<p>I’m not much for ‘banning’ anything legal and acceptable, so I suppose if I were King of the World I’d leave them alone with supervison, of course. </p>
<p>To the extent that college kids drink too much and sometimes act like loud-mouthed idiots, I don’t like it. But, that’s not really a product of fraternities or sororities. It’s a product of youth and being on your own for the first time (and maybe being a little immature). Being an idiot and getting drunk and rowdy happens outside frats and sororities. Having said that, though, I’m not a big fan of fraternities and sororities since they can exude a kind of “us vs. them” elitism and closed-mindedness at times.</p>
<p>In my own fraternity at Colgate, I spent one year as Pledge Chairman (a weighty position!) when we adopted my idea of an “open housing” system: Anyone who wanted to join could join as long as they had one sponsor who was already a member. All they had to do was sign up alongside their sponsor’s name after having visited the house a few times. This way we weren’t tempted to “black ball” or otherwise trivialize people (a policy we already didn’t use, by the way). </p>
<p>We got a full pledge class of students who were at least as good as any other pledge class the fraternity had ever had – about 30 new members. Everyone was pleased and we didn’t have to go through interviews, endless visits, voting on new members, and so on. If you wanted to live with us and knew someone, you could just join. </p>
<p>Did we get a few marginal characters? I don’t recall, but I suppose so. But, we had always voted in a few people we later regretted, anyway. That’s the way I’d do it in every fraternity and sorority. Set up a simple membership system, let those who want to be members join (with a sponsor or two) and that way the frats and sororities would really just be “interest group” houses without all the silly and old-fashioned fraternity mumbo-jumbo. The interest group would be “people I want to live with,” I guess. </p>
<p>My fraternity was Phi Kappa Tau and we had the highest GPA of any living unit (fraternity or dorm) on campus, a Rhodes scholar included. So we weren’t hurting for excellent members, and many of my fraternity brothers went on to become lawyers, doctors, teachers, ministers, business owners, and so on. I still dropped out, though, because I wanted to live on my own. </p>
<p>So I think I have a more nuanced view than many people who see them only as cliches. If they were banned, I wouldn’t particularly object, I suppose. I thought Colgate’s previous President, Rebecca Chopp, was moving in that direction, and I wonder if one reason she left was all the opposition she received from “old boys” who romantacized their college days and fought to keep them? I don’t know. In either case, you get to choose how you want to live – and that should be part of the Colgate Spirit.</p>