Franklin & Marshall: Reversing the Trend
 

After WWII, no prestigous institution of higher learning banned a greek system until Williams College in 1968. Then there was a pause until the 1980s. Then its started; Amherst, Bowdoin, Colby, Franklin & Marshall, and others either banned their greek systems, or forced them to go co-ed or banned them outright.

The greek system at F&M never went away. The administration at F&M decided to act responsibly, and negotiate the rerecognition of their greek system with alumni and the faculty. Technically, this has not happened yet, but its as good as done.

Check out this job opening at F&M: http://www.fandm.edu/Departments/Per...DeanGreek.html
You don't create such a position for an unrecognized greek system.;)

So what? What is the benefit to the organizations? According to the press release the only reason the school wants to recognize the fraternities is so they can regulate them and have more control over them.

Is the school going to improve their housing, finances, or rush? Doubt it. A year from now the school will be telling the organizations who can pledge, when they can pledge and where they can pledge. The result will be less pledges and the orgs will have a tougher time filling their houses.

Glass Half Full?
 

Hmmm...I, on the other hand, think it's a positive move by F&M

I doubt they will get the houses on campus that other private colleges in PA like Lehigh, Bucknell, W&J have, so that part IS kinda like "what's in it for us?" That is, other similar schools have that and they won't (DWAlphaGam or someone else, please correct me if I'm wrong).

The only way to know if this was a good idea will be to see if numbers increase due to the ability to gather on campus and such.

Edited to add that I'm curious as to how the chapters there have been performing as far as their nationals are concerned - i.e. if they are fulfilling their requirements re risk management, etc. If they've been doing a lot of this stuff anyway it might not be as big of a deal.

Re: Glass Half Full?
 

No, i'm just a realist. Im not a puppet like you. This is the same administration that tried to get rid of the fraternities.



Now answer my question. What is the school going to do for them?

Re: Re: Glass Half Full?
 

ouch. http://www.suburbia.com.au/~morpheus...s/bitehard.gif

That is a 50/50 shot. The numbers might go down.



I don't think you are making the right comparison. It isn't fair to compare FM numbers to ACC, or Big 10 school. You should compare their numbers to when they were recognized by the school vs their numbers when they were not recognized. Some places it is an advantage to not be with the school. Sig Pi at UC Santa Clara (I think) went from 20 actives up to about 80 after the school banned the greek system.

Re: Re: Re: Glass Half Full?
 

Are you going to answer the question?
What is the benefit to the fraternities?

You are probably a campus administrator. It is good because it is good.

Well, I'm kind of looking at it from a sorority point of view - things like are they hitting total, what their initiation/retention rate is etc, because apparently they have a functioning Panhel although KBG does not participate.

I don't mean that they should compare themselves to Penn State or Illinois, I'm wondering how they do compared w/ W&J & places like that. And as far as national sororities are concerned, when you get quota or are at total you are rewarded for that, even if the quota is 2 and total is 25 - as long as all the other sororities on campus are a comparable size.

Now from a guy perspective it's totally different. :)

Related thread

Another related thread

I just think it's a positive move and no, I'm not a campus administrator. I'm "just" a sorority alum who recognizes that our groups exist on college campuses and I think it's best when there is open dialogue between the institution and the GLO.

They are "our" members, but they are "their" students.

I think NutBrnHair said it best! :)

While trying to understand this thread, It seems that some Schools F @ M who are a small school had locals just as Shorter College did, it was decided to try to attain International or National Greek Organizatiosn simply for the Fact of Hazing that the locals did. Why, because of the Law Suits.

That for The Most Part Internationsals have polocies in place about this is understandable. This does help releive The College of some responseability.:) :D :cool:

Therefore, it also falls on the Schools to do the same thing. How long are they or We going to put up with it because of what it costs for each Chapter?

Yes, they are the Colleges Students, but they are members of a specific Greek Organization and We do have a responsability for them as Alums and Avctives.

We as each Organization are either on campus or not.. If not, who does that help?

If F @ M decides to go With Greek Life good for them.

One must also remember Greek Alums from a school are a powerful group as can be seen in many sites of GC!:cool:

i think it is just the admins. way of regulating the greek system. the school is willing to recognize them...if they move to sophomore deferment. f & m is trying to move to a system that is place at bucknell, muhlenberg and other schools in the area. sophomore deferment is not working at those schools...and probably won't at f & m. my friend used to work there. i will see if she has any insight.

Is it not so true! Other Schools look toward other like Schools for what The of the unknowing might want to try to do? :eek:

Is it The best, well maybe not, but they are trying to do what is a like kind, right or wrong.:(

I don't know about F&M's Greek community, but those other schools you listed (and Lafayette, where I went) all have Greek houses. At Lafayette, most of the houses are now school-owned, too, which means that the college has very stringent controls over them. If that happens at F&M, they're going to have a similar situation.

