me it looks terrible that they just finished cleaning up the Jerry Sandusky mess, and they hired Eric Baron as President. He is the guy who was FSU president and managed to keep Jameis Winston on the field.
They seem to be quick with excuses, but sooner or later, it will blow up even worse than the Sandusky coverup, and everyone will wonder how it happened.
I had a great experience with my fraternity, and over half my friends from college with whom I still keep in touch are my brothers. We may have done some “light” hazing, and by that I mean putting people in uncomfortable situations, but NEVER close to life threatening. And at the end of the day, it wasn’t militant, if someone didn’t really want to do something, they just didn’t do it. During pledging, I don’t ever remember being in a situation where I felt like I had to put myself in danger to be a part of the group.
With S1 headed off to a known party school, I am hesitantly optimistic that he will make the right choice for him (I don’t know what that choice is, I just know that he will think hard about if that’s what he really wants). He is not a big-party type of guy, more of a hanging out with a few friends kid. But he has expressed interest in exploring it, and I’d be open to it if that’s what he thinks is best for him. Many chapters still do good charity work and it’s just another way to make lifelong friends. For now, I’m keeping an open mind.
I don’t have a problem with most fraternities and sororities. H was in a fraternity, which was a completely positive experience. There was a lot of drinking, but I think that is typical with a lot of college experiences. D was in a sorority which was also positive - lots of fun activities, made friends, did philanthropy, had a few mixers with fraternities, etc. I would hope that my kids are level-headed enough to walk away if hazing were involved.
However, I will not, and did not, pay for Greek dues. That is why my kids work during school. S, who didn’t join a fraternity, also must work to pay for his social life. To me, that’s just common sense. I pay for education, you pay for fun.
My boys are or were in fraternities in college. The older son, his fraternity is very anti-hazing. So when he became the president, some members thought it would be no big deal when he was away from the campus and they did some hazing. Unfortunately for those members, he had a friend at the same location. She fired him a text about what was going on, and he took care of it. Those young men were booted from the fraternity. The younger son also is in a fraternity that is not into hazing, per se. If you call cleaning up after a party or washing dishes or being the DD for older members hazing, well, then it was hazing. I’d like him just to wash the dishes at home once in a while!
BTW, joining was on their dime. I did not pay for a thing.
I normally stay away from this hot-button issue but (thus far) this thread has remained civil so I will answer your question…
My boys are both fraternity members (one has already graduated thiough) and we happily paid for it because they loved it and it was (and continues to be) a very positive experience. If they had chosen to play a club sport or had chosen to join any other group we would have paid for that too. As has been stated a million times before, every fraternity at every school is different - you can’t paint with such a wide brush (although so many people do).
My boys and their friends are not perfect but they are smart, driven, funny and and around, nice guys. Their fraternity involvement has been enriching and just plain old fun - nothing like those horror stories you read about. If either of my guys had faced something like that, they would have quit. Similar to momreads above, my guys did clean-up after parties, act as DDs, etc. none of which I considered hazing. Frankly, much of what they did was good for them! They both came home that first summer way more helpful than when they left. =D>
I find it interesting that the entire discussion about concerns parents might have about their kids joining fraternities seems to be focused on hazing and other “bad” behavior that may or may not go on.
I’m dead-set against fraternities, but for a totally different reason: the fundamental exclusionary nature of them.
Frankly, the entire notion of a bunch of twenty-year-olds sitting in judgement as to the “acceptability” of a bunch of eighteen-year-olds makes my skin crawl.
If a classmate is good enough for your university, they should be good enough for any organization within that university.
My alma mater (Brandeis) has what I think is the best policy regarding this: any organization on campus must have open membership to anybody who wants to join. The only exceptions are those organizations that require special skills or talent (such as singing groups or sports teams). The precludes all greek-letter organizations because interestingly enough, none of them are willing to agree to the open membership policy.
@soze - the reason we parents are discussing the hazing issue is because that is what the OP referenced when asking the original question.
@soze “I’m dead-set against fraternities, but for a totally different reason: the fundamental exclusionary nature of them.”
I hear what you are saying, but that is how relationships are. Couples and friend groups are exclusionary by nature. Families are exclusionary by nature. The sitting in judgment is just informal.
Yes, but college is not the time for this. Once you graduate you can join a restricted country club, live in a neighborhood with only people in your socio-economic group, etc.
College is the one time you have to “mingle” with a broad-spectrum of people, and putting up artificial walls by joining a fraternity is pretty much the antithesis of what the undergraduate experience should be all about.
Regarding the “exclusionary” criticism… photo album web pages of some fraternities and sororities indicate that they are highly racially segregated on many campuses (and sororities usually more so than fraternities). In the absence of racist meddling alumni (as in the University of Alabama sorority scandal in 2013), it does seem both odd and disturbing that the process where new members and existing members self-select in a way that makes this segregation continue to happen.
I would argue that self-selecting segregation occurs in HS and in college in general - people like to hang out with those of their kind. While you could argue that fraternities further this segregation (and I probably would not disagree), I don’t think that fraternities are the driving force behind campus segregation, but just another example of it. Kids of similar ethnic or racial backgrounds will always tend to congregate together whether in a fraternity, a dorm or an honor society. It is more comfortable to be with your own kind, whatever that kind may be.
Yes,I’m sure you are quite critical of the black fraternities and sororities for this. Not to mention the Latino and Asian-American fraternities that have emerged in recent years. Oh whoops- that’s different.
“I’m dead-set against fraternities, but for a totally different reason: the fundamental exclusionary nature of them.”
How is the exclusion any different from what goes on in dorms - where the girls on the second floor form a clique and don’t sit with the girls on the third floor at dinnertime? Anyway, I want some “exclusionary” in who I hang out with. If there were a real-life CC meetup, I know the posters that I would want to get to know / gravitate towards, and the posters that I wouldn’t have any interest in getting to know better. What’s the difference? You hit it off with some people and you don’t hit it off with others.
And your comment about exclusionary implies that once you join a Greek organization, you can’t hang around with or talk to someone not in that organization, which is just plain stupid.
@soze it’s not like you lock your self away in a castle with a moat when you are in a fraternity. At many schools, it is just another activity/group to which you belong (and in some cases a less expensive living arrangement). While I understand at some schools it does become your entire identity, I would argue at most it does not, unless you allow it to. Someone in a fraternity can be active in any number of clubs or organizations they choose on campus, and mingle/socialize with hundreds or thousands of kids outside of their fraternity/sorority.
Actually, it is not really different. Yes, a historically some ethnicity house may still attract a disproportionate number of new members of that ethnicity, but coming close to 100% seems quite odd.
Of course. You have your friends in your house, but you may also have your friends from your classes/major, sports teams you play on, other campus organizations or extracurriculars, or just plain friends. It’s very fluid.
When you talk about exclusivity the way you do - as if you’re forbidden from having any other friendships - it just says you don’t know what you’re talking about.