[1964Alum]

This whole world is a strange and bizarre one to me. I had never heard the term "roofie" until all this emerged. And I was shocked to hear what students at UVA today were telling their parents after the disappearance of young Hannah who was eventually found murdered. As it turned out, the alleged perp had had rape allegations brought against him before coming to C'ville and nothing came of any of them. One of them was at Liberty College, the school Falwell started. If I remember correctly, the other was also a religious college. What these parents were telling me bore absolutely no resemblance to anything I had either encountered or heard about during my college days as a Greek. And also Secty. of the Student Body, where I kept a pretty close watch on what was going on on campus. These same parents were also somewhat incredulous when I told them that this was not going on in the Greek world on campus back in the day! The most that ever happened was that a certain frat would spike its punch with Everclear, something virtually everyone knew about. Also some "men" on campus would try to get their dates drunk so as to have their way with her. One night "Hook ups" were not heard of or certainly were not a common way of handling ones social life. So hearing this about UVA as well as another large university up the road -which is supposed to be worse- came as a shock to me.

Only one of our four joined a fraternity, and he flunked out of college after doing nothing but hang out at his frat house all day and drink beer. (He since then has had his "Come to Jesus" moment, returned to school graduating with high honors, and is now employed as a detective in a municipal police department.) The others wanted nothing to do with the Greek system. Nor have the children of our friends. Or other college-aged children in my extended family. They never told me any specifics, just made it clear that they wanted nothing to to with it. Nor were they into the nightly party culture which clearly DOES exist on many campuses.

My husband is a graduate of an Ivy League school and had no Greek affiliation other than Phi Beta Kappa. And then was a Woodrow Wilson Scholar at another Ivy. Many of our friends are also from that background, as are many of their children or serious students elsewhere and without Greek affiliations. So the wilder part of today's campus life is not to be found within our circle of friends, including our church.

It's hard to know what a rape victim would reliably remember, particularly one who has been diagnosed with PTSD and is presumably on medication. So IMO there is much that we don't know in terms of the particulars. I do find it telling that with regard to hazing and risk management protocols, fraternities are framing it in terms of it being a financial and liability matter rather than a moral one, which they don't seem to want to touch with a ten foot pole.

I am very concerned about how the Greek community will handle this. As I have posted before, this could be used as a golden opportunity to provide leadership on campus, which would also contribute to changing the image they have, for better or for worse. And as my Phi Beta Kappa key carrying husband says, if they are smart they will do just that.