You're totally right about sophomore deferment not working. Lafayette, Bucknell, Muhlenberg, and Dickinson (that I know of) all have sophomore recruitment. It seems to be a trend with small private schools in PA, and it's leading to decreasing numbers everywhere, which is probably why so many administrations are pushing for it. For example, at Lafayette, chapter average is now in the low 60s, whereas before sophomore deferment, it was in the high 80s (at least). When I started school 7 years ago, 65% of students were Greek, and now it's hovering around 40%. But that's a different thread subject...

ETA: Here's a link to F&M's documents regarding re-recognition: http://www.fandm.edu/Departments/stu...eekdiscussion/

Re: Re: Glass Half Full?
 

This is something thing that the F&M greeks want, and that should be enough of an answer.

The administration will be implementing rules, but not unilaterally. The rules have been negotiated between fraternity alumni and the administration.

As for housing, that is being discussed.

The system needs local guidance. They did a recent survey, and the F&M fraternities don't have such a good GPA.

Russ,
agree with you and hope this is not just a School ploy to show Greeks. But in this day and age, we should take anythig We can takes as Greeks when it comes to expansion.

Just because there may or not be house buildings is not all that big. The thing is if each Greek Ornaization is on an even playing field. Whether if they are given dorm sections or floors, just as long as there a place that be a focla point to meet with out every SOB just coming by.

NOt being that familiar with F @ M, I plead ignorance. But as Shorter in Ga. did who had only Locals thought it would be best to go with Nationals. It seems to be working out so far there.

I hope there are those on GC who will keep us updated about F @ M!

hi all! having been busy with the end of classes and all, i just stumbled upon this thread. as a student who attends F&M College and is also a greek i thought that i would try to clear a few things up. first off, the vote was in favor of re-recongnizing the Greeks...this happened last week i believe. and second if you want more info, there is a press release on the F&M website F&M Website hope this clears things up for anyone who was confused.

I don't get this part (copied from the press release):

A set of standards designed to remedy the negative impact that pledging has had on academic life at the college. Both the students interested in rushing a Greek group and the group itself must maintain specific grade point averages.

If you're a national sorority or fraternity, you have to do this ANYWAY to remain in good standing. And most of the national groups have increased their standards above what the colleges ask (i.e. you need a 2.0 to rush, but XYZ requires you to have a 2.7). What do they think, that everyone should have a 4.0? :confused:

33girl-you're right. national sororities and fraternities require that you are in good standing and have a certain gpa to pledge. what the college is trying to do, is to reinforce that standard from both the Greek organization and also for the students interested in rushing. i think it's like how in a GLO's constitution or bylaws it states what requirements are needed for the person to rush that organization, the constitution that is written for re-recognition is just re-stating that idea.

You don't have to comply with a GLO's GPA requirements at a campus where the greek system is not recognized. Why? Because it is not enforcable. How are you going to get grades from the administration?

I don't know about anyone else's group, but our sorority, if we were in this situation, would not put up with grades not being submitted in yearly reports. I doubt any of the groups at F & M would either.

We never "got grades from the administration" as far as I know...unless you have hundreds of members or a bunch of liars in the chapter I don't know why you would need to.

Well, the F&M administration did a recent survey and concluded that the average GPA of F&M greeks is about 2.4 (according to my source.) There is nothing that F&M can do about this if the system were to remain unrecognized. I believe that this is a contributing factor to F&Ms realization that its time to do a 180, and rerecognize the greek system.

PhiPsiRuss...
where'd you get that info about the average GPA for F&M greeks? i go to F&M and i wasn't aware that they had calculated an average for the entire greek system, i had thought that they just did it for the individual groups.

A few of the Phi Psis that show up for our monthly happy hour in Manhattan are from our F&M chapter. One alumnus has been in direct communication with the F&M administration about re-recognition in reecent years, as well as presently. F&M polled the greeks, as they haven't had greek affiliation in their data base, and they came up with 2.4. Is it accurate? It might be, but then again, it might not.

Isnt the main thing, that Nationals will once again be recognized by F & M?

So as would be expected, the School will try to have more control, but, if the Greeks who are also controlled by Their Nationals be held to a higher standard then Greeks should continue to grow and flourish there.

If the Greeks hold themselves to a higher standard, it will make F & M look like the great seers.

It does seem like more Shools are returning to National Greek Recognition. Alfred College I beleive is the last to ban Greeks at their campus.


Now there seems to have been a turn around within the last year or so.

While Greeks are a smaller % on campus, I am sure that Greek Alums will or did contribuate more money over all than Independent grads.

hey which phi psi brothers do you know from F&M? i'm good friends with the majority of their brotherhood, i'd be interested to see who you know:)

I don't know any actives, just alumni. I'll PM you their names.

