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<p>Seriously. The implication that fraternity men are only fit for those who are “hard up,” are perpetrators of date rape, the snarkiness about “holy” sorority women and their “girl scout cookie” philanthropies, and that parents ought to threaten their students with not paying tuition if they join fraternities and don’t keep their grades up was uncalled for, insulting and deserving of some push back. If you don’t see that, then you are blinded by your own bias.</p>
<p>Bay - you are absolutely right! I thought those comments were incredibly sarcastic, immature, narrow-minded and just plain mean.</p>
<p>This topic never ends well, so perhaps we should just respect each other and the choices our children make.</p>
<p>Peace :)</p>
<p>The data are there for anyone who wants to look at them. What people want to do them is up to them.</p>
<p>And as I wrote:</p>
<p>“I’m sure there are thousands of students who have had satisfactory Greek experiences.”</p>
<p>Quote lenny2:
“The problem I see with the Greek organizations at many universities (not all) is the peer pressure atmophere it creates toward bad (and dangerous) behavior, layered on top of all the good things that they offer.”</p>
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<p>I would agree on the atmosphere or peer pressure that can promote or encourage behavior that a young person almost certainly would not engage in on their own to that degree. I knew 2 young men who attended the University of Washington. Both were “clean cut”, smart guys and not party guys in high school. One fell to his death from the roof of a fraternity (alcohol was involved) in the first month of his freshman year. The other was one of a group young pledges discovered in the basement of their frat during “Hell Week” in his skivvies, slathered in peanut butter and there were sheep involved. A concerned neighbor called the cops when he saw the sheep. You can say that these young men should have had better judgement, or run the other way when they started to see that the behavior was crossing the line, but it was a sanctioned environment. There seems to be a bit of the frog in heating water syndrome where maybe kids don’t realize that it’s out of hand until it’s really out of hand. They develop a new sense of normal.</p>
<p>^^^^ Completely agree!</p>
<p>I would like to add that whatever decision a student and his/her family make around Greek organizations one should IMHO go in with eyes wide open . . . to know what one is signing up for. It coolers are your thing, fine, but the surprise call to a parent for financial aid to fund a “hostess gift” as it was called above would ideally be avoided. I can’t imagine that any young man goes into pledge week thinking that they will end up in their underwear, covered with peanut butter in the custody of the police - animal control officers having corralled the other pledge invitees. Who signs up for that eyes wide open? Nobody thinks that they might not make it through the week alive.</p>
<p>I was a double legacy at a house that is very prominent in our area and nationally, but chose not to rush. My mom didn’t understand that her house had changed since she was a straight laced mortarboard president sorority girl. It has since been disciplined and disbanded or “unrecognized” at the state university and reprimanded at the flagship - both for hazing.</p>
<p>Below is a quote from a chat board responding to the incident at the state university 2/12. The post reads as if it’s written by the mother of a female student. Pay special attention to the last line. “They were funny, smart girls and she couldn’t imagine them doing what she heard was done.”</p>
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<p>"I can’t begin to explain the mind of an 18 year old girl or what they thought had happened or had heard happened, but yeah, I think there are some girls that if they know a certain chapter is popular on that campus and has always been pretty popular at that school then they either a) don’t care if they were accused of hazing or b) don’t think it was that big of a deal. I know what daughter heard happened the first time, but I don’t know at all if any of it was true. People hear a lot of rumors and things get exaggerated, so who knows. Either way, they were willing to take that risk. </p>
<p>I will say - daughter had several close friends in that group the year she was there and loved them. They were also one of her favorite groups going through recruitment. This all came out after that, but I know it was sad for her to hear because the girls she knew in that chapter were fun, funny, smart girls and she couldn’t imagine them doing what she heard was done."</p>
<p>Did anyone get hurt in the peanut butter/sheep incident? If not, I will admit that I thought it was hilarious.</p>
<p>^I like peanut butter as much as the next guy, but it doesn’t help foster leadership skills.</p>
<p>A quote from the Intra-fraternity Council Spokesperson:
<code>They realize this was a stupid mistake,’’ Tribble said.</code>They don’t deny having the sheep in the house, and they say they were just trying to scare their pledges.’’</p>
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<p>Well at least they don’t deny having had the sheep. This must be where the leadership training to be captains of industry comes in. Maybe now they’re the ones saying that they don’t deny that there’s oil but the pelican’s like it.</p>
<p>If you liked that and thought the sheep liked it, you’ll love this . . .
