<p>vinceh, I’m not worried about S. He’s in the same frat his father was in (DH & I are both alum) so we’ve gotten mailings & updates about the house and it’s happenings for all these years. I know that the character of a frat can change over a few short years depending on the pledge class, but this one seems to have stayed fairly consistant. In the 25 years since we graduated, the college has dropped from 17 frats to 6 (now 5, actually), so basically only the strongest and best-run frats have survived. S is not a prude, but getting falling-down drunk and vomiting is not his idea of a good time. If that’s what the house was about, he wouldn’t have pledged. He had no intention of pledging any frat when he started college, and he stuck with that for his whole freshman year. The beginning of his soph year, a couple of his friends from frosh year pledged this frat, and later in the year DS & his roommate were offered bids. They almost said no, then decided to try it and see if they liked it. Now DS is really glad he joined. </p>
<p>In fact another house on campus got kicked off at the end of last semester after a long history of repeated violations (yes, they were one of the wilder ones back in our day as well). DS was telling us about some of the stupid things they had done in recent years, he didn’t seem to have any problem with the punishment they got. He just seemed perturbed that their shenanigans were tarring all the frats with the same reputation, and concerned that his house would be unduly punished for the most minor infractions based on the sins of the other frat.</p>
<p>Frats can offer many positives to a campus. The ones at alma mater do Community Service projects and fundraising. Yes, they host parties, but they also host other events and inject a good deal of pride and spirit/rivalry into the Intramurals program. They provide opportunities for leadership, and post-graduation networking. DS has learned to fix a vacuum cleaner, household budgeting, and the trials/tribulations of calling repair guys because as a brother and an officer they all share responsibility for maintaining the house and running the food budget. (He told me the only thing he misses about the dorms is having someone clean the bathrooms daily & professionally, instead of having brothers clean the bathrooms once a week. I don’t even wanna know what those bathrooms look & smell like!) If he was in dorm, the college would take care of all those things for him. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the mature attitude and concern he’s taken with stuff like cleaning, house maintenance, and nutrition since moving into the house and becoming an officer.</p>
<p>The bigger the Greek scene, the bigger the drinking issues for the Greeks. A big Greek scene may actually be an advantage for non-Greeks who don’t want to center their lives around alcohol. What could be better than having the heavy drinkers voluntarily segregate themselves and keep out of your way?</p>
<p>Except from what I’ve heard, GIRLS (especially freshman girls) are always welcome at the frat parties. So while they’re not members of the fraternity, they are certainly able to partake in the party scene and the drinking issues involved.</p>
<p>I just want to be clear on one thing, my point wasn’t to slam Wheaton College, but to point out that some amount of “party” culture exists everywhere regardless of what the college brochures say. It may be easier to avoid partying at some schools, but it doesn’t disappear.</p>
<p>Lafalum84,</p>
<p>I realize that fraternities and sororities do a lot of great things for their schools and the surrounding communities but it’s impossible to turn a blind eye to the fact that they are often the most visible purveyors of the “party at all costs” attitude as well. I’m encouraged by the efforts of your alma mater to clean out the bad apples, but it’s also troubling to think that they had to get rid of 2/3’s of the frats in order to improve the situation. It’s unfair that the most people’s idea of a fraternity is something from Animal House, but stereotypes are often based on some truth. I’m no prude either and I encouraged both my sons to party (a little) at school, but, and maybe this is selective memory talking, I don’t recall this obsession with binge drinking that now seems to exist. It seems that all the talk of zero tolerance and “just say no” has made things worse and not better.</p>
<p>P.S. Lafalum, would you be willing to share the name of your alma mater, if not here then in a private message?</p>
<p>vinceh - I totally agree with your posts. And while there was plenty of drinking back in they days of the dinosaurs (college years for many people here), it was different. I personally think it has something to do with the 21 year old drinking age (and so many kids feeling the need to “pre-game” in the privacy of their rooms before a party), but that’s a whole other discussion.</p>
