Yes, I looked it up, and the orchestra holds auditions. Does everyone who can play the assigned piece get to be in the orchestra?
Sorry for the provocative headline but why would any parent pay for their kid to be in a fraternity?
That’s an honor society which has a membership determined by “competency.”
Not a fraternity.
@bay:
Again, organizations that require skills or talent (sports teams and music groups) are the exception.
“If anything, the social scene during HS for my kids was less accessible than the greek scene at college.”
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.
That’s not exactly the question @bay was asking.
For proper instrumental balance so that an orchestra will produce the desired sound, you can only have a certain number of people playing each instrument. Therefore, if the goal is to produce the desired sound, an ensemble may have to turn away some fully qualified musicians.
For example, there might be room for only 5 French horn players. What if 8 fully qualified French horn players show up for the auditions? Some musical organizations will allow all 8 French horn players to participate and say the heck with the instrumental balance. Others will only admit 5, even though all 8 have the required skills.
@soze, are you saying that college musical organizations should be required to take the first of the two approaches I described?
@Marian
What I’m saying is that for groups that require skills and talent (e.g. sports teams and music groups), then the rules concerning open admission go out the window. It’s not that complicated.
@soze Actually, for musical organizations, it can be that complicated.
At my daughter’s university, there were two wind ensembles. The one that traveled and represented the university off campus had the correct instrumentation, and places in this elite group were offered only to those who scored highest at the annual auditions. The other ensemble, which performed only on campus, was open to everyone who could demonstrate that they had enough skill to play the music. If 20 alto sax players could play well enough, then all 20 got in, even though the correct number of alto saxes in a wind ensemble is 4.
But this was a big university. A smaller college would have to choose between having one of these types of wind ensemble or the other.
Brandeis still has Greek life - it’s just not recognized officially. But people still “pair off” into affinity groups, no matter what you might want to do about it. It could be finals clubs, eating clubs, fraternities, societies, whatever … it’s part of human nature. There’s no college where eveyrone is equally friends with everyone else. Why do you suppose that is?
So because Brandeis has decided that all must be invited to the birthday party, and that’s not possible to have a party for 2000, no one can have a birthday party?
There are schools like Harvard and Amherst that do not recognize fraternities and sororities, so they just form off campus and aren’t university sanctioned or even recognized. I believe it is worse if the school has no control over the student groups. These groups show up on campus at sanctioned student activities since they are students, so isn’t it better to have some control? UMich got to sanction the frat that damaged the ski lodge, but if those same actions had been taken by a CU frat, the school has no jurisdiction because it doesn’t recognize any fraternities.
If a school like Syracuse got rid of all social organizations, would that be better for the students who aren’t in them? Does it make those who can’t get into the TKE house or Tri Delt happy to have them banned, to know no one is going to a meeting, to a dance, to the pancake breakfast? If I can’t, no one can? I don’t see how that helps the students who couldn’t get in, who couldn’t afford the dues, who just don’t want to join. There isn’t enough room for everyone in every club, be it rock climbing, tennis, robotics, marching band, or a particular sorority. You could set it up first come, first served, but you’d have a pretty crappy band and people falling off rocks. Be social is a skill, just like playing the flute or hitting a ball. Those who have the tennis skills get to play tennis, and those who have the social skills get invited to the popular social activities.
And this is the reason most universities would never consider imposing a Brandeis-style anti-exclusion rule. The most powerful and prestigious Greek organizations, the ones the university wants to be more inclusive, will simply go off campus where they aren’t subject to university oversight or control. Not only will the university fail to make these organizations more inclusive, it will give the organizations freedom to do things they could never do as recognized campus organizations like “wet rush,” keg parties instead of BYO parties, hazing etc…
That’s what Brandeis does – they don’t recognize them, so they just form off campus and aren’t university sanctioned. Of course, a university has LESS control over policies, procedures, safety, etc. if they are off campus and not recognized.
I can say with complete confidence that even off-campus fraternity membership at Brandeis is done by almost nobody. As a general rule, if you’re the sort of kid who would want to join a fraternity, then Brandeis is not your sort of school.
