<p>Each college community has to make a choice and assess whether having fraternities and sororities will add to or detract from campus community and life. </p>
<p>Some campuses don’t have them due to lack of student interest while others ban them in part/totally due to past history or perceptions such organizations mainly detract from the campus community. </p>
<p>Other campuses feel they enhance and contribute far more positive than negative factors to the campus community. </p>
<p>I enjoyed my time attending a college where fraternities/sororities didn’t exist on campus. </p>
<p>That’s not to say I feel every undergrad should be deprived of having the fraternity/sorority experience if that’s what they want. However, the national greek organizations and the relevant admins really do need to do more about the hazing, sexual assault, and heavy drinking/partying culture on campuses where they are serious issues. </p>
<p>I went to Yale at a time that there were only a couple of fraternities, and they had very little impact on campus life. The center of social life was in the residential colleges, and I loved the system. Now, the fraternities and sororities are much more active at Yale, probably because social events at the residential colleges can no longer provide alcohol. In my opinion, the change at Yale from the growth of fraternities and sororities has been mostly negative. There are more social divisions (especially among girls), and residential college coherence has been weakened. Plus, there are repeated problems at some of the fraternities.</p>
<p>It’s pretty clear that fraternities and sororities can provide a positive experience, but they can also be pretty toxic. You have to look at the specifics of the Greek system, and of the specific chapter, to really evaluate them. And you have to be aware that they change over time.</p>
<p>I said upfront that I would prefer to see residential colleges instead of Greek houses, but I should add that my S was a member of a fraternity and he did take leadership roles that he would have been highly unlikely to take elsewhere, since he is a rather introverted person who is not the BMOC type. He also learned a lot about organizational behavior that he would have been unlikely to glean elsewhere, for pretty much the same reason. There are definitely significant ways in which it was a broadening experience for him. But he thinks his school would be better off without them.</p>
<p>Fraternities also provide tutoring assistance to their members. Most of them have a vested interested in making sure their members stay academically eligible. </p>
<p>National/International Greek organizations provide something Residential Colleges cannot. You have a broad network of brothers or sisters to call upon for help in anything from establishing a charity or charity event to getting a job in a new city. RC’s scope is by definition limited to a small group within one university. Just in sheer terms of scope the Greek system gives someone a huge advantage. I would argue that the feeling of brotherhood is much deeper and stronger than it would be in an RC where one is thrust into a relationship with strangers merely based on chance or on choice of major field of study.</p>
<p>I get why students, especially at certain schools, join fraternities and sororities. If you’re at a large university and don’t have an intense EC to provide a ready-made social group, Greek organizations can provide a sense of community that might otherwise be difficult to find. If you go to any size school that is Greek dominated, you also might find your social (and perhaps housing and dining) options outside the system limited. As for drug and alcohol abuse, hazing, and sexual assault, those are not necessary elements of that culture and there are certainly frats and sororities that don’t engage in outrageous behaviors (or, at least, no more than people do in the general population), so it isn’t an existential argument against them.</p>
<p>What I’ve never bought is the justification for exclusive social groups, or how that is anything other than a net negative for a campus culture. Obviously, all of us make choices about who we want to spend most of our time with. But there’s a big difference between an individual deciding not to pursue a friendship and a group making someone go through a process to decide whether or not they’re worth socializing with and then telling them they didn’t make the cut. To preempt the usual argument, this is also not the same as an acapella group, sports team, or a university itself, as all of these organizations are judging you based on particular talents, and there are pretty obvious reasons for exclusivity. </p>
<p>At literally every other stage of life, most people manage to figure out who we want to socialize with without a formal mechanism for exclusion. We join (non-selective) organizations and choose professions, schools, and communities where we are likely to find people who share our interests and values. Within those groups, we gravitate to certain people with whom we get along particularly well. Sometimes, those groups will include some people we don’t like, and we find ways of minimizing our interactions with them. And yeah, there are times when I think my life would be marginally better if I could cut a few people out of my social orbit entirely, but not to the extent that I would want to do something - or that it would even be worth doing something - as obviously hurtful as excluding them from those respective groups. </p>
