The Greek Decision...

[Consolation]

I'm glad to know that you give **equal** weight to the positive stories, redpoint.

[MizzBee]

Excellent point, Hunt, which is why when a group is expelled from campus it is normally for 4 years. Long enough for everyone involved and those that were on campus to leave. When looking at schools with my DS, we always asked about chapters that I knew from my past. At one school the jock chapter (always IM champs, 1/2 membership in the 80s was football players) has become, proudly, the gamer/IT house. Lots of crazy smart engineering types that only throw a ball if it is inside a Madden computer game. I was able to ask an alum how he felt about the change to his chapter and he said that "the boys" are still great brothers and it does him proud every time they win something for GPA or philanthropy.
In the same vein, I was dismayed to hear that my old house has more of a sorostitute reputation than it did in the past. Hopefully that will change in the next few years as well.

[collegealum314]

In the same vein, I was dismayed to hear that my old house has more of a sorostitute reputation than it did in the past. Hopefully that will change in the next few years as well.

That's unfortunate. I suggest removing all the pillows from the house. That should solve the problem.

[MizzBee]

Images of Animal House dance in my mind!

[cobrat]

Images of Animal House dance in my mind!

The major difference with Animal House was that they were the ostracized uncool misfit house few people at Faber College wanted to be associated with.....and they not only shrugged it off...but also took on the establishment fraternities/sororities, tyrannical snobby members like Neidermayer and Marmalard...and the epitome of the prevailing establishment Dean Wormer.

When we mention negative experiences with fraternities/sororities...the groups we're talking about tend to lean much closer to the snobby entitled a**h**e Omegas rather than the anti-establishment "screw establishment" Deltas.**

The Deltas are not too much different from the protagonists from Revenge of the Nerds* or most non-conservatory students at my undergrad....always going against the prevailing establishment and their asskissing collaborating flunkies like Neidermayer and the Omegas.

* Admittedly...this is not too surprising as it was probably an attempt to cash in on the popularity of Animal House.

** On the anti-establishment front...politically active classmates at my non-Greek LAC have accomplished much IRL....whether it is advocating for abolitionism and actively participating in the "Underground Railroad" during the antebellum/civil war*** to more recent efforts such as '60's era civil rights/anti-Vietnam war/women's rights and more recently my college classmates' successful efforts in calling attention to and eventually forcing unremitting scrutiny and the forcing shutdown of the School of the Americas which trained South American dictators notorious for human rights abuses like Manuel Noriega, Leopoldo Galtieri of Argentinian "Dirty War" fame, and many more. This included acts of civil disobedience like protesting on the base itself. Granted, they have reopened it under another name...but they're under much greater public scrutiny and pressure now.

*** The town and the college of Oberlin was considered by many pro-slavery southerners as one of the key causes of the Civil War by some journalists of that period. It even received a shoutout from pro-slavery Cadet Corporal Bent in the '80s Civil War TV series "North & South".

[Bay]

When we mention negative experiences with fraternities/sororities...the groups we're talking about tend to lean much closer to the snobby entitled a**h**e Omegas rather than the anti-establishment "screw establishment" Deltas.**

Nah, the Delts took advantage of underage girls, married women and grieving co-eds - they were misogynists with no shame, and drank, flunked out and glorified destruction by smashing a car, killing a horse and desecrating a community parade.

Despite all of that, they loved each other and their frat and had a h*ll of a lot of fun.

[Bay]

And p.s., they ended up as physicians, politicians, and high up in the CIA, if I remember correctly.

[collegealum314]

^Bluto became a senator and one of the other guys was pre-law (or was it premed?)

[Bay]

^I think Otter became a gynecologist (?)

[IthacaKid]

Hollywood Gynecologist at that!

[Pizzagirl]

Since my H is an ob/gyn, we always snicker at that part in the closing credits.

[coureur]

What Became of the Animal House characters:

Deltas:
John Belushi as John "Bluto" Blutarsky: he eventually became a United States senator.
Tim Matheson as Eric "Otter" Stratton: He becomes a gynecologist in Beverly Hills.
Peter Riegert as Donald "Boon" Schoenstein: He marries Katy in 1964, but they divorce in 1969 and later re-divorce and then re-re-marry.
Thomas Hulce as Lawrence "Pinto" Kroger: becomes the editor of National Lampoon magazine.
Stephen Furst as Kent "Flounder" Dorfman: became a sensitivity trainer in Cleveland.
Bruce McGill as Daniel Simpson Day, "D-Day": whereabouts are unknown.
James Widdoes as Robert Hoover: He becomes a public defender in Baltimore.
Douglas Kenney as "Stork": he has died.

Omegas:
James Daughton as Gregory Marmalard: He becomes a Nixon White House aide and is subsequently raped in prison in 1974.
Mark Metcalf as Douglas C. Neidermeyer: He is fragged (killed by his own platoon) in Vietnam.
Kevin Bacon as Chip Diller: he became a born-again Christian missionary in Africa.

Supporting characters:
John Vernon as Dean Vernon Wormer: he was fired after the Homecoming parade debacle and is now in a nursing home.
Donald Sutherland as Professor Dave Jennings: he became Chairman of Faber's English Department the same year that Dean Wormer entered the nursing home.
Karen Allen as Katy: See Boon Schoenstein.
Mary Louise Weller as Mandy Pepperidge: She marries Bluto.
Martha Smith as Barbara Sue "Babs" Jansen: she becomes a tour guide at Universal Studios Hollywood.

[cobrat]

Mark Metcalf as Douglas C. Neidermeyer: He is fragged (killed by his own platoon) in Vietnam.

Actually, he survived his fragging in Vietnam to have a family in which he attempted to disdainfully condemn his older son's love of Twisted Sister before getting confronted by that band and being tossed randomly around by them.

Twisted Sister - We're Not Gonna Take It - YouTube

[Bay]

Thanks for the detailed follow-up coureur. It made me realize that when I said this:

they ended up as physicians, politicians, and high up in the CIA, if I remember correctly

...for some reason I must have been thinking about George Bush, Sr., who was a DKE at Yale.