“The UW hasn’t been immune. In January 1998 a young member of Delta Kappa Epsilon committed suicide, allegedly after a six-day hazing ritual.” </p>
<p>It’s all fun and games until someone puts an eye out.</p>
<p>a few more musings . . .</p>
<p>I was reflecting on the young man who I knew who lost his life at a frat (a HS boyfriend of my sister) and it reminded me of the drunk driving presentations that came to our school. When I was in high school there was a horrible accident with teenagers drinking and driving. One survived. They towed the car and left it in the courtyard of our school for a week. The broken glass of the windshield had been treated somehow to stabilize the glass, but the rest was is it had been. The survivor gave a very moving presentation to the school. Seeing that car up close added a level of reality that we usually didn’t get. It hadn’t been cleaned up and it was shocking . . . gruesome almost. Nobody said that cars aren’t fun or useful or you shouldn’t drive them. Nobody said that you shouldn’t drive with your friends or you can’t take your car to the beach and have a great time. What they were trying to do was to allow us a glimpse into our own mortality. As teens we didn’t have some special shield that would keep things from going too far wrong.</p>
<p>Kids often don’t see how things an go wrong until it’s too late - and I’m thinking that 18 is still a kid. What mini and others are saying is that just because your kid is nice, and was brought up in a good home and seems to have it together it doesn’t mean you and they shouldn’t do your due diligence about the Greek situation at their school before deciding on that option.</p>
<p>“A quote from the Intra-fraternity Council Spokesperson”
correction: Interfraternity Council</p>
<p>I don’t know how much due diligence you can do. As a parent, you can’t know about some of the things your child will encounter until it happens. More importantly, you just can’t predict how your child will respond. Believe me, our D (who went to Catholic school, for heaven’s sake) was raised to be morally responsible, not to spend the night in hotel rooms with men she just met met, to speak up for herself and to be independent, and to be responsible about alcohol use (I don’t drink at all and my husband drinks only occasionally). I never would have predicted that she would have thought it was a good and completely reasonable idea to spend $100+ and hours of time on decorating a cooler and filling it with alcohol to present to a guy she just met so that he could drink with her all weekend and then spend the night with her and another couple in a hotel room. When I try to look at it from her perspective, I imagine she sees it as all in good fun with her being in complete control of the situation the entire time and making all the decisions she wants to make throughout the weekend–just hanging out on the beach with friends during the day, going to a nice dinner in the evening, and crashing in the hotel room at night. As someone with much more experience, I know that lots of alcohol and the privacy of a hotel room can change the dynamics and create a situation where she no longer has the control she thought she would have. You can’t convince a young adult to look out for herself because she is still in that “invincible” stage of life. That’s how young men end up falling off of the roof of the fratenity house. I’m sure that kid’s parent was left thinking, “Why was he on the roof? That’s just not like him.” I’m not sure that any of this is the fault of the Greek system, although it certainly seems to afford students lots of opportunities to make choice that are questionable in terms of their own personal safety.</p>
<p>Just musing here. Two thoughts.</p>
<p>–If a kid is in high school and he or she is involved with an incident with friends just like one of these hazing rituals, and the parents and/or school finds out about it, there’s hell to pay. Fast forward to freshman year, the same thing happens, and it’s perfectly okay because they are technically adults? Nobody cares? Suddenly at 18 you go from being a child to having free-will? You can be coerced at 17 but it’s your choice at 18?</p>
<p>Sure, it is great for college students to do good deeds together and have a strong group that they will have or life. But at what cost? </p>
<p>–If Bay and some others see the sheep incident as funny, I don’t think we can find common ground here. Moreso, the coolers, and everything they entail (not just the decorating). If you see nothing insidious about it you are so different from me there is no way we will understand each other.</p>
<p>Responding to Lenny “I’m not sure that any of this is the fault of the Greek system”</p>
<p>I think it is. I think it does create this incredible peer pressure/group-think that kids outside the Greek system don’t have to deal with. In some cases it doesn’t seem any different than a cult. Under what circumstances do you let someone duct tape your mouth after a night of heavy drinking?</p>
<p>_Redpoint, there are costs when it goes wrong. Groups are disbanded, members have to immediately find new housing, some are arrested, kicked out of college, many are sued. Universities are also sued. There was a sad article in the Wabash paper last year about the group of pledges that were left after the death of a pledge brother. They talked about how difficult it was to lose a friend, their older members as a support group, and even their identity in that very Greek school while being forced to live in their old house that had been turned into a dorm. Of the 23 remaining pledges 13 transferred. Not what we expect when our kid goes to college. </p>
