Princeton: No Freshman Rush, Stronger Anti-Hazing Policies, Re-establish Campus Pub
 

A “working group” at Princeton has issued several recommendations, including eliminating freshman fraternity and sorority rush, increasing its anti-hazing policies and efforts, and reinstating a campus pub. See:

http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/a...ion=topstories

While Princeton University undergraduates express high levels of satisfaction with social and residential life, a working group of students, faculty and staff is recommending several changes to enhance this essential element of the campus experience.

. . . Its key recommendations include:
• Students should be prohibited from affiliating with a fraternity or sorority or engaging in any form of rush at any time during the freshman year, or from conducting or having responsibility for any form of rush in which freshmen participate. The penalty for violating these prohibitions should be severe enough to encourage widespread compliance, which probably means a minimum penalty of suspension.

• The University should significantly increase its commitment to enforce policies that prohibit serious forms of hazing wherever it occurs, and the University should become even more vigilant in imposing highly consequential disciplinary penalties on students found to have engaged in hazing that seriously threatened the health and well-being of any student.

• The working group concurs with the widespread and strongly held view across a broad range of campus constituencies that it would be desirable to reinstate a campus pub that would be open to all undergraduates, graduate students, faculty and staff and help to model the responsible use of alcohol. . . .

See also:

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2011/05/02/28493/

A) Can you even make that no-freshman-rush rule? Would NPC and IFC allow that?

B) I'm not sure if it will accomplish what they say they hope to accomplish. If affiliating with a GLO and then probably being funneled into a specific eating club happens, it happens. Waiting until sophomore year just means they will meet more people before it happens. Also, are people in GLOs complaining about feeling isolated from everyone else?

C) Won't this be like Spring semester recruitment, where you spend the first semester keeping up appearances and schmoozing? Instead you just spend a year doing it?

Bucknell University in Pennsylvania does not allow freshmen to join. Their student participation in Greek Life is over 50%.

Oh, okay. I was just curious, as I have never heard of this before. That being said, I am fairly new to all of this.

It's not a common thing. Several colleges do have 2nd semester rush (there's a thread somewhere) for freshmen. I only know of Bucknell requiring sophomore standing to participate in rush. There might be another one or two.

Second semester formal recruitment doesn't seem like a rare thing, from what I've read/heard. A school nearby does it, and I don't think they have much in the way of informal in the fall.

So shouldn't that also eliminate the bicker process for the selective eating clubs?

To the best of my knowledge, Colgate has a sophomore-standing policy for NPC recruitment, too.

http://www.colgate.edu/offices/campu...cruitment.html

Good point.

Dartmouth also has no rush until Sophomore year.

And it does turn into a year of schmoozing, though not so much of keeping up appearances. For sororities, there are pre rush events in the spring of freshman year, billed as "open house" type things and not as recruitment events. And fraternities also have a number of pre rush events in the spring, based on lists they've formed over the course of fall and winter.

Surely, if fraternities & sororities are not recognised by the University, then the university has no say over how they operate

I went to the official Princeton link and this is copied verbatim:

Students should be prohibited from affiliating with a fraternity or sorority or engaging in any form of rush at any time during the freshman year, or from conducting or having responsibility for any form of rush in which freshmen participate. The penalty for violating these prohibitions should be severe enough to encourage widespread compliance, which probably means a minimum penalty of suspension.

Recognition doesn't mean anything at a private school, and a minimum penalty of suspension is going to be quite the deterrent. You're right that Princeton can't tell fraternities and sororities how to operate, but they can tell their students what is and isn't acceptable and control operations by cutting off the supply of new members.

this quote just made me wonder what kind of penalty Princeton could impose, seeing as GLOs aren't allowed to use their facilities.

But then I don't know how it works up there

I believe Lafayette and Dickinson do so as well.

A "no freshmen" policy basically encourages students to go to schools closer to home to get those first few credits out of the way. It also eliminates an "upperclassman quota."

Unless hazing is out of control (and if it were, I'd think they'd give Greek Life the death penalty...so it's obviously not THAT bad) I see no reason to force student who want to go Greek out of the process. I see the leading to NPC getting involved = and maybe even a reduction in the size of Greek Life on this campus.

