It sounds like one fraternity has been suspended, which is good.
Momofthreeboys, interesting about the Greek system at UM. I have nieces and nephews at UM but they are not a part of Greek life, I did not know the participation was so high as knowing a few students there none of them are involved.
Although no one was hurt, it is this attitude of entitlement that leads to the bigger problems that have come to light lately.
The ski season is very short here and it’s not been a good year for snow. It is terrible that even if these business owners are reimbursed for the damages, they can never get back the loss of revenue. I do think the fraternities will pay, because I feel this is not isolated and the fraternities do pay up. Usually they don’t get the amount of press that they got this time.
I know two young men who were in fraternities at UM in recent years. Their organizations would absolutely not be involved in something like this. There ARE solid fraternities at UM.
It’s funny, because so many people have a perception of UM as being a school full of entitled students. It’s a big school … while some are brats, others are really great kids. I know so many kids who went to or are attending UM, and the number I know who could be considered entitled brats could be counted on one hand. I guess it’s what you see in the press or who you know that colors your view.
I had almost zero contact with anything frat when I was in UM 30+ years ago–I knew they existed and walked by their houses, but had no connection or knowledge about them. It’s like they were separate from the Ann Arbor and educational world I inhabited, even though they were in the same town and university.
The one exception: When I was a pregnant grad student, walking by one of the frat houses (corner of S. University and Washtenaw–not the mudbowl one, the other one–maybe a little ways north up Wastenaw), the guys on the porch thought it would be funny to sic their badly behaved, huge Great Dane on me.
While this made news, the behavior and damage is par for the course for many Boston area fraternities I’ve seen both inside their frat houses and from seeing manifestations of their behavior in and around the Boston area…including neighborhoods my friends and I lived in while there.
While I know there are also better behaved fraternities, when the badly behaved ones act up, the behavior and damage can be seen and heard far and wide as the manifestations and some local cops who have had to deal with all that BS could attest.
Worse, at least one relative who was part of a fraternity at a Big 10 would be the very type to be involved in this BS.
Did you see the photos of some of the damage? Yes, it is reparable, but the price will be high for these resorts as has been said already, and this behavior is outrageous.
Don’t get me wrong there are some great fraternities at UofM… but I do know that intelligent people can be really stupid and this is a prime example. And I know through my kids that Michigan does have a very active fraternity/sorority life that is social-centric than some of the other public unis.
UM’s student population does seem to skew toward those from wealthy backgrounds, based on the low percentage of students with Pell grants (compared to other publics and other highly endowed schools). That UM considers legacy in admissions is a factor that can tip the student population in that direction. Not to say that all UM students or all students from wealthy backgrounds are “entitled”, but that probably increases the number who are, and it does not take that many to populate a small number of poorly-behaved fraternity houses.
I managed a motel in Northern Michigan many, many years ago. The skiers who filled the place on winter weekends were the absolute worst. One group of college age boys did significant damage to their room and harassed a room full of girls next door all night long to the extent that I had to refund money to guests in surrounding rooms. The motel owner confronted the boys when they checked out and one of them told her his father was an attorney and always wanted to own a small motel. Go ahead and try billing my credit card for the room - we will sue you until you cry yourself to sleep.
The owner was able to get a phone number for the father via the address on the registration and called him. It turned out that he wasn’t a lawyer, he was actually a doctor. He personally drove his son back to the motel the following weekend to apologize and hand over a check to cover room damage and the money we’d had to refund the weekend before.
When people say “what were they thinking while they were doing this?” I think most of us assume that there was alcohol involved.
I partied some in college, I was no angel, but when I had too much to drink, I’d get all sleepy-like and turn into a big party pooper. What is it about alcohol which does the exact opposite to others? I don’t get it.
@ Consolation “I can’t help but think that if a different population were engaged in this…it would have been viewed as a near-riot and the cops would have been called in much sooner, people would have been arrested, and there might well have been deaths by cop.”
Sadly, there is very little question in my mind that you are correct that the response would have been more immediate, severe, and potentially lethal, but some of them would have definitely been arrested on the spot.
I am not sure what the University can do since they were not on campus, but if I were a Michigan alum, I would want the leaders of the group expelled from the school immediately, if possible. There are a lot of good students who would give anything to have that students admission ticket to such a distinguished school. If these do turn out to be rich kids, hope they aren’t going to go for the affluenza defense, that is the most ridiculous thing. I still can’t imagine what leads the students to act like this? How can they not know there will be consequences?
As a parent, I also can not image finding out that one of my kids was involved. If my kid had been involved, my first thought would not be anger or disappointment with them, but that I have been a failure as a parent.
As a current Michigan student, I do not want them expelled. I want them to answer whatever legal and civil sanctions they will have to face, but I (personally) have a problem with expelling people over something happens outside of school (in general; there are some exceptions such as when a survivor of a crime attends the same school).
Alcohol affects people differently due to genetics and underlying personality traits. The latter is probably why there’s a popular saying about how alcohol takes away inhibitions and thus, reveals the true character of an individual sans inhibitions.
Regarding post #22, Garland, I believe that is the Theta Chi house. I was born and reared in Ann Arbor and would go to frat parties as a High School student. Theta Chi parties were legendary. This was in the late 70’s so a lot could have changed since then.
I hope the resorts have good lawyers, as “making things right” is going to take more than just rectifying the damage. Places like these really struggle through most of the year and this is their peak season. Everyone that might have been planning to visit will now have to go elsewhere if they were booked in an area that got damaged. So all those potential customers are going to be lost, possibly for good if the alternate lodging turns out to be good. Not to mention, there will be families who stay away in the future “because X Resort is always overrun with out-of-control frat boys.”