<p>I would also say that (from my child’s freshman perspective) the kids who are really over-doing it at his school are the ones who had no real experience with alcohol in high school. I’m not promoting “encouraging” your kids to drink in h.s., I’m just saying that understanding the situation with teens and drinking, and being realistic about what goes on in both h.s. and college, might help some kids adjust to the freedom of college life a little better. Maybe I shouldn’t be, but I’m proud to say that my son went off to college knowing he could be in situations with alcohol, and knowing that he could drink responsibly if he chose to, or he could not drink at all if he chose to. Other people’s behavior doesn’t really bother him (unless, of course, someone is vomiting on his shoes or physically accosting him - that’s hard to ignore!)</p>
<p>vinceh - I agree and disagree with one of your comments regarding small religious LACs not being safe havens.</p>
<p>I concur that any school you go to, you will be able to find some group drinking to excess however, I do believe at some of those smaller religious LACs (including Wheaton), this is not the majority of people. Furthermore, these activities at the smaller religious LACs are more underground and occurring off campus so those who want to avoid such a scene can easily do so. Thats not really the same as in Ann Arbor or similiar schools where parties are much more public and alcohol is so prevalent in dorms its hard to avoid others in a drunken stupor</p>
<p>Yes, S (not a frat) told me about attending a giant (off campus)frat party last spring that was billed as a fund raiser for a good cause. It was an outdoor affair,beautiful late spring day in the south (sunshine,flip flops/short skirts) with a live band and and a lotta red Solo cups. I think the kids had to pay a flat fee to get in (it was a fund raiser remember) and it was party on after that.</p>
<p>There seems to be a common theme among colleges that appear to have “lax” alcohol policies in that they acknowledge that SOME kids will drink and then focus on keeping those kids safe. I once thought that a medical amnesty policy was the evidence of a “lax” policy, but now my opinion has changed. For one, the tragic story told at [The</a> Gordie Foundation - Home](<a href=“http://www.gordie.org%5DThe”>http://www.gordie.org) pleas for medical amnesty. Two, so few kids are willing to call 911 for their friend because they’ve long been taught not to be a “tattletale” and at all costs, avoid getting their friends in trouble. Medical amnesty takes the inevitable drinkers and keeps them safe. I wonder what would have happened at PSU recently if there had been medical amnesty?</p>
<p>CBBBlinker, you are correct about my alma mater </p>
<p>vinceh, the college didn’t “get rid of” 2/3 of the frats. They declined in popularity for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was that the school had been all-male until 1970 and by the mid-80’s was almost 50/50, without a corresponding rise in the number of students - in other words, the number of males was cut in half. Secondly, until the late 1980’s the school only had one main dining hall and the only meal plan served freshmen. Soph, Jr & Srs had to eat at the frats - even the girls signed up as meal plan members. When you have to be associated with a frat just to eat, the frats control the social life on campus. In the late 80’s a Student Center with 2 additional dining halls was opened, and meal plans were made available for all students. The Student Center also finally allowed clubs and other groups to have “homes” - meeting rooms and places to store their stuff. They became better organized and more popular, and thus more social and activity alternatives to the Greeks emerged. The frats that survived did so in part because they didn’t run afoul of the administration (which did indeed begin to crack down) and in part because they offered something of value to the campus. </p>
<p>At this school, frats & sororities are integrated physically into the campus. The houses are mixed in between dorms and academic buildings. There is no “fraternity row” and only one or 2 sorority houses are off-campus. I think that helps to keep things in check. If my S was at a school where all the frats were isolated away from everything else or off-campus, I’d have had serious hesitations about him pledging.</p>
<p>When I started this thread, I was interested in hearing about college administration’s policy (stated and real) about alcohol, not so much the drinking scene on campus. Not that I object to where this discussion has ended up. </p>
<p>I take it for granted that there is drinking on college campuses, but I’m curious about the range of disciplinary methods out there. My S was at a LAC 6 years ago where you were cited if you were seen with a beer. 2 citations meant you had to go before a disciplinary panel. (Which he did.) His school was neither religious or conservative. </p>
<p>My D’s college is a midwestern LAC and it took her a while to get used to the amount of alcohol there, and she is not exactly sheltered—she grew up in NYC and has been out and around for a long time. I think the difference for her is that in NYC there are alternatives to drinking parties (when you get bored with those), and at her college, there are none.</p>
