Sororities seek to change fraternity culture
 

A story out of Penn State:

http://www.philly.com/philly/educati...-20180130.html

I must have missed where being able to wear your letters as soon as you get your bid equals not having a pledge program.

Same article, I think, but no pay wall:

https://www.usnews.com/news/educatio...k-life-culture

This sort of thing reminds me of an orchestra rehearsal I had earlier this week where my section [1st violins] was just mauling the first movement of a particularly difficult symphony. Not only does it contain some really tough licks, but the rhythms seem to be almost at random, the notes come very quickly, are often waaaay up on the instrument where you have to be very precise and so you have this difficult blend of things happening which make it very difficult to play the thing well. It also goes on for pages and pages. We sounded like a pack of wounded cats I'm sure.

A woodwind player suggested that we practice with metronomes. (explanatory note: if you know what this means, you should lol here because no shit we should practice with metronomes [metronomes are beat boxes which help you keep tempo when practicing])

This seems to be a very similar situation. Sororities have for years offloaded all of their liability onto fraternities. We host all of the functions involving alcohol. We host all of the parties on our properties. Sorority members are always happy to attend.

I'm really not interested in what NPC organizations want to tell us we should be doing regarding reducing our liability unless part of that involves NPC organizations setting their own guidelines for their own members to host functions involving alcohol.

This is like the woodwind player, whose part isn't easy, but it's not all that difficult either, coming up with "helpful" suggestions. Fortunately, we're not in a world where the woodwind player can't help the strings do their job better. Sororities actually could do some things to help offload some of the liability. I didn't see any specifics about what suggestions they were offering and I'm happy to know what suggestions they have, but they are in a position where they could actually help. I won't hold my breath though.

I have to admit, the following paragraph shocked me.

"At Penn State, 13 fraternities are under suspension for violations, including hazing and alcohol-related infractions. In comparison, only one sorority — one that is not under the National Panhellenic Council — has been banned for hazing."

Thirteen?! Out of 36?!

Right, but how many sorority members were guests when those alcohol-related infractions occurred?

Exactly Kevin! As a sorority woman, I'm all for reforming the systems that are broken, but the women need to take some responsibility for it as well. They might not be the ones throwing the party, but they know that it's against the rules. Sororities rely on fraternities to host the parties. They bring the booze, we bring the women. Right or wrong, that's the way most do it.

It's not the sororities' job to change the fraternity culture. It's the men's responsibility to change their own culture, if that's what they desire. If the women don't like the fraternity culture, they ought to stop participating with the fraternities.

While I definitely agree it's not their job or responsibility to try to affect our culture, I can see that they are definitely affected in many of these circumstances due to guilt by association.

The solution for fraternities will not be the same as the solution for sororities/women's fraternities. Members of men's organizations don't have the option of simply partying at someone else's house because there is nobody else's house to party at.

If there was a solution to underage drinking, then one of the 50 states which already outlaw it would have figured that one out by now.

Well that's kind of what I am saying. I find it troublesome that the women should say that they want to change fraternity culture, all the while they are partaking in the allegedly inappropriate activities with the fraternities. Like you said upthread somewhere, it's all well and good to say that when you're not the one taking on the liability.

I think, though, that it's the general culture of over-indulgence that needs to be addressed. There's no good reason for any student to be slogging back so much alcohol that it kills them.

The issue is and always will be that young people are programmed to make bad decisions and overindulge.

I would agree with most everyone above, except... look at many of the cases where students are dying due to alcohol. The four cited incidents in the story alone involved the death of a pledge, and all (aside from maybe one) involved hazing.

It's one thing for someone to accidentally get too drunk at a party. It's another to be hazed so heavily by your brothers/sisters that you end up with a BAC well above a .25.

Let's pretend all Greeks start following the FIPG rules and guidelines to a tee when it comes to throwing parties. Do you think the hazing with alcohol would end?

(btw, just to reiterate: I do agree with the posters above that it's not the sororities' place to "fix" the fraternities)

I wonder how many of the students who participated in hazing incidents where alcohol was involved - as instigators or victims - had any experience with or exposure to alcohol before college.

I mean, to me, pressuring someone to drink is so...high school. If one of my sisters didn't want to drink, I couldn't have cared less. The prevailing opinion was "whatever, more for me."

30 years ago, we also didn't have as many people on medications for ADD, depression, what have you. We just didn't. And I think there's probably kids that have been on these meds most of their life and think about it no more than a vitamin, and therefore don't say to themselves "this drug plus alcohol is going to be a hot mess."

If you're following FIPG rules and guidelines, you aren't hazing.

I also don't think we'd have nearly the number of hazing fatalities if alcohol was not involved in the process. If my HQ called me up tomorrow and asked what my recommendation would be to end these fatalities, it would be to remove alcohol from the new member program entirely and make that the focus rather than eradicating hazing right now, today.

