I tend to agree with you Hunt, but note that the OP is about fraternities and sororities, and oftentimes people (including posters on this thread) refer to Greeks or the Greek system when making generalizations, so it makes sense to distinguish the activities of sororities.
Seems to me it’s pretty easy to categorize if someone is part of a group. Trying to imagine the number of offenses if we looked at “Every Time A College or University Got in Trouble This Year.”
@Xiggi, I know you love to bring up Dr. Kim, whose brief tenure as Dartmouth’s president ended several years ago, but do note that the current President, Phil Hanlon, a D alum, is presiding over what looks to be a successful overhaul of the Greek scene there with the active participation of the fraternities and sororities, even to the point of de-recognizing his OWN fraternity. Perhaps more to the point, Hanlon has instituted a pretty tough anti-drinking policy that extends to the dorms. AD, by the way, has just lost its zoning board appeal and will no longer be able to house students, even though the chapter actually owns the house. It was known in advance that this would be a result of de-associating the chapter from the college.
I agree that tolerance for what used to be considered hijinks is considerably lower now, and I think that is a good thing.
I’m not in college yet but I just want to put this out there.
Before ya’ll start commenting that I’m supporting these kinds of offenses, I’m not.
I just want to say that those involved in the activity are the only ones that should be affected for the punishment. If a criminal is convicted, do we send their family to jail just for being related to the criminal? No. So I don’t believe that just because of the wrongdoings of one fraternity or sorority, we should shut down the whole Greek system. What there should be is strict punishment for those that committed the offense. Depending on the severity of the offense, punishments should range from suspension to jail. And to prevent people from going innocent even though they did something wrong, all the activites of ALL clubs on campus should be monitored.
I might be being a little naive here and I know people have found backdoors on this sort of thing, but that happens everywhere. Try as we might, we won’t be able to eliminate all offenses in every college. But we can certainly attempt to lower the number of offenses. As someone who is considering pledging a sorority for the social aspect (meeting new friends, etc.), I believe that there are positives to Greek life and those should not be affected because of the actions of the few.
@marie122 Sorry, but what you may not realize is that the Greek system because of their history(deaths, sexual assault, major property damage, racist incidents…etc) have become basically uninsurable (they are 6th most riskiest activity to insure in the US, ahead of toxic/nuclear waste removal) and have pivoted to what is known as self-insurance. In short, if you are related to incident in a frat/sorority, they will come after your parents personal insurance policies–this is fairly standard now for much of the greek system.
Consolation, I hear you! I understand that you are much more familiar with the recent developments at Dartmouth. Please note that I am obsessed with happens at Dartmouth. I thought it was interesting as the --for the right or wrong reasons-- the school is still associated with the Belushi movie. To be clear, my point about Kim is that much more could have been expected from a person with his background. I am not judging his reign at Dartmouth in terms of what he did for the school. I am simply critical of the positions he took in dealing with the (then) problem and found his positions to be suspect and hardly worthy of praise. However, I also realize he was a political puppet on a transient gig. In so many words, I indict Kim but not the school in general … quite to the contrary as I like it very much.
As far as the issue in general, I also realize that there are few workable solutions to the current problems. In a way, I am simply frustrated that very little has changed in the past decade. People love to form commission to debate the problems ad nauseam when a number of simpler steps could be implemented in dealing with the “percentage” of the fraternities (and other organizations) that have been perennially bad.
Greek organizations are not going away: there is too much support for them! I do, however, think that they could survive and perhaps thrive by working more diligently to clean the Animal House image, and be a forceful partner in penalizing the SAE type of abusers. If the number is indeed 1 percent, one ought to think that the 99 percent would join in eradicating the groups who simply cannot learn to stop engaging in dangerous behavior.
Is it really that hard to permaban chapters that were PROVEN to be bad? I am not talking about hearsay or fabricated cases. I am talking about cases that are beyond doubt.
For the record, I attended an UG school that did not have a Greek presence --it has a very small one now-- but there were plenty of parties. My younger sister participated in Greek life at her school despite fraternities’ rocky history with the leadership of the school. There was no crazy hazing or rush at her organization. I think all of us can recognize the good organization and separate them from the “rough” ones. Yet, we tend to lump them together.