What's up people,

I'm not sure how old this post is...but I was glancing over a few of them and let me explain as much as I know from my Upsilon Chapter, Delta Sigma Phi at Franklin and Marshall College chapter's perspective about Greek rerecognition. I was the president of the undergraduate chapter right at the beginning of the process. I feel fairly confident saying that only 10% of the greek organizations on campus wanted re-recognition, and we certainly were not one of them. Our numbers were fine (around 60 including pledges), we were just starting to pay off and catch up on some past debts with our national, and we were currently in good standing with the Lancaster City Police and Fire Department. When the new president of the college, John Fry, came in from the University of Pennsylvania, he wanted to do the same thing he did at U-Penn and improve our rankings. One way was to improve Alumni donations, which declined after de-recognition in 1989 because older Alumni were pissed off at the College (GREEK LIFE AT F&M WAS AND IS A VERY IMPORTANT ASPECT OF THE COLLEGE!!!). So re-recognizing the Greeks seemed like a simple way to improve donations, improve the number of students officially joining "clubs and organizations" and at the same time implementing plans to try to improve the GPA of the college.
Sorry this is so long winded...that said...Being a past Delta Sigma Phi president, I agree that rerecognition would greatly improve the reputation, dignity, and service that was once very important to all Greek Organizations, but at the same time the school wanted to and is going to make things much more difficult for all the chapters. The administration is going to rigorously and immediately implement new rules and regulations which these current chapters will not be able to handle (we are used to a particular way of running things...OUR WAY!). The idea of sophomore pledging sucks, it's stupid and serves no purpose but to lower numbers, and the college still has no plan for providing any real financial aid to the houses. Luckily all of the undergraduate chapter houses are owned by the Alumni Housing Boards of each organization, so the school can't come in and bust up parties, inspect, etc...
To make an obscenely long story very short, the President of the college, John Fry, wants to make the Greek system at Franklin and Marshall College a model "liberal arts" Greek System that will serve as an example for all other schools of what a strong system is. It's going to be intense and it's going to suck and it's going to ruin the only good aspect of F and M that made me even want to be student there and be the president of the fraternity and a leader. There is no trial period...the chapters just went from sufficient self-governance and enjoying being greeks to a system that is so bogged down with control and paperwork that they won't have time to even crack open a book or play a game of beirut.

As far as I see it...the current goodtime Greek System at Franklin and Marshall College is being replaced by a Nazi Regime and is totally F-ed!!

check out this link---> http://www.fandm.edu/greeklife/

Ed Frackelton '04 (yeah, I was just graduated),
Former President
Upsilon Chapter, Delta Sigma Phi Fraternity

Time will tell, but if F&M greek alumni stay organized, they can prevent the administration from getting heavy handed.

Russ kinda touched on what I was going to say...

Do the fraternities & sororities themselves have a good amount of donations (of $$, materials and/or time) from their alums? If so, I'm guessing the school would like to divert some of that to their own coffers. It's one of those things where I guess it's hard to tell if alums will increase the amount of their donating and give to the college AND the GLO, or if they'll move their money.

Sorry if this makes no sense, I had a very festive night. :)

I've been told that F&M, like most schools with greeks, receives the majority of donations from their greek minority. That was probably a factor in rerecognition.

They now have 16 years of alumni, who are just now beginning to make money, that will be more easy to develop as donors if their GLOs are rerecognized.

But if, as some of the people there seem to think, rerecognition results in the Greek system becoming smaller or changing dramatically from what they are used to, will that really make people donate?

I'm not arguing with you Russ, I just have a feeling that "rerecognition = more Greek alums donating to F & M" isn't as cut and dried as the admin seems to think it might be. I mean, one of the guys in our student affairs office once said that he would like to see a Greek village in Clarion. There would be alums just over the moon about that prospect, and there would probably also be some who didn't like the idea of the Greeks having to leave their old houses and arbitrarily put in a village.

working for an office that deals with alumni donations for the past two years, i don't know if PhiPsiRuss is right about most of the donations coming from greek alumni, especially at F&M. i think it may actually be the opposite, with less greeks giving money to the school and giving it their GLOs instead. i've actually seen this happen a number of times. so i do think that the president is hoping that more greek alumni will give money to the school, instead of solely to their organization.
and i think that if the greek system is changed so much that it actually hurts the greeks, that greek alumni will absolutely be less willing to donate money to the college. but it all just depends on how re-rec actually happens. being a greek next year at F&M should definitely prove to be quite interesting.

We can only hope that F & M Greeks will see a change for the best!

I for one know and have told many people that if LXA is not at The Un. I will not even come back to My Alma Mater!

And from what I have seen Greeks do and are willing to donate money for the betterment of not only Their Organization, but for the betterment of Said School.

