Alum gives $20 mil to Union Coll. to demote GLOs
 

Union College asked to trade greeks for $20M
By Hermes Staff

The Albany (NY) Times-Union reported last month a record $20 million endowment to Union College -- made solely in effort to limit greek life at the school's campus in Schenectady.

John Wold, 86, a Union trustee emeritus who made his fortune in Wyoming oil and minerals, made the donation.

The gift was more than double the previous record-high gift to Union -- $9 million in 1996 -- and is a show of support in favor of Union's controversial plan to reduce the dominance of fraternity and sorority life on campus.

The college said $2 million will be used to create Wold House, one of seven on-campus houses designed to replace a half-dozen prominent fraternities and sororities. The idea is to create a social atmosphere that does not rely on membership in greek organizations.

There's still exclusive membership! By its nature any organization is exclusive! So essentially for 20M they are just changing the name on the door.

Brilliant.

Hoosier, I think the article you posted and the title of this thread are misleading. You can get the news right from the horse's mouth at the Union website...

http://www.union.edu/N/DS/s.php?s=3146

Wold is absolutely not doing this to demote GLOs. He is an ADPhi himself and definitely pro-greek. Here's an excerpt:

"Wold also was a member of Alpha Delta Phi fraternity at the College, and he says, 'I have been a longtime admirer of what the fraternity/sorority program has meant at Union in the past and what promise it has for the future, if it is properly administered. The House System preserves the option for those who want fraternities and sororities while providing new residential and social opportunities for all students.'"

Funny how the media can distort things.

wptw

wptw,

I'm not sure I agree with your take on the article, because I'm not sure just what it means.

I think it is possible to interpret it to mean the the "House" system will replace the Greek System -- preserving the option of a Greek like lifestyle -- but within the new system. The line, "if it is properly administered." is a little troublesome to me. I appears that Mr. Wold may take issue with Greek Life at Union as it stands presently.

I don't have a clear impression of what Mr. Wold and the college have in mind here. Kind of ambiguous in my opinion.

Obviously, I hope I'm being an alarmist here, but I can see how either conclusion could be reached.

DeltaAlum,

Fair enough. I interpret his comments to mean he's sort of placating Union College. There is definitely a movement afoot there to scale back or at least to better regulate the greek system. The college seems to feel if students have other housing choices, they might not so quickly choose a fraternity as a place to live.

This Wold house idea will likely quiet down the anti-greek faction, at least for now, while still preserving the existing fraternities and sororities. And from his comments, I think this is exactly what he intended.

His comment "if properly administered" just seems a further nod to the anti-greek faction. Perhaps just a way for Wold, a benefactor who also happens to be a prominent greek, to make himself appear more moderate.

But I agree, this could be interpreted differently and I would be very interested to hear more about it (from Wold I mean, not from some newspaper editor).

Union is one of the "Meccas" of greek history. It would really be a shame to see the system snuffed out there. So for that reason, I really hope my interpretation is correct!

wptw

wptw et al,

I hope your interpretation is correct, too. For those who might wonder about the "Mecca" comment, I offer below a quote from "The History of Delta Tau Delta" from www.delts.org.

"1825 Kappa Alpha Society is founded at Union College in New York. Two years later, Sigma Phi and Delta Phi are founded at Union; later, Psi Upsilon, Chi Psi, and Theta Delta Chi are also founded at Union, giving it the title "Mother of Fraternities."

Perhaps the main reason Union College was the birthplace of so many fraternities is that Eliphalet Nott, President of Union, was forwardthinking enough to actually encourage such organizations. He understood the value of fraternities to enhance young men's academic performances, provide them with a common goal, and support them with a system of values to achieve that goal. Nott's contribution to the Fraternity System is yet another example of excellence, foreshadowing the benefits of the values we embrace today."

I have been most impressed with wptw's comments on several threads regarding understanding our history and roots.

Thanks for the reminders.

Edited to add: Earlier the History of DTD talks about the founding of Phi Beta Kappa at The College of William and Mary, and later admonishes us that we can find many parrallels between our (Delt) founding in 1858 and these other organizations. I believe it is important to have an understanding of the history of the Greek movement, in addition to that of our particular organization. And, this understanding should be more than simply snipits we memorize for pledge tests or initiation. (Sorry about the possible hazing implications in the last sentence) So, again, I thank wptw for the chastisment (that may be a brand new word), and the charge to find out more about our common heritage.