@boolaHI I mean the criminal family thing was just an analogy but even for the self-insurance kind of thing, I would like to say that it’s unreasonable. Why should someone’s parents be punished for their child’s wrongdoing? People in college are adults; they should be responsible for themselves and thus only they should be punished for their own actions.
@marie122 Well, all I can that this was actually determined by the Greek system itself. When the cumulative affect of so many incidents occurring, it became economically unfeasible to obtain a standard policy through regular channels. Thus, this mechanism was brought in as an alternative risk management strategy–thus placing much of the actual financial risk in the hands of parents.
My point is that the Greek system has as it primary objective its own self-preservation. So, when push comes to shove, almost literally, the parents will be the parties pushed under the bus…
Can’t the administrations just take away financial aid to those who have it and an alternate punishment to those who don’t or something? I mean, thinking morally rather than logically, administrations should know that punishing the parents rather than the students would do nothing to prevent future incidents. People with “Rich Daddies” will be able to escape punishments more often than those without much opportunity…
@boolaHI ^^^
forgot to mention you…
If the parents agreed to the liability then I don’t see what the big deal is with that. If the fraternity member is at fault, and his parents insurance covers his activity, then good.
@marie122, taking FA away from a poor kid is effecting expelling him or her. Why should a poor kid be expelled and a rich kid given an “alternative” punishment? Besides, I doubt that it is usually the university that is seeking to recover damages.
no not what i meant at all @Consolation i mean tht usually the poor kids are the ones who have financial aid or even apply for financial aid because they NEED it. but rich kids usually do not get financial aid because they are not eligible and they dont especially NEED it. obviously you can only take away financial aid from kids who have it. and alternate punishments in college are usually equally as difficult and unpleasant as the regular ones. maybe expulsion or suspension (i know that influences your record a lot), etc. im not discriminating at all. jut saying that you cant take away something from people that dont have it.
Here’s a stupid question. Why not just call law enforcement when something happens? Virtually all the problems would be criminal if they happened outside of a college setting. The schools could recognize the greek organizations the same as any other club on campus and wash their hands of the whole punishment aspect outside of any academic issues.
Most of the discussion is about potential physical harm (hazing, drinking, rape, etc), however I see little mention of the academic issues. My experience from Cornell in the 80’s, in both Fraternities and (smart girl) Sororities, was that many had ‘filing cabinets’ full of exams, papers, lab write-ups accessible to members, and/or “brothers” and “sisters” who would happily help you out by giving you a copy of theirs from a prior year. Taking Genetics - here’s a few versions of that fruit fly lab write-up that we know got at least a B…re-type it, re-order some paragraphs, change some of the wording, and there you go. Have to write that English Lit paper on author X - fear not, there are many versions available. I am sure this goes on in other “groups” as well, but the houses actually had a PLACE and an extended “family” that made it easy to accumulate, store and pass these on from year to year. Back then it really was PAPER…the new digital world must make this even easier (although the “re-wording” step is more important now that schools have Turnitin.com and other plagiarism-checking software). Most 1st and 2nd year students living in dorms don’t have the connection to upperclassmen that those in the greek system do, and it’s easy to say ‘yeah, thanks’ to that “big brother” offering to help you out with that tough assignment. After all, you can’t spend all weekend working on that lab, we’ve got a big party Saturday night…
34,many of the Greek houses are owned by the University so they can't just wash their hands of the actual events that happen on their own property.
35, with the internet, anyone has access to all those papers and drafts now. The teachers give out old test papers as study guides. My daughter doesn't get old tests or papers from the sorority but often gets them from the TA's. Most Greek houses have pretty high gpa requirements to join and later participate in social events.
@WhataProcess, I never saw that kind of thing happening at the fraternity I knew well back in the day. Nor did I ever see hazing or sexual assault. (Nor did I hear about them, and I’m pretty sure I would have.) There certainly was drinking, but the drinking age then was 18. And there was plenty of pot smoking. B-) It was the 70s.
We had study files that included old tests. Professors handed these tests back. They were fair game. They served as study guides. If a professor hands something back, it’s not cheating to study from it. How is it different from a non-Greek holding onto a test for a roommate taking the class next semester?
@Pizzagirl Hmmn, so systemic problems like partner abuse, CTE, DWI…etc do not reflect a particular shadow upon the entire NFL? Non sensical …