What's your opinion of fraternity?

Parents Forum
122

What about all the fraternities that do not haze or sexually assault women? And what about sororities?

There is a movement called Abolish Greek Life, which is actually a movement to abolish “white” greek life (this is stated on their website). It is extreme and absolute, with no nuance. It ignores the powerful movement within greek organizations which has accelerated in the past two years, but has been transforming recruitment and practices for decades to make things far more inclusive and safe.

My experience is mainly with sororities, at a medium-sized school. There is absolutely no hazing, and no alcohol or drugs in the houses (which are owned by the school). This was the case when I was a student almost 30 years ago, and is still the case today. There is far less partying in the sorority houses than in the dorms or off campus apartments, due to:

  1. Strict rules from the national organizations.
  2. The respect members have for their student leaders, who are sisters.
  3. The sense of responsibility they have for the house itself.

I was lost on my college campus until I found my sorority. I had danced in high school, but I wasn’t good enough to make the college’s dance team or the dance company. I had sung in my church choir, but wasn’t good enough to be chosen for an a cappella group. I was slow to make friends, so I didn’t have any one to play intramurals with. I went to InterVarsity (a Christian group), but I was told that I shouldn’t date a Jewish boy (half of my family is Jewish), so I didn’t go back. Academics were hard, my parents had moved overseas, and I was really lonely.

The sorority was the right thing for me. The women were excellent students, which was inspiring. They had an intramural soccer team that I could join right away, and they matched me with a roommate for the next year. I had people to eat with, study with and go for a run with. They were warm and welcoming in a way no other campus group had been, and I didn’t need any special qualifications other than being reasonably friendly and nice.

So, my answer to “what’s your opinion of the greek system” is that it depends. What school? What organization? How does it operate? My daughter’s sorority has a diversity committee which reaches out to minority students of all types, and they have women of color and LGBTQ women as members. They meet with the leadership of the Black and Hispanic sororities regularly.

The answer to problems with hazing and sexual assault is zero tolerance, education, and reform from within. Not banning a system which has existed for 130+ years, and, like all human organizations, has strengths and faults. I found this article to be balanced and interesting:

8 Likes
123

There is one study, which is referenced in articles but I can’t find the link to the study itself, that shows that members of greek organizations are 300% more likely to commit sexual assaults. But schools that have eliminated fraternities showed, at best, an ambiguous relationship to reducing sexual assault. In other words, sexual assault goes well beyond fraternities. Likewise, all fraternity members are not rapists.

Athletes are 300% more likely to commit sexual assault, and this data set is stronger, and still likely reflects a large under-reporting given schools propensity to cover up misbehavior by their athletic departments.

I would assume that those advocating eliminating fraternities for this reason are also in favor of eliminating collegiate athletics.

As a father, I have recommended to my son not to join a fraternity. The anti-fraternity temperature on campuses is just too hot, and people are looking for figurative heads on spikes. Why deal with that level of campus hostility for an organization that is supposed to be fun? Also, in a world where the first background check an employer does is a google search, one bad fraternity brother can damage a lot of futures if he does something that shows up in a search. It is not worth the risk.

1 Like
124

I’d like to add that any woman who enters sorority recruitment at my daughter’s school and wants a bid will receive one. It may not be their top choice, but frankly, the sororities are similar, and they are also large (~150 women) so like-minded friends can be found in any one.

One of the four nights of recruitment is dedicated to community service, and each sorority presents the philanthropy work they do. The sororities have a Panhellenic Council which all the chapters belong to. Together, they created and enforce a code of ethics, in order to make recruitment more fair, inclusive, and “values based”. If anyone is interested, here are the rules: https://www.wm.edu/offices/fsl/documents/2020_recruitment_rules.pdf

5 Likes
125

I’m glad you had a good experience and yes not all Greek organizations fall under the same behavioral categories. I agree, in theory, that is the solution, but in reality that doesn’t seem to be actually happening which is why many have a very poor opinion of Greek life and the Greek system.

Sororities seem to be more of a mixed bag and I don’t think I’ve ever read an article about the death of a sorority pledge. That being said, bullying and hazing still widely occur.

Overall, I’m perplexed as to why we as a society feel the need to make excuses and perpetuate a system where people take pleasure in denigrating, belittling, abusing, and bullying others who are then supposed to be their good friends/sisters/brothers afterwards. What does that say about all involved?