Alum gives 20million
 

Universities have been setting up common houses/taking away living and dining functions from Greek Letter organizations since the 1920's to reduce the influence of GLO's. Harvard and Yale made all members live in University Housing and be on meal plans specifically to reduce GLO's. Get out a Baird's Manual and look at all the Fraternities that died at these two schools in the 1930's.
Williams took away houses in 1965, in 1968 they killed the Greek's. Amherst, Bowdon and Middlebury have followed suit.It is particularly worrisome that this trend of unhousing/killing Greek's is moving out of New England to New York IE Hamilton, Union and Alfred Colleges,Pennsylvania-Waynesburg, Ohio-Denison.
Another trend that worries me is Fraternities at elite schools in the south are beginning to go local IE Phi Delta Theta at UVA and U of The South and Kappa Sig and SAE at Duke. If you look very carefully at the collapse of the Greek system in New England in the 1950s to 1970s one of the first signs of decline was the tendancy of chapters to go local.
My International, DU, lost very good chapters at Amherst, Dartmouth ,Bowdoin, Wesleyan and Brown within a decade to the local trend, all these now local chapters eventually died or were killed by the host institutions. Every other old line national was hurt in the same way. I hope the same thing is not in its beginning stages at selective southern universities.
The move to unhose/ closely regulate the Greeks at Union is nothing more than a trojan horse for abolition of GLO's.

A lot of those fraternities were asked to leave their campuses if they refused to get rid of their discriminatory clauses (this was 1950). I am currently writing my senior honors thesis on the post war architectural programme of my university (one which was named in the previous post), and that was the reason a good number of them left...even some of the few that were still on campus. Many went local in order to stay on campus because their national organizations would not drop the discriminatory clause.

I won't say my campus "killed" Greek life--from talking to alumni and reading newspapers (both student, Greek, alumni, and local) from that time, a lot of bad things were going on. Pledges were dying in drunken falls, rival fraternities were having icepick fights--who wouldn't blame an administration (many of whom were Greek men) for putting a stop to it?

So, in short, you can't blame it ALL on the campus. Let's not forget that we do create our own PR, for better or for worse.

You know, the only "C" I got in college was in that damn Calculus class I took freshman year. I wonder if I gave $20 million to the University of Pittsburgh they'd abolish the mathematics department?

I can think of a couple other things to add to that list at Pitt....

If i ever get rich, first thing i'll do is buy a new elevator for the dorm the sororities are housed in. I think it's the original from when they were built in the 1920's. Then i'll donate to my chapter and panhel.

Then maybe the law school.....

LOL!!! Being on the 10th floor, we used to say that, when it came time for us to die, we wanted all the time we spent waiting for that @#$%^&* elevator back!


honeychile

a few thoughts
 

A few thoughts on the housing/going local issue.

At my college in Pennsylvania there are now only 6 on campus fraternities, the rest are "off campus" which there are now 8 off campus, all are considered local or underground to some degree.

Several of our own alumni have begun questioning the value of the college institution to help the chapter anymore at this point. Besides being where the students come to college at- they are more of an administration nightmare to deal with with little or no benefit to staying close with except to keep out charter from our national office in Indianapolis.

Alot of it stems from the college's lack of movement to accept or mainstream the massive amount of illegal rush and initiations with freshmen that have been occuring for over a decade now with a moajority of the on campus greeks and all of the off campus greeks (taking first semester freshmen) once that level of honesty and good faith is gone alot of the dealings with the host institution go out the door (at least in an honest fashion)

And most of the housing has been eliminated, except in an off campus developer who has been in mulitple lawsuits with the town, school and even the IRS to keep our privately built greek off campus neighborhood open to Greeks. We receive no interference from this housing arrangement except from the occasional state police patrol.

My attitude from this is that stay at arms length from the college you deal with if you can, because the hand that fed you in the 80's or 90's seems to want to tear you apart now, one of our neighbor chapters of our fraternity at a private college is now living under the heel of the host institution after they bought all the greek housing, and are now subject to random searches. This seems like prison to me.

