Dry by 2002?
 

I strongly disagree with the fact that all houses should be dry by the year 2002. I mean were in college and most college students are going to drink somewhere, I just think that frat houses are a much safer place than partying somewhere away from campus.

Look at it this way, the national image of greek frat housing is what? Frat house=party house. The reason why they are trying to make houses dry is to cut back on that image and boost greek support. We all know what greek housing is like, we know what it is, and how greeks act. The problem isn't with the housing or the greek community, it is with the "non-greek" community. Housing at my school was completely shut down about a decade ago. This is because "partying" was the only thing that the public saw, they refused to see the greek orgs for what they were. They didn't want "their" community to be brought down because of greek housing. Just think, you still have your house. Many campuses won't let greek housing be available to their greek orgs. If you get a house off campus, it isn't approved by the nationals, there is no win-win situation. Socials are fun, parties are fun, but don't let this bring you down, show people what greeks really stand for and why they are wrong. Maybe things will change, who knows?

Mikki
Delta Zeta Alum
Kappa Mu Chapter
Sigma Alpha Iota
Eta Tau Chapter

------------------
"Why not upset the apple cart? If you don't the apples will rot anyway."

Frank A. Clark

SMS - Amen! I guess we'll just have to wait till the drunk-driving deaths go up for people to see how lame this is.

I understand what you mean by the whole greek image thing, but people who think that way are going to think badly no matter how hard we try to make them understand us as something besides the image they already have. I know that my chapter stands for way more than partying, as does every other chapter I know of. What I'm saying is that we all like to have fun at frat parties-and that by not allowing us to party somewhere close enough to campus that we can walk to and from is just going to cause more accidents when it comes to alcohol. I mean I know that we always have sober sis, but there are a lot of people who don't-so these people will end up driving drunk, and it will in my opinion cause many more accidents involving alcohol-but thanks for your opinion

You are correct. There will always be that chance. I would suggest stating your opinion in a letter to your nationals. The only problem with bring this up, all 26 national sororities "should" have designated drivers at all functions. I know that we were required to be drivers at least 3 times every semester. There were always four drivers for every party. Each sister threw in a couple bucks for gas. That is the safest way. I realize that there are orgs out there that don't follow the rules, that is not anyone's fault but their own. "If you play with matches, you're gonna get burned."

Ay Dios Mio!

Suprise, Suprise, people are going to be pissed off that campuses/houses are going dry. My chapter house already has, and my International deadline for alcohol free housing is Aug. 3 2000. Phi Delta Theta has been dry for at least a year...lots of chapters are doing it. Trust me, the benefits of going alochol-free will be seen when people are rushing (if you have a chapter that can handle 365 rush) and your chapter WILL be stronger.

And when you have to go somewhere to drink, then BE FREAKING RESPONSIBLE!!! I am sick of people bitching that "it is so much safer to drink in a fraternity house...". If you are responsible enough, then you dont have to worry where you drink, because you would have thought ahead. And, if worse comes to worse, CALL A TAXI. 90% of cab companies will take you home free of charge if you cant drive.

Greg Killeen
Phi Gamma Delta

Greg,

I went to a small school in a rural area. Taxis did not exist. We would have had better luck finding a cow to ride home.

A lot of these alcohol free policies seem to assume that every school is located in a metropolitan area with myriad dry dance clubs and for the legal, student friendly bars. Guess what? At a lot of places, fraternity parties are the only game in town. Slippery Rock in PA is the most obvious example I can think of – the town itself is dry, and the nearest bars are 20 miles away in Butler, which is not exactly the city that never sleeps.

Between the raging Puritan morality and the CYA policies, there is nowhere to turn. 2 other posters were mentioning about sober sis – I read on a discussion board somewhere that an NPC sorority (who I won’t name) had banned their chapters from having any kind of designated driver program, supposedly because it promotes drinking and creates liability. That completely pissed me off. That just says to me that the sorority doesn’t really care about the welfare of its members – they are more concerned with image and legal mucky-muck.

So the next response is “Well then don’t drink! You don’t need alcohol to have fun!” Which is true. But the majority of college age students do like to have an intoxicating beverage now and then, and this isn’t a sin. They also don’t like more rules placed on them than their parents and teachers have combined. We never had these problems before the (completely unconstitutional) federal highway funding act, but I won’t get into that here. I also won’t get into the hypocrisy of dry houses and drunken private parties in bars.

I think the bogus rules and increasing costs are what are really driving students away from the Greek system, not alcohol.