In a lot of things, we fail to realize that there are different degrees of bad things. Perhaps we can tolerate the Aziz Anzari version of hazing if we're able to actually do something about the Harvey Weinstein version?

That said, I just want to reiterate that I have a tough time wrapping my mind around how these deaths happen. My chapter does not haze and has never felt the need to haze. Our candidate program is also not six weeks of gifts and it works.

If you mean not allowing NMs to drink while they're pledging, I kind of don't think you can tell someone what to do in their free time. Especially if they happen to be of age.

You can't allow underage brothers and sisters to drink while pledges don't, that's been recognized as hazing since the 1970s.

I don't think that's a thing. As it stands, you aren't supposed to let underage people drink, period.

Speaking from a university standpoint, I was a student orientation leader for my school a few years ago, and part of the program involved teaching the incoming students about drinking, drugs, and what to do if someone needs help. We have protocols in place, for instance, where a student won't get in trouble for drinking underage if they're calling the university EMT service to help out their friend who's too drunk, so that students aren't more worried about their own punishment than the more dire consequences.

However, we did face some pushback from parents during one of the discussion sections we had about that information session, because the parents said the university shouldn't be encouraging students to drink underage. The way our Dean of Students put it, we know many incoming freshman will experiment with alcohol underage, so it's better to teach them how to be safe and how to protect each other from dangerous behavior, than to pretend it doesn't happen at all.

On the fraternity/sorority standpoint, I think acknowledging underage drinking, teaching safe drinking habits, and putting protocols in place to protect students trying to help their friends would definitely curb this issue, but I doubt we'll see many fraternities saying "well we know you're drinking underage, so here's what to do," etc, etc.

In ancient times when I was an undergrad, the drinking age was 18. I don't seem to recall as many stomach pumping adventures and alcohol poisoning deaths as are presently reported. Freshmen could go to bars and drink, which took the importance off fraternity parties as the only way to drink. I think the laws should revert back to a drinking age of 18.

When I went through pledging, in the days of old, we signed a contract stating we would not drink for the entirety of our new member program. Of course, back then we didn't have as much "free time" as pledging has these days. :)

I could not agree more. A huge part of the drinking culture in Greek life at Clemson (and probably other places too) was under-21 members pregaming and drinking tons before an event because they knew they couldn't drink alcohol once they got to the mixer, function, formal, what have you. While a culture shift so members don't feel like they have to drink to have fun would be wonderful, younger members being able to have one or two drinks once they got to an event would seriously cut down on binge drinking.

The drinking age in Vermont was still 18 when she was there and while I'm sure she got up to some shenanigans, I don't think the pressure to pregame was there the way it is now.

I hadn't thought of this but it makes complete sense.

And here's another factor: I work in behavioral health, including working with counselors at colleges, and one thing being noted in the field is that students today are binge-drinking as a way to cope with anxiety, depression, and adjustment disorders.

You don't have to work in mental health to know that college students are under much more pressure than previous generations, amplified by the effects of social media ("everyone else has the perfect life" syndrome). This is also why we see something known as "drunkorexia" - students (not just women, but also men) avoid eating before parties/going out because of fear of weight gain, so they drink on an empty stomach and bingo - totally drunk. "Drunkorexia" is not an official DSM (diagnostic manual for mental health), but is a significant trend and issue. And this is amplified by the "skinny worship" trend as well.

College students have always used drugs and alcohol to numb themselves and cope, but not to the degree that college counselors and health centers see today. So yes, a factor of legal drinking age, but also to cope with stress and anxiety.

Actually, yes, it is a thing. It's hazing.

If a sorority is allowing underage members to drink at sorority events like mixers and formals, they can't say underage pledges aren't allowed to just because they're pledges.

Remember that some of our organizations are international with chapters in Canada where the drinking age is 18-19.

I have a daughter that is pledging right now. She told me that some of the rules given to the new members include no pre-gaming before socials and drink nothing but beer. This is representative of the direction sororities are taking to improve the situation. They can't control if a fraternity is serving vodka but they can control the expectation of their own members that they do not partake. The culture has to change somewhere and I think this is a positive start.

That wouldn't be hazing as I understand it. The definition of hazing varies from group to group. I recall our Oklahoma State chapter had a write up about their new member program in our national magazine which detailed that among other things, candidates (non-initiates) were not allowed to partake of any alcohol during their new member process.

In olden days, back when 18 was the drinking age and before risk reduction rules, a fraternity would spend about $35 (plus deposit) and buy a keg of beer for informal parties -- that would pretty much be it as far as alcoholic beverages at informal events and mixers. Risk reduction policies do not allow this anymore.