Anway- get money and get away and independent from the noose of the college control, but maintain some kind of semi positive relationship with them.

Im just leery

Jason

Re: a few thoughts
 

Jason,

You're at Ship, right? Clarion has always permitted first semester males to pledge and sometime in the mid-90's gave the OK to females as well. I've thought that with the common calendar coming up in 2003 perhaps some commonality of first sem rush, etc could be instituted as well. Food for thought...

anyway, PM me if you want to gab more about that situation.

Once again there is semblence of leadership on GC via DA, WPTW, Lenoxx and Hoosier!

I for one am not of that ilk that degrades! Not refering to the fine men that I just mentioned!

These do righteous SOB Acadamians and Monied persons have Not One Damn Clue of the benefits of GreekDom!

Just who in the hell does some do rightous Money Ogre think he is?

If each of us look into the people who are members of Our Orgs. they will find some very big Shakers of all facets of world Business from All Of our Orgs!
Why should one person have the say for a School!?

It would be a shame if they let one curmudgin decide the life on campus!

I for one get very sick and tired of the Acedemian of some piss ant school sying You Cant!

Alfred U, NY being one who is disbanding All Greeks on Campus!
Then One look at Shorter Collge of Rome Ga, who is looking to go National from Locals!

If one looks back in Your History, I am sure you will find someone who left money to the Org who were well known and wanted to thank the Orgs for giving them the reason to do what they did to get to where they are!

What a damn sad state!

Does anyone have an E-M. I will send one to these inept fools!

Hell, I am more than likely Maturer than they are as they sound like snoopy being stupid!:o

Re: Alum gives 20million
 

How is going local a trend? You make it seem like ti's a bad thing that a national goes local? It happens ALL the time and I don't consider it a trend. If you think about it, every GLO started from that first chapter, if even for a moment, that one chapter which in itself would have been a local, even if only for that moment.

damasa, it's difficult to respond to that without getting into a local vs. national debate... But here goes:D

Forcing national groups to go local could be exactly contrary to the aims and desires of these Universities. While national organizations do actually excercise some control and restraint, have well thought out risk reduction strategies (that are supposed to be followed) and actually have their own oversight... Locals aren't required to do this. This leaves the University with the choice of not recognizing them (ie. getting slapped with discrimination lawsuits if they're public funded schools) or recognizing them and running the risk of being named in future lawsuits.

The umbrella of national organizations really should be attractive to Universities. I'm not saying that locals don't do these things, they are just not required to. I think it stems mostly from incorrect perceptions by administration as well as backlash from the overly PC community. How dare we have exclusive groups!

Re: Alum gives 20million
 

I stand to be corrected, but my understanding was that both SAE and Kappa Sig at Duke went local in order to avoid restrictions (such as dry parties and, in the case of Kappa Sig, locking their common room) and increased dues/insurance premiums that were being imposed by their national organizations, not by the University per se. You can read about it in the article (and reader comments) from the Duke campus newspaper by clicking here. (Fraternities at Duke, btw, have been in University housing for years.)

ktsnake is exactly right. Without question the University wanted something done about the Kappa Sig "situation" at Duke, but were able to let Kappa Sig's headquarters take care of it. Now that the chapter has severed its ties with Kappa Sigma and with the campus IFC, the University has no ability to exercise control or restraint, which is not in the University's best interest.

Edited to add: Here is a "from the horse's mouth" article from the Duke newspaper on what happened to the SAE chapter there: SAE chapter disbanded because.... Apparently, they decided to go local only after being informed by SAE that their charter was being pulled.

I think that is exactly what happened at Davidson in the 1970's, when the College mandated "self-selection." That's why Beta, the school's oldest fraternity (dating back to the Mystic Seven) left Davidson. Some other groups (including Kappa Sig) went underground. Today, Davidson's Patterson Court provides a home for seven fraternities (KA, Kappa Sig, FIJI, SAE, Pike, Sig Ep, and Phi Delta Theta) and five "eating houses." So far as I know, the system works well.

Re: a few thoughts
 

This is MUCH easier said than done. I went to a private college that has bought most greek housing (they own all of the sorority houses and I think all but 2 or 3 of the fraternity houses). One fraternity that I am close to has a fairly large fund to buy their house back from the college, and they have made several attempts to do so, but the college will not sell. The college also has a monopoly on all surrounding property. If someone is selling an off-campus residence, the college will buy it for top dollar before anyone else gets a chance to make a bid.