So you’re saying that these fraternities, left to their own devices would engage is this sort of behavior (I don’t even want to know what a “wet rush” is).
Tell me again why anybody would want to subject themselves to this nonsense?
Some private schools go further and prohibit students from joining fraternities and sororities. An example is Amherst, where such a prohibition was recently enacted (previously, about 10% of men joined unrecognized off campus fraternities).
@ucbalumnus:
If the policy is good enough for what is arguably the best LAC in the country, then well… you know.
Soze:
Like many other commenters, I feel a great deal of sympathy for your friend’s son. But are you sure he was rejected by every fraternity on campus? Syracuse has a huge Greek system, and it would be virtually impossible to rush all of the houses in a single semester. Is it possible that your friend’s son set his sights too high and chose not to rush some of the smaller, less prestigious, fraternities where he might have had a better chance of getting a bid?
If this young man got shut out even at the weaker fraternities, he may still have a chance to participate in Greek life. The officially recognized IFC fraternities aren’t the only social fraternities on campus. At a university the size of Syracuse, there are usually several unrecognized social fraternities. These are NIFC fraternities that want to establish a colony on the campus but have not been invited to do so by the university. They aren’t recognized by the university, so they can’t participate in formal rush, but they hold their own unsanctioned rush events, and they often rely on “informal rush” which means they add new pledges as the find them.
These fraternities are usually smaller and desperately trying to increase membership. If this young man is a nice guy who is just shy and a little socially awkward, there’s a good chance he would be offered a bid by one of these unrecognized fraternities. He’d probably miss out on the sorority mixers (at most schools, PanHellenic Sororities will only hold mixers with fraternities that are recognized by the university), but he’d be able to participate in all the other positive aspects of Greek life - the tradition, the brotherhood, etc…
There is also the possibility your friend’s son may be able to join a new fraternity that is forming a colony with the university’s blessing. When a fraternity’s national headquarters establishes a new (and recognized) colony, it sends several members of its headquarters staff and several local alumni to campus to interview interested students. The decision on membership isn’t made by 20 year old college students, and the criteria isn’t whether the applicants are “cool,” but rather, whether the applicants are dedicated to building a quality chapter. The usual selling point NIFC fraternities make when colonizing is that this is an opportunity for people who don’t like what they see in the Greek system to create a better fraternity, one with values they believe in. People who were shut out of formal rush are often specifically targeted during the colonizing process because they’ve expressed interest in the Greek system.
If this young man is truly interested in the Greek system as a way to meet new people and make friends, he should really consider one of the unrecognized fraternities or see if any NIFC fraternities are forming a new colony on campus.
“So you’re saying that these fraternities, left to their own devices would engage is this sort of behavior (I don’t even want to know what a “wet rush” is).”
Wet rush just means it has alcohol.
- Fraternities recognized by university = university has power to regulate the alcohol in the houses
- Fraternities not recognized by university = university doesn’t have jurisdiction over the alcohol
See how that works?
“Tell me again why anybody would want to subject themselves to this nonsense?”
You’re all over the board, soze. The reason young guys go through fraternity rush is exactly what you’re describing with your friend’s son - because it’s appealing to have a place to “belong” and make new friends. You keep whipsawing between not understanding the appeal, and understanding the appeal but finding it sad that not all kids get to join in the fun.
“I can say with complete confidence that even off-campus fraternity membership at Brandeis is done by almost nobody. As a general rule, if you’re the sort of kid who would want to join a fraternity, then Brandeis is not your sort of school.”
I can google their Facebook pages. They seem to have decent size chapters for a school that size. Your assertion that “almost nobody” is Greek at Brandeis is as over the top as your “everyone joins Greek life at Syracuse.”
It’s going to be interesting seeing what happens with these policies. Amherst isn’t a public school, but I suspect it accepts federal student loan money, and one can make a colorable argument that if it keeps this rule in place (a type of rule that has been held to violate the 1st Amendment in the public university context), it forfeits its right to accept federal student loan money.
Hmmn, not sure what legal rationale you are basing this assertion. Lower courts have consistently ruled diluted the “intimate association” argument previously heralded by fraternities.