Forget rules for a moment. If you weren't in a sorority or a faternity at all, what would you do? You would go to the bars and have a designated driver. Plain and simple. If one of the NPC sororities banned the "sober sis" idea, than they probably are a dry sorority and can not have sorority functions that involve alchohol, which means, if they are having a social gathering and report that to their sorority--no alcohol will be present. If they are drinking at a social function, it has nothing to do with their sorority. The two don't even go together. The individual is liable, not the sorority. If they drive drunk, that is their own fault. Even if the sorority banned a "sober sis" policy, that doesn't mean that the sisters of that sorority can't do it on their own. They are smart enough to know that they should have a designated driver if they are drinking. As for rural areas, i went to a small college in a rural area where no taxi's exist either. People need to learn responsibility. There is no excuse for not having a designated driver. If nobody volunteers, than names should be pulled from a hat. If there is still a situation the party or event should not take place. Common sense should tell you that. If the town is dry, and you have to leave town to drink. . .what is the answer? Designated Driver! If a sorority or frat decide to drink and drive, they are irrisponsible people who are obviously not concerned with the safety of their sister/bros. or themselves. There should not even be a question about this topic. College students should have enough responsiblity and common sense to have a designated driver. If they don't, than they should go back home and live with mommy. It makes me upset that people argue with this theory. They are going to make sorority and frat. houses dry. Plain and simple. It's a fact that we have to live with. If you don't like it, take it up with you nationals. If you don't, you can't complain. If you do, and if your goal is not met, than live with the new policies and find ways to be responsible. The death rate should not go up because of the "sober sis" or "sober bro" policies, and if there isn't one in your frat or sorority, than you should be smart enough to create one for you individual chapter needs. Only stupid people do stupid things. Don't admit you're stupid by arguing against the point of having designated drivers just because you don't want the frat and sorority houses to go dry.

------------------
"The trouble with self-made men is that they worship their creator."

--Unknown

WHAAAT?!?! I never said anything against having a des. driver, that is a given! This sorority I was talking about had the program for anything the sisters might be doing on weekends, it had nothing to do with chapter events. It was to give a ride home from bar, frat party, club, whatever. They administered the program through the chapter so everyone took their turn. My point was that to ban a program where the girls took RESPONSIBILITY for helping each other is messed up.

As for what I said about being in a rural area, the DD is a given there too.

My primary reason for being opposed to alcohol free housing is that I find it hypocritical. It makes people binge drink alone before they get to events. It says "alcohol is OK out of the house but evil in the house." The third party policies make the Greeks have to move to bars for private parties and can dry up social options for everyone else, making them even more antagonistic about Greeks.

If you talk the talk, walk the walk. If your national policy is going to ban alcohol in the house and take that much of an in loco parentis attitude, they'd better provide a way for you to get home if you drink outside the house or alternate desirable activities, which I have not seen happening.

My campus hasn't had greek houses since the early 70's. They now have designated halls in the dorms that brothers/sisters can live on if they choose.

So the idea of a "dry house" doesn't bother the chapters there. They have had to deal with this for years (you can't just walk the halls drinking, not to say this didn't occasionally happen). So their events and parties are held off campus. *One exception: the chapters do have chapter rooms in the dorms also, but their tiny. Mixers and rush parties are often held in these rooms when the chapter knows approximately how many people will be squeezed in there.*

The biggest party of the year is hosted by one of the frats. It's a Buffalo Bash, and is held off campus every year. They even make arrangements with the school to have a bus drive to and from the event in case anyone needs a ride. Most of the people I know just had designated drivers.

So you can still party, it just takes some more planning sometimes. Be creative.
I do think that adults should be allowed to have a drink in their home. But until the image of Greek life is turned around a little, we'll just have to suffer. I mean, if it comes down to possibly losing the housing, and the chapter existing at your school, isn't it worth it?

As an alternative to having no house, a dry house is a great idea. Having no alcohol in the chapter houses will cut down on the nightly intoxication that too many members engage in, and will reduce the negative stereotype of fraternities as Animal Houses. I can't wait. I don't drink, by the way.

------------------
andrew watters
Theta Chi

Sororities on my campus have been dry for as long as I can remember, and the fraternities are going dry one by one each year. Yeah, that means one of us might have to stay sober one night to drive people home because a party was off campus... so? Isn't that what sisterhood/brotherhood is all about? Taking care of each other? Dry houses have had no more problems rushing than the houses that haven't gone dry yet, and as a result of the dry policies, I think Greek life in general has gotten a more positive image on campus. There's nothing wrong with that.

Whenever my chapter has an activity off campus, we take a bus. That way no one has to drive home drunk. Isn't that what everyone does?