The fraternity I mentioned was recently written up after a random search of their house. They were not having a party and therefore did not have brothers on security patrol. A few of the brothers had a couple of friends in their rooms and they were just hanging out when security walked in and found that they had alcohol in their rooms. They are now on the verge of losing their charter because of this (and low numbers, but it ties together because no one wants to join a fraternity that's going to be on social probation for a year). It is like prison, and there's not really a chance to escape.

New York
 

OK, since we touched on this topic, does anyone know why NY state got rid of national groups in the SUNY system in '54? Was it because of discrimination clauses? As ktsnake pointed out, I would think that if they wanted a closer rein on the groups they would want them to stay national as national rules (like no drinking in sorority houses) are usually stricter than campus rules.

Thanks for the kind words, DeltAlum. As they say, if we do not learn from history then we are doomed to repeat it.

The greek system almost never made it off the ground. Fledgling fraternities lost many of their best chapters to antifraternity legislation in the 1870s and 1880s. Many of our chapters were lost or went local when the race issue heated up in the 1950s and 1960s. Many more starved because of the anti-establishment attitude of the 1970s. In the 1980s, elitism was back in fashion and so were fraternities. The 1990s were the risk management and political correctness decade, and that is what is affecting us now. This is a cycle that keeps repeating itself. And that really is not surprising. It’s unrealistic to expect a traditional social organization like a national fraternity to remain unaffected by massive social changes in our society. Technology is changing our society faster than ever, so fraternities and sororities have to be much quicker on our feet in order to survive. And yet, the irony is that the very simple original ideals of our organizations DO survive despite all the social changes – friendship, learning, mutual aid, justice, self-improvement, character, loyalty, purpose.

Universities have all kinds of tricks to keep the Greeks in check. My school required everyone to participate in the school’s meal plan regardless of where they lived. They outlawed rushing first semester freshman. They required everyone but seniors to live on campus. They are now moving toward getting all the GLOs onto a university-owned fraternity row. There are complicated recognition processes. The school desperately wants to get rid of the greeks because of the liability, but they can’t afford to lose their most generous alumni donors. So they take these baby steps to try to weaken us and phase us out gradually. The way to battle this is to mobilize your alumni. From the moment I graduated I was bombarded with calls asking me to donate money. Why not come up with a unified strategy and then educate our alumni to leverage their donations against items on OUR agenda? This is where I find the leadership lacking in the individual GLO HQs and the National Conferences.

For the most part, GLOs have survived these anti-greek cycles. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, or so I desperately hope. But in my heart, I know that our grand old fraternities and sororities will cease to exist at some point in the next 50 years. It’s a very simple value equation. As soon as the risk involved in having greeks on campus outweighs the benefit, we will all be gone. Right now we’re teetering on the edge. One more decade of hazing deaths, racist incidents, lawsuits, complaints from our neighbors in the community, rapes and rush violations should pretty much kill us for good.

Be mindful.

wptw

DWAlphaGam's comments are troubling. But if the University was honestly trying to stamp out Greek Life they shouldn't think it can be done by taking away housing. We don't actually need houses to be successful MANY chapters of different organizations are very successful without them. Again by doing that the University is just forcing us into less regulated areas to avoid their rule. So now instead of drinking at my house I'll go somewhere off campus, get drunk then drive home.

Yes, off the topic, but there are no more GLOs at Denison U? Why?

Funny, I was thinking about that first quote as I was writing earlier.

Unhappily, I am in agreement with your thoughts regarding the risk/benefit equation.

The only thing I might question is your time frame. If chapters and individual members don't wake up to the realities of Risk Management issues you mention (alcohol, hazing, sexual assault, etc.), the demise could come much faster than fifty years.

From a simple liability standpoint, a very few large judgements will bankrupt many or all of our groups -- especially since a large number for fraternities either can't afford or can't get insurance for themselves, and have formed "self insured" coalitions among themselves. Several settlements, and ALL of the members suffer.