2 Likes
126

Residential colleges probably do not want to be seen as doing anything that promotes under-21 drinking in campus housing, although they may have unspoken and unwritten toleration of it if it is kept private enough that the college can have plausible deniability about lack of enforcement (in part because enforcement of rules is more difficult when some are allowed and others are not).

The possession / drinking age of 21 is obviously inconvenient for residential colleges. Residential colleges would probably prefer a possession / drinking age of 18 (so that almost all students are allowed) or at least 22 (so that almost all traditional students are not allowed), which would make it possible to have clear and easily enforced rules in the campus housing.

2 Likes
127

The final two schools that it came down to four or son had one out of three kids vs one out of five kids involved in Greek Life. The school with more kids in GL had residential Greek houses on campus compared to the other school which had no residential houses. It was not the only factor but it was one of the factors in our decision.

He wanted a school that had frats and if he decided to pledge he had the choice. If he didn’t want to it would not be a big deal. He is in a frat and is having a very good experience. It’s a part of his social life but certainly not the only part. He might go to one party every couple of weeks and loves playing on fraternity intramural teams. It is also the Frat with the highest GPA on campus. He’s with a group of his peers that are serious students, that like to play sports and party once in a while but not every night or all weekend. The college has a strict hazing policy and literally did a house cleaning about a decade ago and kicked out two frats.
We also didn’t like the two campuses we visited that had no GL. It was a selling feature for the schools and in both cases, the student guides were critical of Frats in general, and that kind of turned us off. It’s tragic when you hear about these hazing-related deaths or other incidents regarding Frats. For our son having a choice was his best option.

2 Likes
128

I think I understood CTDads point–with that particular comment about treating them like 6 year olds on a forced playdate, he was responding to many of the posts that object to fraternities & sororities selecting members often based on charisma, character, personality, sense of humor, GPA, likability, whatever subjective personality characteristics they like, and that it is exclusive and some people do not get included, which is a very painful process. So I think it was a logical response to that particular complaint. No one likes kids getting rejected, it’s awful, but similarly kids don’t all get to be on the volleyball team, the lead in the play or even a supporting actor, part of the acapella singing group, the editor or even a writer for the newspaper–I think one of the comments above implied all the school clubs are open for participation besides greek life, and that of course is not true. There are “try-outs” for so many activities. Nor do we all get to be CEOs of our companies, marry the person of our dreams (I did, of course! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:), and participate in everything we want to. But of course that stinks, and we hate it when people feel dejected, especially young people. As much as sorting ourselves in some ways is a part of life, and we all know life’s not fair, it can obviously be devastating for some and make us all sad.

Therefore I think the direction CTDad was going was a good one…rather than just try to cancel what–on many campuses–is the only set of organizations offering the type of vibrant social life that many young people are looking for, shouldn’t schools be working harder to provide better, more fun alternatives. I see this on my kids’ campus, they do make some attempts but the options often end up seeming fairly lame to the students. I also concur that the 21 year old drinking age is problematic for the schools–with liability it’s hard for them to look the other way on this, but it most definitely has led to kids doing more pre-game shots of hard alcohol vs. nursing beers, etc. I very much doubt that it has led to safer alcohol-related-behavior. Despite the law, a lot of college-aged students (many of which actually are 21+) do choose to consume some alcohol, and in some cases the greek houses may be the only viable location for large gatherings of fellow students outside of bars, etc. I’m not sure what the universities can do about that. But I agree that I’d rather see schools work to provide better options than to wholesale ban students from joining organizations that can also lead to deep friendships, community service, hosting events for the larger community that are frequently be appreciated by others, good role-modeling (as 3SailAway has eloquently described), etc. If the schools don’t like them, make them less relevant by offering these kids something more (or equally) attractive!

I would love to hear from the people whose kids go to the schools without Greek Life what seem to the best alternatives that are offered on those campuses for the students who are seeking parties that allow (reasonable) alcohol. Are most of those parties just in dorm rooms? Does the university host events and look the other way on alcohol consumption? Do those kids just go out to bars? I know there are lots of kids who do not drink, and will be satisfied with alcohol-free game nights, going to performances, watching movies, etc, but of course there are kids seeking parties. I’d love to know the best way for schools to provide an inclusive, safe, BUT fun & appealing environment for that.

2 Likes
129

I don’t think this will change anyone’s mind, but…

One way we assess what to believe is by how many examples we have seen. Lots of interesting studies on this. One of my favorites is that the vast majority of Americans, when asked, believe Kansas is the state with the most tornadoes. It’s actually Texas. The reason is that not so many of us can think of a tornado in Texas, but every single one of us can think of one in Kansas. The fact that it is fictional doesn’t matter.