Good luck getting any new colonizations...

I'm not sure someone who is accepted to Princeton will skip out on that for Greek life.

While that might be true at a state school, I doubt it's the case for Princeton. They're also not that worried about new colonizations.

These recognition vs. prohibition shenanigans happen every 3-4 years like clockwork. Throw in some "well, what about the eating clubs?" for good measure.

If the powers that be at Princeton really dont like greek life, then dont they have the power to shut it down entirely?

I'm not saying it should happen, I'm just pondering why they keep making a big deal about it if they truly dont want it on their campus unless they fear the ramifications of greek life moving underground.

I think it's a little more complicated. At least as of a few years ago, the administration did not want to shut them down entirely because of the role that the NPHC groups (which thrive there) play in the lives of African-American students, who are less likely to join eating clubs. Also, the NPHC groups tend to be less social (with fewer alcohol violations) and more service-based, which makes administrators happy.

Not getting new colonizations? Bucknell has had 2 within the last 10 years or so (Chi O and ADPi).

Dartmouth has as well--Aphi and KD, with DZ lined up already as soon as the school is open for expansion.

I think the real purpose, at least at D, of not allowing rush until sophomore year is to make sure that people find a niche on campus outside of Greek Life. People have a whole year to figure out their place on campus before joining a house, and so people already do lots of things and have other friends. That's also why greek houses don't have chefs or real dining rooms--its to prevent individual houses and the Greek community from being separate from the non Greek community. That still happens to an extent, but a lot less than elsewhere, especially with such an open system. Downside: an entire year hearing about stereotypes and rankings.

I think its something that's really going to depend on the culture of the individual school, whether it could work.

"should be" =/= "is."

I go to Stanford, and we have extremely deferred recruitment. We are one of the few privates on the quarter system, and our rush is at the beginning of spring quarter (first weeks of April). The advantage is that you establish yourself at the university before beginning Greek life. Also I think rush numbers are higher, just because people aren't as worried about whether they will be able to balance academics with Greek life, since they already know what is demanded of them, academically. The down side is that dirty rushing is more prevalent, since GLOs have essentially a whole year to scout out the frosh class. Also tent talk is a huge problem. Since the freshman have been around for so long, they know all the reputations of the different institutions. It leads to a lot of girls going through rush thinking "I want to be a _____ or a ________, and if I don't get it, I will drop out." And a lot of girls do end up dropping out of recruitment, which is sad.

:)

More reporting on the subject from Princeton's student paper:

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2011/05/04/28507/

I bet they have stellar retention rates, though. No one gets halfway into their pledge period and suddenly learns that they joined the nerd/fat/party/athletic house by mistake.

I think second semester/spring rush could be fine as people are through an academic period and also are living in their residential colleges during rush and pledging/new member period. If hazing is a concern people aren't living in a chapter facility or with members so there are people who may notice problems. Wasn't that suggested a few years ago, moving it to second semester freshman year?

if I read right, bicker is the second half of the sophomore year. How busy and chaotic could it be to rush in the fall, bicker in the spring, and then go on a junior year abroad, then come back to be a senior who has been away from their chapter and is now finishing up school so they may be in a studio or lab, doing a practicum or internship, or just check out because they are seniors.

Found what I was looking for, articles about moving rush, hazing, and other Greek stuff.

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2010/04/26/25997/
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2010/04/27/26010/
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2010/04/28/26022/
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2010/04/29/26048/
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2010/04/30/26063/

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2010/04/28/26019/

As someone who goes to a school with sophomore recruitment, I absolutely love it. While I wish I should spend four years in my sorority, as a northerner who didn't know much about greek life, I wasn't that enthusiastic about rush as a freshman. It took a full year of being exposed to greek life through upperclassmen friends to really warm up to it, and now of course I love it. Deferred recruitment also let me adjust to classes, etc. and make friends in other GLOs. I don't know that I would have met these women/formed such solid friendships if right away we were divided into different sororities and had new member ed with lots of pledge class bonding to go through.

I was not dirty rushed at all, and none of my friends were either. I am sure there are groups that do it, but it is not the norm by any stretch.