I fear that if many of our present undergraduates (and a fair number of our alumni as well), don't get their heads out of the sand, realize what the latest "cycle" demands of us, and at the same time return to the values upon which our founders built our organizations, we, as a social force are history. With no pun intended.

We have an obligation (by our fraternal oaths and rituals) not to harm, but more importantly to perpetuate our organizations. We (collectively) have to overcome the mindset that we can go on with business as usual. Real, substantial change must begin now, so that there will be chapters and traditions to hand down to the men who follow us.

How many would want to be remembered as the last generation of our fraternity? The ones who finally killed it by simple neglect.

I have the benefit of age, experience and handsight, but there are so many young men and women in our chapters who are so much smarter than me. They can save the system if they want to. Do they?

It would be tragic to someday be sitting around with other brother and sister Greeks talking about how great fraternities were before they all died.

Exceptionally stated, DeltAlum.

Perhaps this is why I tend to respond harshly when I see so many greeks on here worrying about *relatively* trivial things (badges on ebay, who was first to do what, what the Kappas are like on a given campus, etc.). It's their right to be concerned with trivial things of course. But they're missing a grim bigger picture.

It's like sitting stalled on the railroad tracks and worrying whether you should use 89 octane gasoline or 92. Gotta get this heap off the tracks because that column of smoke around the bend... that ain't the peace train comin'.

wptw

Thank you wptw and DeltAlum for some very thoughtful posts. I hope you are wrong about the demise of the Greek system, but you are certainly right that it will come absent some action soon.

Actually, what I think is perhaps more likely is that fraternities and sororities will still be around in 2052, but Greek life will look completely different from what it is now (just as it now looks different from 1952, which was different from 1902, which was different from 1852). Fraternities and sororities will continue to fill needs, but they will have to adapt or die while new ones are born. Perhaps the newest GLOs have the best chance of surviving, because they started with a go-against-the-flow impetus to begin with. Just imagine the postings on GreekChat in 2052: which is the biggest sorority, QNX or SLU? ;)

Whoever survives, Greek life won't look the same. And it behooves us all to remember that old chestnut: Every chapter is always just 2 or 3 years away from dying.

MysticCat, as usual I think you’re right.

Notice I said “…our grand old fraternities and sororities will cease to exist…”. By that I meant the traditional collegiate social fraternities and sororities. I agree there will always be organizations that call themselves fraternities and sororities, but I imagine these groups will be diluted down so they are basically just campus clubs. No alumni base. No dedicated housing. No national organization. No real value, but then again no real risk to the universities. Honor societies and professional fraternities will survive of course.

I know I will piss some people off by saying this, but personally I don’t see any of these new fraternity or sorority startups succeeding for more than a few years. There has been a dotcom-ish surge in new groups recently, and I tend to think they are being driven by fairly transient social factors. As such, I think the groups are transient themselves. For example, multiculturalism is obviously a good thing, but it’s particularly en vogue right now and I think that’s fairly temporary. I’m sure other social issues will drive additional startups in the decades to come, but again I don’t see those groups having the staying power because the weight of actual history is against them. Really, I can’t think of even one group founded in the last 20 to 90 years that has continued to this day. I’m sure there are one or two examples that I’m forgetting, but certainly not many. The last GLO founded that lasted more than a few decades and still thrives today is probably LXA from 1912. Since then, no one has been able to successfully build a lasting group. I don’t think we’re capable of it anymore – as humans I mean. I think technology and our advancement as a civilization have made us irreparably jaded.

It was social issues that prompted a flood of new GLOS in the mid to late 1800s, but most of those groups survived. Whereas the groups founded after 1900 in response to social issues seem doomed to fail. Why?

I don’t think we fully understand just how important ideals like family and friendship and scholarship were to these men and women of the 1800s. To continue with the multiculturalism example, in the year 2002 multiculturalism is important to me. It’s a fine ideal. But without it, my family and I will continue to survive and probably even prosper. So really, multiculturalism is not essential to my existence. Therefore, multiculturalism as an ideal will probably not bind my mind, heart and soul for my entire lifetime (as the ideals of my fraternity have).

On the other hand, if I’m a young man in 1860, with a civil war and an industrial revolution on the horizon, a much shorter life expectancy and little communication beyond my community, my future would be much less certain. Plus, I am probably isolated from my family by several days journey. Making the most of my time by cultivating true friendships and elevating my self worth by cultivating intellect would be much more important to me as an 1860s man than multiculturalism is to me as a 21st century man.

