Paying for the Party-- How College Maintains Inequality

[marie1234]

" I was surprised women who hadn’t been in sororities, and didn’t have daughters participating, wanted to spend time arguing in favor of a selective system.’

That’s me. But, I do have kids involved in lots of other very selective activities and getting over disappointment and learning to wipe away tears and deal has been invaluable. Win some. Lose some. And, keep moving forward. Never for a second did I think daughter would want to get involved in sororities which have a pretty big presence at her school but she really could not care less. Now, my son could have gone either way and I’m glad he passed on the whole thing but that doesn’t mean I want them banned which is not going to happen,anyway. No-one cares what I want and that’s fine, too…

[Cardinal_Fang]

I agree that if there are sororities, they should get members by lottery. It would just be like a house system, but for women only. I haven’t spent time advocating that system because I don’t think that proposal is going anywhere.

[alh]

I never imagined it was going anywhere. I don’t imagine this idea of eliminating them entirely from campus is going anywhere either.

ETA: Maybe it’s worthwhile giving those who don’t understand the system a sense of what is going on. That is why I’ve been posting about recs on and on while PG fusses about southern sororities for requiring recs. She kept telling me it was all good out in the midwest.

I’ve been taking her word for it and now feel like I’m experiencing one of those temporal rifts or something.

[barrons]

Anyone that lets some group define their social situation is going to have a tough time. I have known too many IU grads that were proud GDIs to believe this claptrap of a book. Believe it or not profs have agendas and can be ruthless and liars.
I also think the various student review sites give a much truer picture of IU–for example

https://www.■■■■■■■■■■/colleges/Indiana-University-Bloomington/reviews#!/show/23821

[dstark]

I read the IU sorority blog up to 2013…it is 2015… Nothing has changed?

CF is very sharp. I was reading people say just apply to the less popular sororites. I found that amusing.

The system is set up to reject quite a few girls.

This whole topic reminds me of a Groucho Marx quote.

I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.

Is the appeal of these sororities their exclusivity?

Nobody has to answer this. I find the sorority thing a little disgusting.

[Cardinal_Fang]

Did you read the book, barrons? What part of it do you not believe? Do you think the floor doesn’t exist, the women don’t exist, and the researchers made it all up? Or do you think the researchers were lying when they said the lower SES women on that particular floor were unhappy and the only ones who succeeded transferred out (except the one who was in the special program)?

Seems to me that you’re making an extraordinary claim that you don’t believe this book.

[alh]

I’ll admit to having been a bit skeptical of the book’s claims after reading it. After reading four years of blog posts, I’m no longer the least bit skeptical.

I’m sort of in disbelief.

[HImom]

From my limited experience in rushing and pledgnig a sorority and having sibs who were in frats and sororities, I met a disproportionate number of “mean” folks while rushing and pledging, so much so that I depledged during finals week, just when they wanted me to participate in a kangaroo court to tell me my failings in not being sufficiently “supportive of my pledge sisters” who like me were frazzled for being harassed by the “sorority sisters.” It was truly dreadful but it was interesting to be exposed to the sorority.

I was not surprised when the other pledges ended up on academic probation & the sorority was disbanded shortly after I left to transfer to a different U where I did NOT participate (or even learn if they had any Greek scene). I got involved in dorm activities and the YWCA on campus and helped re-start a freshman and sophomore honor society which had been dormant on our campus, with the support of my boss, the vice-provost on campus. I created my tribe as a transfer; I was lower middle income (our family of 9 lived mostly on dad’s salary).

[barrons]

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/04/01/colleges-party-emphasis-maintain-economic-social-inequality-new-research-suggests

See many of the comments. Bad sociology. Who was in and left out of this “study” on what basis.
I read plenty about this when it came out. I dont need to read biased academic trash. Will anyone ever replicate this work or is it just a snapshot as seen by two people with obvious agendas? Time will tell.

[barrons]

Author’s CV is interesting reading too

http://sites.lsa.umich.edu/elizabetharmstrong/wp-content/uploads/sites/218/2015/01/Armstrong-CV-November-1-2014.docx…pdf

[dadx]

I liked this commenter’s analysis from the link above.

Do the numbers, how many “excellent or better students” (the term all of these writers and commenators use that is never defined) are there nationally or even internationally and then divide those numbers into the number of universities there are nationally (and now internationally) and how many institutions do you come up with that would remain open!! Get real will you folks, policies that are designed to accomodated 80% of outh as opposed to 20% are not going to produce the universities that these and other writers are calling for and their 'reverse elitism."

[Cardinal_Fang]

On the flip side, one of my daughters received no bid, which meant there was no envelope. She was forced to watch as girls shriek up and down the hallways of the dorm. Her roommate was given a bid for the same sorority that she had hoped to be a part of, and watched as they decorated her room with balloons and streamers from the sorority that rejected her. This is just unusually cruel and punishing behavior, to watch your roommate being “crowned” while you sit rejected.