I suspect that now it is cheaper and easier to just to have guests buy and bring their own hard liquor for informal gatherings disguised as non-fraternity events in a crude attempt to avoid IFC and university rules as well as liability.

It is extremely difficult to get alcohol poisoning by drinking beer alone. Not that difficult with hard liquor or 190 proof grain alcohol.

My point is that the increased alcohol poisonings can likely be tied to the increase in hard liquor use.

And everything is BYO now because for liability reasons, it is verboten to use fraternity money to purchase alcohol unless it is to procure the services of a cash bar with its own liability policy. And because we've stepped back from controlling the alcohol because we don't want to be liable, we've ceded all of those decisions to kids who would already be doing something illegal in most cases by drinking in the first place. We've also ceded that ground because as an adviser, I don't want to be arrested for contributing to the delinquency of minors when some members decide to throw a house party I don't know about.

PhilTau, You didn't serve trash can punch? As a pledge I was warned to avoid that at all costs. It could be very strong-often made with Everclear, and then, you never knew what else might have been added in. I drank canned Cokes at socials to be safe.

THANK YOU! A lot of orgs don't recognise this. When I was a new member, I was 20 and had to do Greek Life Edu- I was deemed an alcoholic with my one to two drinks a month because I was "underage".

Onto the point, people certainly do pregame/drink, but it doesn't seem to be taken to the same extremes up here. I'd be interested in a comparative study!

That is ridiculous. They should not be saying that to young underage women. If they said that during chapter - they could be held liable if someone were to trip on the stairs or worse pass out and have some man they don't know take them home.

You can still get quite sick off beer and (especially for a small woman) - binge drinking is deadly.
Here is a chart
http://www.brad21.org/bac_charts.html
7 or 8 beers can kill you

Parents need to take more responsibility for inculcating wise values and standards to their children. Parents usually have 16-20 years to work earnestly at same before sending students away to university.

Oh man, Everclear. I had forgotten that.

I'm sorry, but this is bull****.

College is a different world. A young person living under their parents' roof for 18 years is suddenly thrown into a place with no parents, thousands of other students their age, and is expected to make major life decisions on their own, and you think that what their parents have always taught them is going to stick 100%?

I've known people who were straight as an arrow in high school that turned into raging alcoholics in college. I also have a friend who didn't drink a drop of alcohol in college because she drank all throughout middle school and high school and she was trying to turn her life around.

Putting it all on the parents is ridiculous.

The no keg policies are what really sent everything flying off the rails. We drank beer because it was cheap and there. And while it can get you messed up if you drink 7 or 8, I have been to VERY few parties or mixers that didn't kick before that could even occur. We just plain didn't have that kind of money. (Which is another reason things have gone off the rails. Too many kids with credit cards.)

Actually, we did. One fall semester, about a week into school, we threw a campus-wide Everclear trashcan Delaware punch party and charged $1 per cup. We made enough money from that one event to pay for our formals for the year. Our house was just off campus and everyone from the freshmen dorms showed up.

The next day, there was a 40 percent absentee rate in the freshman classes and the dean of students called our president into his office that afternoon. We were in definite trouble until our president showed him the temporary liquor license that we obtained from the state alcohol control commission prior to the party. He let us off, but told us to not do it again - and we didn't. Different times back then.

Savvy president!

Other 18 year olds are married, some are single parents, some are in Iraq or Afghanistan. You best believe they can, and should, be able to make major life decisions on their own. Only on college campuses are they treated as pseudo-adults until they're 22, or in some cases, even older. It's a cultural thing.

Maybe I was raised differently, but I had real talk about alcohol and drug use in my house growing up. Then again, I knew people who were out and out addicts and alcoholics, so I never wanted to grow up to be like those people. Kids are sheltered. They're protected from the realities of the world.

In the military, people join when they're 18, there's alcohol everywhere when you get to your first duty station (even AIT in some cases), yet you don't hear about those kids drinking themselves to death? There's drugs too- if you want them.

I get so sick of people on this site coddling college kids. Coddling them is what got them into the situation in the first place.

I can't tell if you're agreeing or disagreeing with me.

My point is that putting it all on the parents' shoulders when their kids misbehave in college is ridiculous. These students SHOULD be making major life decisions on their own, but many of them have never had to do that before. And when they gain that responsibility, they don't know what to do with it.

I do agree with most of your post. However, if you don't think that hazing and binge drinking occurs in the military, then I have a bridge to sell you.

Then we agree. Sorry- I had been awake for like 30+ hours when I wrote that.

I know drinking exists in the military, I participated in it lol. I guess what I'm trying to say is it exists anywhere people are 18-25 in groups. It just seems like the deaths occur on college campuses. Young adults are drinking other places, and they're probably taking it too far, but the deaths seem to be happening on campuses. Something is going on here specifically- that's the question people need to answer to get to the bottom of this.