<p>As to the sheep incident. I know of a pledge class (back in the 80s) that had a problem working together. The pledgemaster put them in a room with condoms, some paddles and a goat-and no intructions as to what was expected of them. The pledges talked things through, got mad and announced to the pledgemaster through the locked door that they weren’t going to stand for any of this and non of them would “cross the line”. This just happened to be the desired result of this exercise-work together, stand together with no fear and believe in yourself. The group was initiated shortly after. Nobody was hurt and they learned that it is okay to stand up for themselves and their brothers. </p>
<p>I didn’t find the story funny, but realized that I don’t know the entire story either. It could have been hazing gone horribly wrong, or it could have been the equivalent of asking pledges to walk on broken glass blindfolded as they step on nacho cheese doritos. In my role as an advisor last year, I had to enforce the ban on scavenger hunts. We seem to want to embrace the widest possible definition of hazing in order to protect everyone, but we have done nothing about underage drinking on campuses.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if you are saying that the goat/paddle/condom incident and the nachos are okay because the lesson is good (to me, it’s not) or they were unharmed. Personally, I know I don’t speak for all, I find all of that demeaning. It’s all about power trips and conformity. It’s not the lesson I want my children learning. Does that mean I want to stop others who want to do it? Not if that’s what they want, to an extent . . Not if it pollutes the atmosphere of the college for everyone else. Not if it means the best jobs in the future are given to those who network, because they demeaned themselves and demeaned others. What kind of a society do we want to live in? A free society is the ideal, one has a right to do stupid things, but a society without a cult mentality.</p>
<p>I think that things go wrong A LOT and no one dies so we don’t hear about it. Isn’t it wrong to have pledges drinking Solo cups full of vodka until they throw up? That was a hazing ritual at a fraternitiy I heard about this year. Hasn’t something gone wrong there? I really can’t understand how these things continue to happen. Why isn’t there more oversight to prevent this type of thing?</p>
<p>Several national organizations have banned drinking in the house in the last few years. Houses that are caught are given serious sanctions from nationals. It hasn’t always worked, but it has helped to recruit a different kind of young man into the organization and helped many groups reduce risk manangement issues. Some groups ban it outright while others make it dependent on GPA requirements. It doesn’t mean an end to mixers or parties, just that they happen in bars or clubs and have strict ID requirements. </p>
<p>A downside to this is that on some campuses the parties just go off campus. Even less control for the university and the fraternal organization.</p>
<p>OP Smithview wrote Both of us parents were students of the 70’s - free thinking and fiercely independent. Now our youngest is heading off to college in the fall and has recently announced that he is going to explore the possibility of joining a fraternity as an incoming freshman. The concept is so foreign to us as Greek was very out when we were back in school. He’s a very level headed kid, but this isn’t something we were prepared for. We realize our data is over 30 years old, but has it really changed much? Any tips for worrying parents?</p>
<p>I was a GDI, hubby was in a fraternity, where I spent most of my free time so I understand both sides. </p>
<p>Smithview, if you and your husband are truly free-thinking then you need to understand that critical thinking is important and that the data (whatever that means) you have is probably based on generalized information that was gathered by an independent, free thinker like yourself. Drinking, drug use, and sexual assault are not exclusive to Greek life. Those behaviors happen in all environments on the college campus; however, the media loves a good story so when a Greek or a college athlete is caught doing something illegal or stupid it makes headlines. </p>
<p>I would also question the data thats been gathered regarding Greek behaviors, such as hazing, rape, and alcohol and drug abuse. Unless those studies are peer reviewed they are useless. Do you believe the junk science studies that the media attempts to cram down our throats on a daily basis? </p>
<p>Reading through these blanket statements that have zero credibility makes me realize how gullible, judgmental, and arrogant people can be when they dont understand what they are talking about. I, like my daughter, didnt go the Greek route because neither one of us wanted to be committed to a social calendar that might interfere with other things that interested us. My husband and son are different; they both love the social aspect of Greek life and the idea of brotherhood. To each his own.</p>
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<p>True, but I for one don’t know if these studies are peer-reviewed or otherwise reputable, or not. Anti-Greek poster “mini” mentioned working with this data as part of their job.</p>
<p>What I’m trying to say is that on the one hand, yes of course we should be wary of junk science in the media, but on the other hand, I’m weary of real science being dismissed as “junk science.” That’s a problem as well.</p>