Just my thinking!:)

If 90% of the organizations are against the idea then why are you going through with the plan? Why don't you just continue to operate as usual?

MadMax,

This is another long story based on many assumptions.

The threat of the college having us shut down by the city and/or the school possibly outlawing pledging a greek organization were the only reasons we considered being re-recognized. Lancaster City is a very conservative town, and Franklin and Marshall is a private school. Before re-recognition was even brought up, when the new president of the college was signed in, he started making phone calls to the city fire dept. to have them inspect us and all the other chapter houses, I think, in the hopes of either shutting us down or taking away permits so we couldn't have parties in the house, the latter of which happened to our house and it took 7 months to get it back, killed our rush, and made a very very unpleasant situation. So anyway, the school starts making these calls, I know they start making these calls because I'm friends with one of the Lancaster City Police Officers who is responsible for dealing with F and M and Greek matters, and he told me that their office started receiving calls from the new president. I go into the president's office to find out what the hell is going on because at this point there is no dialogue between the college our any Greek Organizations, we can't use the school for any functions, they give us no support, and they aren't allowed to come into our private houses, and it has been like this for lets say, 15 years. The president of the college tells me that there is no dialogue between him or the College and the Fire and Police departments, which is total BS. So now the greek houses are getting inspected sometimes 2-3 times a week by the city fire department, waiting to find something to condemn us. There's no way to put a stop to it because John Fry is working with The City, the conservative mayor who would love to see us shut down, and all these other commericial companies to cleanup Lancaster and start putting up businesses for the college and surrounding area to increase revenue, etc. Everyone loves this new president because he's throwing F and M money around, and it seems all he is asking for in return is for them to put a leash on us.
Second point, the college may possibly expell students who pledge a Greek Organization. I know this sounds highly illegal but it has happened at other private schools, and I think there has since been a supreme court ruling against private colleges being able to do this, but the possiblity still stands.
So basically we were scared into re-recognition. The new president seemed to have a lot of pull in different areas, and we didn't want to see exactly how much pull until it was too late. Our nationals were on our back to be re-recognized until they heard that the school wanted sophomore pledging, but then they still just told us to find a way to supplement it. Our older alumni, though very sympathetic to our situation, wanted re-recognition because that's the way it was when they were in school (when faculty members would come to the houses and drink with the students at parties) and everything was much more normal. To see a faculty member in a house today, the faculty member would probably get fired. It's so ridiculous!
So anyway, with all this pressure from all sides it was impossible to say, "no, we don't want re-recognition." The pressure to stop hazing, to improve community service, to have the school "help us" with inspections so the big bad city doesn't condemn us, to impove our standing with national, to improve our academics, to improve alumni involvement, and to not get expelled by the school was too much to say, "no thank you, we'll pass."
The new president threw his political weight around to accomplish this re-recognition regardless of the Greeks at the present time not wanting to be re-recognized, it would be like if you had a deadbeat father who abandoned you and walked out on your life for 15 years, made your life hell, never gave you any child support, made your mom pissed off, then came back into your life and demanded that you start talking to him, even though he's not going to provide you with any support, and your grandparents (the alumni) want you to go ahead and start talking to him because, you know, he is your father and you should be on good terms with him. By no means am I trying to offend anyone by this scenario, and I apologize if I did, but we feel like that abandoned child, it's hard to erase 15 years of bad terms and come back the next year and act like nothing happened and have even stricter rules. There should have been more gradual steps, but Fry doesn't have time for that, he's probably moving on in a few years once our ranking makes it up to one of the top 20 liberal arts colleges instead of the top 30; his work will be done at that point.
Sorry for the rambling...it's amazing I just found this message board and I have all this pent up anger at the school and all this crap they pulled on us. I feel much better now :) .

Ed

What the fire code enforcement folks are doing sounds like outright harassment. You should speak with an attorney.

Ed,

I like your deadbeat dad anaolgy. As far as presidents who do things at the school to build up their own resume...don't even get me started, LOL.

Unless the fire department is inspecting ALL housing where large groups live - do you also have like the football players' house, the baseball house etc? - what they are doing IS harassment. If the school would say they are concerned about the safety of houses with more than X amount of people in them and want the fire dept to check on them that would be fine. To target fraternities, however, is completely wrong. Especially since they don't recognize you. It's like if the government denies the mafia exists they can't pass a bill giving $$ to efforts to fight it.

You cannot be expelled for joining a fraternity if all its activities take place off campus, any more than they can expel you for joining Jews for Jesus or the Aryan Nation. DKE used to have the info about this on their site but I can't find it. You can get those nice students down the road at Dickinson Law to fight this for you (while they are still there, that is).

I think this is going to be WAY more difficult for the guys than the girls since so many of the sorority rules are already super strict.