Like tornadoes, our perceptions are skewed by Hollywood.

Onto specifics.

My experience at MIT in a fraternity was extremely positive. Now, you’re free to say “Well, that’s MIT and it’s just different”, but if you do that, you can’t then paint the fraternity system with the same broad brush.

Academics: we had a slightly higher GPA than the fraternities as a whole, and fraternities as a whole had a slightly higher GPA than the Institute at large. Why? One could speculate, but we don’t know for sure. My favorite theory is that this was an important recruiting tool in dealing with skittish parents, so we didn’t want to lose it. But there are other theories.

Cost: We were actually slightly below the average dorm cost with an equivalent meal plan. (Not 100% true - one year we set it at the average and used that extra cash to cover a brother in financial distress) Others were more expensive, and one or two were much cheaper.

Hazing: Hazing is bad. 55% of college students report hazing. Of course, since Fraternity/Sorority membership is 4% of the college population, it can’t be responsible for the 55%. As pointed out elsewhere, there are other organizations who have also had hazing incidents (sports, marching bands at some colleges, etc.)

I never felt hazed. The national has a very strict policy, but to be fair, the degree of enforcement is inconsistent. National banned one tradition at MIT that I found very positive. The weekend before classes start, we were divided into groups of 2 or 3, handed a pile of subway tokens (at the time the Charlie Card wasn’t even an idea) and told to find things like a Boston postcard to send to your parents, a stamp for the postcard, a Boston Public Library card, a napkin from an ice cream shop, etc. The idea was to familiarize the freshmen with the city of Boston. Pity it’s gone.

Alcohol: I agree that 21 is a terrible number. It was 20 when I was in school and that was even worse. Was there drinking to excess in the fraternity. Yup. Was there drinking to excess in the dorms? Yup. Was there drinking to excess in one of the profs lab on campus? Yup - that was the worst case I remember. Is it at its worst in fraternities? I don’t see any evidence beyond this than “surely it must be”. Nationwide, alcohol-related deaths are about 5 per 100,000, so over 20 million students is about 1000 per year. 4% fraternity membership suggests that we should expect 40, and as far as I can tell, the actual number is 2.5.

We have to be a little careful comparing, since the bulk of the 40 is due to vehicular accidents, and the 2.5 probably does not capture this. But what is not present is a clear excess in fraternity vs. non-fraternity deaths.

Treating this as solely a “fraternity problem” misses the bulk of the problem.

Diversity: Our chapter was slightly more diverse than the Institute as a whole. I always felt this was bogus: if we expect 2.9 of (insert subcategory here) and have 3 what does that show? If we have 4? If one year one graduates and we pledge two, what does that show? What about the reverse? Chasing small numbers hoping to find meaning is a fool’s errand. That said, we did not look very different from the Institute as a whole.

Exclusivity: MIT was not quite half fraternity and other independent living groups when I was there. That’s hard to be exclusive. Also, the dorms were also divided into social groups around floors, wings or entryways and people spent all four…er…five or six years in the same group.

Again, one can dismiss this as “Oh, that’s just MIT”. But one can’t do this at the same time as saying “All fraternities are the same”.

10 Likes
130

As a practical matter, how would posters in this thread advise first semester frosh who are considering joining a fraternity how to tell which chapters have more of the positive aspects of fraternities (that should be preferred if one does join) and which have more of the negative aspects (that should be avoided)?

Also, there would be a similar question with respect to high school seniors considering which college to matriculate to, since different campuses may have significantly different fraternity environments.

2 Likes
131

I just stumbled upon this topic and read every post. Yours was a breath of fresh air.

132

The liability issue for looking the other way on under 21 drinking is an issue, and I do not have a solution for that.

The primary reason for raising the drinking age in the early 80’s was drunk driving, which was a huge problem back then. It is a big problem today, but better than it was back in the 80’s. That said, technology has advanced to the point where the original reason for the increased age is easily addressable by technology.

Why aren’t breathalizers mandated in automobiles going forward? The devices cost less than $200. The point I made earlier in the thread about punishment being more popular than prevention certainly seems to hold true in this case. It would be cheaper and infinitely more effective to mandate breathalizers in cars than the current system of hoping a cop spots a drunk driver before that driver kills or maims someone.

With tools like this, the 21 year old drinking age seems unnecessary and actually counter-productive for the reasons I have provided earlier in the thread. Yet there is not an ounce of momentum to change it. Society prefers punishment and criminalizing behavior it doesn’t like.