<p>I don’t think she would really care about the drinking but she is fed up with the obnoxiousness and outright violent behavior she has seen. It sounds like the students really get out of hand and there is no fear of discipline. In her dorm, the boys who all live on one floor routinely destroy property (like the staircase-- we’re not talking about breaking a few pieces of furniture). The college basically ignores it until the end of the year when they fine everyone, including the girls who all live on another floor. The girls protested and were excused from paying the fine. </p>
<p>I really can’t understand why the administration makes no effort at all to deal with any of this. Their position seems to be to abdicate all authority.</p>
<p>A student at my D’s school was just suspended for the semester after his fifth violation of the alcohol policy. He is eligible to return next semester.</p>
<p>There must be alternatives to drinking parties. Could your D talk to her RA? Even though there is drinking at my D’s college, there certainly are a lot of kids that don’t drink at all and there are activities provided for those kids. Could your D call the student activities office and inquire about non-alcohol related activities?</p>
<p>mousegray, it sounds like your daughter’s college has an overall lack of discipline and tolerance of boorish behavior that goes even beyond the issue of drinking. Ignoring vandalized dorms for a year and then blanketly fining everyone in them doesn’t sound like the policies of a school with any sort of coherent social discipline policy. The way the police officer just ignored the girl who had been slapped, in public and with witnesses, is especially frightening. I’m not sure alcohol is the only issue here, although I’m sure it’s a major contributing factor. A general lack of respect for authority, for property and for other students seems to be running rampant, and it doesn’t sound like the college is taking appropriate actions to deal with it.</p>
<p>Lafalum, that’s exactly how I read this situation. I posted this thread in order to get some perspective. I think it’s time for me to get involved.</p>
<p>It is a difficult and completx issue that involves admissions profiles, campus culture and how it perpetuates, formal alcohol policy, and creative informal initiatives. I say that it’s not simple because there isn’t a clear correlation between tough enforcement and low binge drinking rates or between lax enforcement and high dirinking rates. For example, my daugher’s college has lax enforcement and low binge drinking rates. </p>
<p>There are a lot of factors involved in that. The students the school attracts, the strong distinctive culture and the way it’s passed from class to class, and a wide range of administration initiatives that may not work at other schools. For example, the college has a dry first-year orientation and the upper-class students tend to honor it. You could have the same policy at a difference school with a different culture and be hauling first years to the hospital with alcohol poisoning. It’s not simple. It’s not one size fits all.</p>
<p>Interesteddad brings up some good points. I do think kids do a pretty good job of gleaning the culture, especially if they have done an overnight or two, if they know someone who goes there, etc. I sometimes think that the kids either pick a school thinking they might “like” the culture, especially if it’s quite different than their high school or because they think it’s exotic etc. only to realize they really don’t like the attitudes. Sometimes I think they are so emotionally plugged into the school for reasons separate from the culture and think that the culture won’t bother them. So many variables. My son found that moving off campus helped put him in control of how much exposure he wanted to parties, etc. because it was on his terms as exposed to living on campus in the dorms where it was all around him and his friends would try to “drag him out” when he needed/wanted to study or sleep or whatever. He’s a junior now and is living even farther off campus in a more family residential area. In my opinion kids can remove themselves by their choice of dorm or by moving off campus, kids can try to “change” the culture through organizations, editorials, student councils, etc. and as a last resort of they just aren’t culturally fitting in can find a school that aligns more with their inner value code. There are many posters that do not think fit is an important criteria in college selection, but I happen to be one that thinks the campus culture is an important component in the selection process. For some kids the prestige of their choice can trump the social culture of the school for others it can become a deal breaker. Within a broad context of written laws or rules, societies have always exhibited leeway in how that particular society functions and polices itself. Colleges and universities are “little societies” and how they function and police themselves vary from place to place, pressure to change must come from within the community. It reminds me of the “prevailing traffic” laws regarding speed limits. Some communities now ticket only if an outlier is traveling greater than common prevailing traffic regardless of speed limits posted.</p>
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