<p>I hire people for my job. Personally, I ignore any leadership position in a fraternity/sorority. Not saying it is right, but that is my opinion. I have my own life experiences that I take to work every day. Don’t assume what you put on your resume is valued by the person reading your resume.</p>
<p>@apprenticeprof “But there’s a big difference between an individual deciding not to pursue a friendship and a group making someone go through a process to decide whether or not they’re worth socializing with and then telling them they didn’t make the cut.”</p>
<p>Isn’t this the entire college application process? :-)</p>
<p>My daughter has the viewpoint apprenticeprof expresses, which is the reason she didn’t want to go to Princeton: she felt that there was too much social stratification based on the selective eating clubs. I’m sorry to say that she has found more of it than she expected at Yale; much more than in my day. Back then, it was mostly limited to the secret societies, which were limited to seniors and which actually were pretty secret, so they didn’t affect most people very much.</p>
<p>bp0001, sounds like you are proud of punishing kids who were members of Greek organizations for whatever happened to you way back when. </p>
<p>I think that everyone knows that people have different reactions to different affiliations. If I put on my resume that I am a trustee of a certain organization, or served on the state board of another, I know that there are some people out there who would react negatively.</p>
<p>But frankly, I wouldn’t want to work with those people.</p>
<p>Both my girls joined sorrorities. Oldest quit her sophomore year. Too busy in the arts. Youngest loves it. H was in a fraternity. I’m a GDI. We also belong to a tennis club, and some organized charities, as adults. I fundraise politically and H has a group of guys he fishes with still. Etc… I have a book club. H is one of a few men in the garden club, I jokingly call his sorrority Life is like this. People join up to do the things they like together. For example, church/temple. </p>
Thank you! I was in a sorority and enjoyed every minute of it. I was a commuter and Greek life is what made college for me. It’s funny, though - over the years I’ve heard a lot of criticism of the Greek system by non-Greeks. I once had a co-worker actually get angry at me and demand to know how I could have participated in such a thing. But I seldom hear Greeks, former or present, criticizing non-Greeks for their choice not to join. Hmmm - wonder why that is?</p>
<p>I mentioned philanthropy as an example of what Greek chapters bring to the school and surrounding community. That message is meant to mitigate the Greek system in the eyes of the haters and perhaps dispell fears that soon-to-be students may have.</p>
<p>We weren’t doing philanthropic work every day, but we did take on some type of project each semester. </p>
<p>(Of course, the fun and camaraderie were the best attributes…)</p>
<p>I am not punishing them. I didn’t say I have never hired someone who was greek. I’ve hired an officer of his fraternity. I don’t value that leadership position and it had no impact on my hiring decision.</p>
I’ve noticed that in discussions of Greek systems, one of the most common defenses of Greek systems is that the one the particular person attended didn’t have the negative characteristics people are talking about. I think this means that one shouldn’t generalize too much, but that cuts both ways. This topic wouldn’t come up if a substantial majority of Greek chapters were non-exclusive, didn’t promote binge drinking, and didn’t promote negative sexual attitudes (etc., etc., etc.). I think the problem is that there are too many bad apples–we read about new outrages every year. This is a big PR problem for Greek systems that aren’t like that.</p>
<p>Too many people in our society love to make assumptions about groups they do not like, especially when negative news comes out about some of the members of that group.</p>
<p>Very few Greek systems actually have severe problems. There are some that have very vocal opponents who relish dragging them down. I suspect those journalists who were rejected or have a low self-image, but that is just my personal bias toward unscrupulous journalists. That is not to say there have not been some really stupid things that some houses have done over the years. The reputation is much, much worse than the reality.</p>
<p>I think if you compared other parties involving people from 18-22 and fraternity parties, you will see they are very similar. People drink. Some people hook-up. Some people do really stupid things. Every once is a while someone does something felonious. By and large it is just a group of kids in a somewhat high pressure environment blowing off steam. </p>
<p>Don’t let the bad apples destroy your opinion of a bunch of good people. </p>
<p>Why not? Are there other leadership positions you DO value?</p>
<p>When I was hiring I was not looking for leadership qualities, so I didn’t pay attention to that kind of thing. But if those qualities are relevant to your hiring, that’s another matter. </p>