------------------
andrew watters
Theta Chi

All parties are held off campus at my old school. We have no greek houses either. We live in a rural area, so our parties were always down by the river or in a field with a big bon-fire or we held them at a bro or sis apartment. Some people lived in houses (not frat or soror houses) and we had parties there. It isn't that hard to figure out where the parties were going to be and who was invited. After the party had been going for awhile, we all head over to the local pub. Our social chairs (each soror and frat have one at our school) got together and had meetings and decided who and where. Then we decided who would drive. If nobody volunteered, we drew names, and if that didn't work, we cancelled the event. If you live on a campus that has greek houses, maybe you should visit a chapter of your sorority or frat that doesn't have housing and see how the coordinate their events. That might be helpful. Many campuses nationwide don't have greek housing, they've gotten along fine and their numbers don't suffer. This new policy might affect those campuses with housing, but I don't think that it will hurt them badly. There will just be an adjustment period. My personal opinion is, if a frat or soror decide to drive drunk, they obviously don't care if they kill their bros or sisters or themselves. I wouldn't want someone who thinks that way in my sorority. I want to be a part of an orginization that watches out for each other and helps each other, not every man for himself. If you are greek and you drive drunk, you don't know what being greek is and you aren't a true bro or sister. That's my opinion. For those campuses out there that have housing, you didn't join to drink, you joined because you believe in what your orginization stands for. If it goes dry, get over it, it's not the important thing. The important thing is that you have your chapter, and you have your house. If you want to party, you'll find a way. You'll also learn a little more responsibilty in the process. If you still have a problem with it, you can't complain until you try to do something about it.

------------------
"I would rather have thirty minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special."

--Julia Roberts
(Steel Magnolias)

The problem with a lot of political agendas in is the follow through. How many of you are actually dry houses now?

My school is supposed to be a Dry campus but well its not....the campus police never do anything about the drinking b/c well I think they figure its safer to just have people drink and walk back to their dorms or apts on Campus than to have to drive somewhere but as long as the drink is inside a cup and not like a can or bottle or something they dont ever mind...I dont know though maybe enforcing a dry campus could be good but I think its safer to keep it the way it is.

Nichole

My house is dry and always has been... We're on a dry campus. But what we do off the chapter property and our own time they can't control. People in college drink -- to think otherwise and not allow us to let them drink within a more controlled environment in my opinion is the pinnacle of stupidity.

LHT,
Kevin

I can see how this would be more difficult for the fraternities than the sororities. The TG's and mixers were always at the fraternity houses. It would be really hard to take if it wasn't a universal policy.

Still, there are SOME guys who are living in the house that would probably welcome this change even if they don't want to admit it.

Hubby and several of his brothers were BG TIME serious students. They had law school, med school, vet, dent etc on their minds. So many of them got sick of brothers crashing at the house, partying till all hours-vomit-drunk nameless girls passed out in their rooms... On any given day, their opinion might have flip flopped.

What no one is saying-
Maybe this would have a negative affect on rush.
I wonder what would be more "painful", no booze or no girls?
Or, since they kind of go hand in hand, could this be one of the reasons people are upset? Kind of breaks the flow don't ya know.

Call me crazy, but wouldn't changing the drinking age back to 18 eliminate some of these problems? National prohibition didn't work eighty years ago. I think this limited prohibition for young adults has been just as unsuccessful and has caused many problems.

We didn't have houses so this wasn't a problem for GLO's on my campus.

Boy, Cream, I'm so torn on that. If there weren't 18 year olds in HS, who you KNOW would buy it for friends and see it trickle on down to even YOUNGER kids (I KNOW this happens already, it would just make it so easy...too easy) I would be 100% with you on this.

Old, trite argument, but if you're old enough to die for you country-damn it, you should be able to buy a beer.

Hey, it worked in Europe! (well of course in Europe it just got set to 18 for hard liquor and 16 for beer)...

I dunno if this would work so well in the US because of our culture that says "alcohol = 1-way ticket to hell". It would have to be a gradual change to be successful.

In the US though we are going backwards from this. Are you aware that they just set the national DUI blood alcohol level at .008? So if you've had 2 glasses of wine you are considered two drunk to drive. If you're part of MADD (which will always have more influence over legislators for some reason than normal, sane people) .008 is great... but .005 is better! And why not .001?

The question is how far has our culture gone as far as making alcohol sinful? Taking it to the point where people think it's FUN to be in a drunken stupor? If we can turn that around and all act like the adults that we are (at least under the law) then I think that our problems would mostly be solved.

Dry by 2002
 

At Ball State University our campus went dry this year. I spent three years on this campus where we were not dry and now one year where were are dry. To tell you the truth I party just as much if not more then I did. I can actually find more parties then I could before we went dry.