In 1860 you battled for survival. In 2002, survival is basically assured and so you battle for prosperity. Which battle do you suppose prompts the “heavier” issues and the more binding ideals?


I also agree that the demise of our groups will come sooner than 50 years, but I think a large number would continue sub rosa for several more decades and we would see some sputters and coughs in the system before it finally dies out.

I hope I’m wrong, but I fear I’m right.

Please pardon me for another lengthy post and possibly taking this thread off topic.

wptw

Stat Boy Correction
 

wptw,

Just like stat boy I must correct you- LXA was founded in 1909, and not only thrives , but has been much more successful than many of it's older contemporaries.

And also- Dont slight my Friends in Sigma Tau Gamma, founded in 1920 at CMSU- they seem to be a lasting relevant "Real" GLO

give credit where credit is due!

Fraternally

Jason Lenox
LXA Alum

Re: Alum gives 20million
 

I don't think you can generalize all schools in that region to be anti-Greek or "local trend to be local chapters". In Theta Delta Chi case, as one of the strongest GLO in NE (especially New England), we still maintain most of our Charges there. However, I agree with you in some of the cases; four of our Charges lost from the list are Yale, Harvard, William (true they eliminated Greek), Bowdoin (they forced us to go Co-Ed before the decided to kill Greeks for good).
We still have Charges at Union (our Alpha Charge), Armherst (eventhough they eliminated Greeks), Hamilton, VA (strong Charge), Dartmouth (I think they are really strong as a community and Charge, eventhough there was a movement to eliminate Greeks), Brown (never heard of any anti-Greek movement).

Virginia, MIT, Vermont, (Brown?), URI, Tufts, Northeastern, Cornell are Greek-friendly schools, as far as I know. Our Charges there never have any difficulties with school or local.

Hope Union would know better than accepting "endowment" to kill Greeks. Otherwise, the case of Amherst College will repeat itself here.

Well, GO GREEK! ;)

As usual, wptw, your post contains much good food for thought. But I'm not so sure I would be as quick as you seem to be to dismiss multiculturalism as a founding principle as you seem to be.

Consider, for example, that Alpha Tau Omega was founded for the express purpose of uniting in brotherhood Southerners and Northerners after the Civil War. (Any Southerner can tell you that this is indeed multiculturalism. ;) ) Various fraternities and sororities were started in an age when GLOs typically limited membership to members of a certain religion -- all Christian (or even all Protestant) or all Jewish, for example -- and were designed from the beginning to transcend religious boundaries. If my memory serves correctly, Delta Sigma Phi and Delta Phi Epsilon are examples of such GLOs. Again, this was the multiculturalism of its day.

You also mentioned that dedicated housing for fraternities and sororities will disappear. Perhaps, but the fraternity movement got along without dedicating housing for decades, and the Divine Nine still flourish with, for the most part, little dedicated housing.

Greek life will change with the times, no doubt. It always has. It has had to in order to survive. We have to hope that it continues to do so, and we have to encourage it to do so.

Just another $0.02 from me.

Perhaps. But whether you use multiculturalism or something else as an example, I maintain that North Americans today are no longer capable of identifying a single set of ideals that will bind the hearts and minds of a group of men and women in united purpose for the next 100 years.

Time will tell if I'm right. But the historical performance record of modern startup GLOS speaks for itself. So far, despite good intentions and the efforts of good men and women, there are few success stories, if any.

wptw

I guess when you say that groups less than 100 years old are "doomed to fail", you aren't accounting NINE very successful, DIVINE, national fraternities and sororities which were formed in response to social issues. Just because they aren't as old as Chi Omega or Sigma Chi doesn't mean that they aren't "real". There is life outside the NPC and NIC.

Oh yeah, and Brown isn't a "Greek-friendly" school. We just tolerate Greek groups (barely).

Actually, I think I said 80 or 90 years - basically from around 1920. My intention was to include the divine nine, all of which were founded in the 80+ years ago timeframe, except for Iota Phi Theta of course (which doesn't seem to be the strongest link in the D-9 chain).

So drop the attitude.

wptw