<p>Since the defininitive college movie and cultural icon "Animal House" came out 3 decades ago, most of our society associates fraternities with either wild partying or elitism. Even the term "frat party" has become a synonym for a wild party (as if it were impossible for a fraternity house to hold a tame party), the term "frat house" for a party house, and "frat brother" for a party buddy. Every generation of new freshmen showing up on college campuses expects fraternities to be along these lines. As a result, some students loathe the very concept of fraternities before they even set foot on campus. Others want it so badly that they end up molding otherwise innocuous ones into copies of the "Delta house". Many fraternities themselves, competing in their efforts to recruit, play up this image. So what was once designed as a social club to create a sense of family, has morphed into a sort of "tavern with residences above it".</p>
<p>If the Greek system was small in most places, it might remain a peculiar oddity. But the Greek system is huge at many large universities. At many of these schools, students say "there isn't much social life outside the Greek system". So it's even more important that such a important piece of our college landscape has been so mired in controversy.</p>
<p>When the partying and elitism are stripped away, what remains is a very valuable living arrangement, one that has stood the test of time and is perhaps needed more than ever today. Instead of packing students by the thousands into anonymous high-rise dorms or apartments, the fraternity house creates an intimate scale of typically between 10 and 40 students in an environment that more resembles a home: a shared kitchen, eating area, living area, pets allowed, chores shared, etc. Even with all the baggage of controversy and myth surrounding fraternity houses, they still deliver what they were originally designed to do: create a small "family-like" setting and forge closer friendships.</p>
<p>For those students who detest the drunken, elitist image of fraternities, many of them are forced into "social limbo", existing on the edge of campus social life, living in anonymous high-rises, eating their meals in large anonymous cafeterias, missing most of what the fraternity-style living arrangement has to offer.</p>
<p>A small number of colleges around the country have "co-op houses", or essentially fraternities without the name. Students live in a similar-sized house, shared chores and expenses, and create the same kind of "family"-like atmosphere. The problem with co-op houses is that they're virtually unknown. Or they've traditionally attracted a kind of "anti-Greek" demographic: wildly liberal and non-conformist.</p>
<p>What colleges need today is more fraternity-style housing arrangements, and less "frat house" culture. Maybe the Greek system needs to change its name, re-brand itself, and open its doors to a new generation of students looking for a better college experience. Maybe fraternity housing and co-op housing could even merge, attracting students from across the spectrum.</p>