2 Likes
133

If a freshman is interested in joining a fraternity I would first carefully go through any publication from the IFC at the campus they are interested in. Read through the material on each chapter. If one looks interesting contact their recruiting chair and ask about the process to pledge. Look up the GPA average of the chapter. How does that rank in relation to other fraternities on campus? Then do a search of local media in the town the college is in for news relating to the fraternity. Only look at data for the last 3 to 4 years. Many fraternities have changed a lot in the last few years. See if the chapter has “rush” or “pledge” periods. My son’s fraternity outlawed pledge periods. When a person showed interest and the fraternity agreed they were made members. This eliminated most of the chances for hazing. The hazing rules are strict now and the fraternities even have had to eliminate the good practices like mentioned above about taking selfies at campus and town landmarks for a “get familiar with the area” activity.

Looking at schools. Do the school’s have rush? S’s school had no formal rush for fraternities (they do for sororities). There were events over the spring and in the summer and at the beginning of the school year (strictly no alcohol permitted) usually philanthropy related so potential members could see what they liked. Pretty easy to get into one if the fit was right. What semester is rush, what year? I’m a fan of Spring. S’s school was fall but he chose not to joint until spring. Look into price of being in a fraternity and % living in the house or outside. Look at cost of housing vs other options. Look into college’s rules on where parties are held. If they must be off campus or not in the houses is there anything done to prevent drunk driving? S’s campus did not allow private cars be driven to parties and fraternities must provide their own Uber type service. Look at local news regarding fraternities over the last year. If possible visit campus and look at the fraternity houses. Talk to students about them. Try to get several. That way you have a better feel if the fraternities drive all the social life on campus or are just one of many choices. Example for big football schools, fraternities all have tailgates before games but so do the big academic departments, many clubs, the LGBTQ organization, international student organization, etc. See what is out there.

Being President of a very large fraternity was a very good experience for my son. Many of his good friends are from his fraternity but he also has many good friends from outside the Greek organization. Fraternities are not for everyone but I am not going to say that they are all bad either.

3 Likes
134

Probably because:

  1. Those who drive after drinking can probably figure out a way to defeat them, especially, since no one is watching (unlike when a police officer stops someone and pulls out the breathalyzer).
  2. Those who never drive after drinking, or never drink at all, may not want to pay $200 for a device that is useless to them (or which could give a false positive if they have a drunk passenger).
135

Because of the Clery Campus Crime Act colleges and universities are required to make information about incidents on campus available to the public. At my son’s school they publish their police call logs monthly…so I checked out September 2021. The campus police have an expanded jurisdiction that reaches out into the community because of the prevalence of off campus housing.

There were 9 “Medical assist - alcohol related illness” calls in September. All required an ambulance to respond, and 4 of the 9 patients required transport to the local emergency room. EVERY call was to a freshman dorm, on campus.

There was a drug overdose call that occurred off campus.

There were two alleged sexual assaults and one forcible fondling. All three occurred in on campus residence halls.

There are no fraternities on campus, they are all off campus, but they would be included in these reports.

136

I had to laugh at that.

The boss of my national is a woman. And it’s not her first time at being the boss of a national. She might be described as middle-aged, but I wouldn’t go there.

1 Like
137

Uh - yes? Just like in real, adult life:
We choose individually who our friends are. We don’t need them to seek approval by a group of other people first, and undergo whatever “challenges”, or pledge allegiance to whatever group, just to prove they are worthy to my friendship?

4 Likes
138

I would take that report with a grain of salt: That person seemed to struggle with a large list of social and other issues, incl. how to make two consecutive Ivy Leagues work for him that his parents had coerced him to attend. His blunt generalizations, and the perception of his interactions with various entities/resources at the university, were in stark contrast with the realities that other peoples experienced first-hand.

If nothing else, I had pointed out that my daughter had joined two relevant/active clubs without having to overcome any barriers that he thought he saw everywhere, and that she got interviews at two full year internships after applying in the Spring, hired by one, through leads through her Univ.

2 Likes
139

Wait, you can’t come up with examples in “real, adult life,” that approximate the Greek process?

I’ll start….

Country clubs fit the bill. They’re exclusionary. You need to be sponsored by someone, pass the committee’s sniff test, then jump through a number of hoops, all for the privilege of a high price tag and a pass to get through the front gate. They decide whether they want to choose you to have the opportunity to be their friend.

140

Lots of Google Sigma Frat members here

141

If there are any exclusionary country clubs on college campuses, they should be thrown off or reconfigured.

1 Like