I think my biggest concern is safety. When the Frat's had parties there was security, DD's, sober monitors, and when you walked in you had to show your college ID and sign in so that they knew who was in their house. Now I go to the same parties just at houses where random people can walk in and there is no control.

Just in general I felt a lot safer before and I have been to more parties this year where an emergency has happened where there was no one to take care of that individual then when I was at the Frat houses.

Last week I was at a (Frat) house party where a brother got a so drunk he stopped breathing. There were some student athletic trainers there who took care of the problem and he is fine but in the papers there was no mention of it because they just figured it was a house party but if only the paper would have known it was a Frat party they would have raised all hell in the newspapers.

My house drinks beer like its going out of style....chances of us going dry are very slim...its too bad we can't just be young and have fun like the good ole days.



"Fat, Drunk, and Stupid is no way to live your life" Dean Wormer

I might be asking a crazy question, but some fraternities are dry right, the whole organization?

There is a difference b/w campus and chapters...I thought many groups were on an incentive plan.....

Anyone?

I want my chapter house to be dry that way when people come to visit they can say its the best house ever. However, I also want to get a party house with a huge basement so we can go nuts. But only in the basement.

Love,
Billy

I have to giggle a little at SAE'55's comment about the "Good ole days."

Let's see, as I recall those days, the drinking age for beer was 18. Of course the women had hours and had to be in by 10:30 PM on weekdays and 12:30 AM on Friday and Saturday.

Let's see what else I can recall. Oh yes. You could be drafted at 18, but couldn't vote until you were 21.

I didn't realize way back then how great we had it. (?)

Oh, and by the way, dry housing, dry campuses, sober sis, designated drivers and all of that have little or nothing to do with whether college students drink or not. They have nothing to do with parties.

What they have to do with is liability. Everyone knows that lots of college kids (OK, JAM, you're right, in my case, even high school students way back then - fake ID's aren't a new invention) are going to drink. Of course when Freddy Freshman or Susie Sophomore get drunk and get hurt (or die), the university, the chapter, the alumni, the national and anyone who was in a three county area are going to get sued by the parents.

Oh, and it might also be instructional to consider how much less insurance costs for sororities than a comparable fraternity. Or, thought about another way, how much of those insurance costs may be trimmed if a house/fraternity is dry. Then, there's the damage caused to our chapter houses by drinkers. (Over 90% of all insurance damage claims to fraternity houses are realted to alcohol consumption.)

Of course, we who have been around for a while have argued and debated the fairness and/or logic of this ad-nausium. It really doesn't matter in the long run, because that's the way it is. We live in a highly litigious society. Oh, and as a side note, people keep killing themselves and each other. At least five this year alone.

Personally, I think the drinking age for beer should be eighteen. But it isn't.

Maybe it would be if we could be (or had been in some of our cases) responsible in our consumption. But we're not.

Someday, this argument will be forgotten. Someday, all of the universities are going to say, ENOUGH! (Have you noticed that some already are?) Someday, assuming that the Greek System survives that long (it is possible to bleed to death by shooting yourself in the foot over and over again), someday when all the campuses are dry and all of the houses are either dry or closed, we can all debate...whatever.

Or, maybe we can just talk about the "Good ole days" when we had Greek Letter Organizations on campuses. Before they killed themselves from stupidity.

In the end, this isn't an argument about rights -- it's about responsibility. Or lack thereof.


(Editor's Note: DeltAlum, who has done his share of drinking and partying in his lifetime did not intend to go on this rant. He was just going to make a fun comment about the "Good ole days." But, as an alumni volunteer and division officer who gets a sick feeling in his stomach when he reads about another hospitalization or death or chapter closing is getting more and more frustrated and wonders how long he can continue to watch his brothers and sisters destroy the system he holds so dear.)

eltAlum-Very good post with excellent points! I think you're right-One day, this point will be moot.

I think right now there are about 10-12 fraternities that are "dry" nationally. Sigma Nu is the one I know for sure is incentive based - like if your GPA is above a certain point, you have a clean history, etc, you can have alcohol. I thought they were the only ones doing it that way but I could be wrong.

Now how much these are being enforced from org to org, that's another kettle of worms...

Yup, this policy came down at our last Grand Chapter.

The specifics can be found here:

http://www.sigmanu.com/chapterservic...oholpolicy.asp

As far as actual enforcement goes -- you generally do what HQ says because your charter can be revoked if you do otherwise.

I know FIJI and Delta Sigma Phi are also "dry". I think they also have incentives though.