I too am a “victim” of the IU recruitment system. 25 years ago I was left without a bid on bid day. I moved on, but it was difficult. I was isolated, and never felt truly part of anything in college.

My daughter also went through recruitment last week. She was so excited, and nervous. We went shopping and spent quite a bit of money to get the REQUIRED clothing and prepare her for the different parties. She was invited back to the full 14 houses, then 8, and also pref night. But no bids. She was devastated.

One more thing I forgot to say. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise…it is expensive! We were told some info regarding the financials and figured out it would be about 300 or so dollars more than living in the dorms ( for the year), but that was not correct. My hubby is responsible for making the payments in our house, but I believe a good guess is that living and participating in a sorority costs between 8 and 9 thousand dollars per year. My daughter has to buy mandatory clothes for different events the sorority participates in. We just got 150.00 bill for the latest purchases. We also had to buy specific pieces of clothing and shoes for recruitment. She also still needs a limited meal plan because Friday-Sunday evenings no meals are provided. She loves sorority and we are glad that we are able to make this work, but it is a stretch.

[from a woman who was rejected twice at Indiana, then transferred to an SEC school and joined a sorority]We can pretend all day long that looks don’t matter, but of course they do. As I said before, I’ve been through it on the other side (albeit at a different school), and of course looks matter. Keep in mind for all of the rest of my story, I had a high GPA, recs, was a legacy, and am very attractive.

Last January, when we experienced this with my daughter, I actually did follow-up and I had lengthy conversations with several administrators, and with the national chapter of the sorority for which my daughter was a legacy. The national office said that every year, the day after IU bid day is the worst day because they know they will get tons of calls from parents like all of us. They said they do not like IU’s system, and have voiced their opinion to change it many times. [Fang says, Their opinion? Opinion? Here’s the opinion the administration ought to issue: “We’ve been putting up with this for thirty years, and this is the end. If you don’t stop devastating 800 women this year, sororities are out of IU next year. We’ll remove all support. Thank you for listening, good-bye.” Stop pussyfooting. ]

[Cardinal_Fang]

@barrons

Who was in and left out of this “study” on what basis.

I see. So you’re trashing this book on the basis of-- nothing, really, since you haven’t read it and don’t know what you’re talking about.

The researchers picked a floor in a party dorm. They were there from the first day the women moved in, and they followed the women for five years. They couldn’t have cherry-picked the women, because they didn’t know anything about them before the study, except that the women had elected to be in this party dorm area or had been placed there.

Edited to add this, from Elizabeth Armstrong’s CV:

1998 Ph.D. Sociology, University of California, Berkeley
1990 M.A. Sociology, University of California, Berkeley
1988 B.A. Computer Science and Sociology, University of Michigan
Highest Distinction Honors in Computer Science

I’m supposed to not be impressed by that? Sorry, I’m very impressed.

[alh]

She’s a full professor at a prestigious university. Her peers think she’s pretty impressive.

[dstark]

I am pretty impressed too…

[Cardinal_Fang]

She’s not a full professor-- she’s young-- but she’s an associate professor at Michigan. Come on, look at this CV, the woman is an academic star:

Professor Armstrong joined the Department of Sociology and the Organizational Studies Program at the University of Michigan in 2009. Before that, she held a faculty appointment in the Department of Sociology at Indiana University. She was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and a recipient of a National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship. She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Sociology at the University of California-Berkeley and a B.A. in Sociology and Computer Science from the University of Michigan.

[alh]

CF: she is listed as “Professor” on the dept web site. What am I missing?

Professor = full professor
right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_ranks_%28United_States%29

[Cardinal_Fang]

This is what I found, but maybe it’s not up to date?
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~elarmstr/bio.html

Edited to add: alh, I’m sure you’re right, and her bio just hasn’t been updated yet. Certainly her department must know her title!

[alh]

It looks like she was promoted in 2014, according to the CV barrons posted.

I do think she is “impressively” young to hold that title.

eta: and I’m never sure I’m right about anything!

[romanigypsyeyes]

Profs are bad about maintaining their personal websites. She is a full prof. This is her official title(s):

Professor of Sociology, Professor of Organizational Studies and Professor of Women’s Studies, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts and Faculty Associate, Population Studies Center, Institute for Social Research

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting with her several times. She was one of my contacts last year when I was designing and implementing the college-based sexual assault prevention program. Wonderful woman and incredibly smart.

She also advises a few of my friends and sits on others’ committees. I have taken quite a few grad-level sociology classes at U of M but none with her… yet. Our interests overlap considerably though so I imagine I’ll be taking one or more with her in the near future

I haven’t read her book so I can’t really comment to that. I’ve read many of her other pieces though and her writing is top notch and extremely accessible. I often find sociology writing to be tedious and dense but hers is neither.