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Georgia Greeks Boom
Here's an article that was in the AJC a few days ago....GREAT publicity for GREEKS!!! Actually shows us in a POSITIVE LIGHT!!!
The Atlanta Journal and Constitution
August 25, 2002
Fraternity, sorority rows have again become popular hangouts as
Georgia colleges see a Greek Revival
By KELLY SIMMONS
:
It starts with the clapping of hands and a low hum. Without words,
dozens of men emerge from all corners of the house and head for the
front door. The hum grows louder, the clapping like thunder.
Outside they turn and look toward the front of the house. In a
moment, 18-year-old Franz Russler runs down the stairs from the
second floor and out the door and leaps into the waiting arms of his
new family. Their voices echo across the Georgia Tech campus as they
chant, hoisting Russler above their heads.
"We're Phi Gamm,
Best in the land, Hot damn, Hot damn,
Give it up Phi Gamm,
Hey!"
With that and a little white star pinned to his chest, Russler, just
one day into his freshman year, becomes the newest pledge at the Phi
Gamma Delta fraternity at Tech.
After years of decline, fraternity and sorority enrollment on Georgia
college campuses has made a modest rebound in recent years. The
number of students who pledged a Greek organization at Tech, the
University of Georgia and Emory University in 2000 and 2001 was the
highest it's been in a decade. Administrators say they believe
enrollment this year will be even higher when new pledges are sworn
in later in the semester.
At Morehouse College, students are seeing a Greek renaissance as two
fraternities --- banned from the campus for a decade because of
hazing violations --- return, doubling the number of Greek
organizations on the all-male campus. Only 60 students belonged to
Morehouse fraternities in 2000. That number could easily top 200 this
year, officials there say.
Driving the increase is the record enrollment in Georgia colleges and
universities.
But school officials also say more students appear to be seeking the
support system a Greek organization can provide. Some campuses have
even added new chapters to attract students who have been
underrepresented in the past.
In their pitch for new members, fraternities and sororities offer
students, usually freshmen, a home away from home through which they
can build lifelong bonds. Brothers and sisters take oaths of loyalty
to each other, eat meals together and often live together in the
chapter house.
It was an offer Russler said he couldn't refuse.
"One of the things I want to get out of it is another home to go to,"
said Russler, who is from Chamblee. "The dorm is a one-year kind of
thing. This is a whole college experience."
A victim of own abuses
Greek enrollment peaked nationwide in the late 1980s. In 1990, more
than 27 percent of the undergraduate students enrolled at Georgia
Tech were pledged to a fraternity or sorority. UGA hit its stride
between 1985 and 1990, when more than 26 percent of its undergraduate
population joined a Greek organization. Almost half of Emory
University's students were members in the mid- to late 1980s,
historians there recall.
By the late 1990s, membership at UGA and Tech had fallen to 18
percent to 20 percent of undergraduates. Membership at Emory fell to
about 30 percent.
The national decline began in the mid-1990s, after high-profile
reports of hazing, alcohol abuse, sexual misdeeds and racism
involving Greek organizations. While national fraternity and sorority
oversight boards do not release officials numbers, they estimate
enrollment fell 30 percent between 1989 and 1999.
"There's a perception that they're not meeting a need," said Kevin
Kruger, associate executive director of the National Association of
Student Personnel Administrators. "They have a reputation that is not
exactly in line with where many students want to be academically."
Kruger also said colleges are doing a better job of providing support
services through residence halls, perhaps lessening some students'
need to join a Greek organization.
Most Georgia schools now provide orientation for freshmen and group
those with similar interests for the first semester.
Students also have dozens of other interests competing for their time
on campus, including marching band, ROTC, student government, honor
societies and clubs.
Special interest groups, some targeted to specific populations, also
have begun to emerge, including sororities and fraternities geared to
Hispanic and Asian students.
In its sixth year at UGA, the Alpha Sigma Rho Asian-interest sorority
now has about 30 members. It was formed by six Asian women who felt
UGA needed something more to offer the minority group, which makes up
less than 3 percent of the undergraduate student body.
"I was very much not into the Greek thing" upon arriving at UGA, said
sorority President Lisa Schultheiss, a junior born and reared in
Tennessee. "I wanted to explore my Japanese culture."
Students also know you don't have to be in a Greek organization to
take part in some of its activities.
"Half the people who go to the parties aren't in a fraternity," said
Georgia Tech senior Mandy Reynolds, 21, an industrial systems and
engineering major from Macon, who didn't participate in rush.
The party reputation of fraternities, immortalized in the 1978 movie
"Animal House," is one that national Greek organizations have tried
to dispel. Both fraternities and sororities have taken steps in
recent years to address any negative perceptions of Greek life. In
2000, the National Panhellenic Conference instituted a policy that
prohibits sororities from participating in social events at a
fraternity house where alcohol will be served. Alcohol already was
prohibited in sorority houses.
Frats banned alcohol
Sally Grant, National Panhellenic Conference chairman, said the new
policy was approved as a way for sororities to support fraternities
that were going alcohol-free. In recent years, several fraternities
have elected not to allow alcohol in their houses.
Fraternities that went alcohol-free "were worried their social life
would decline," said Grant, who was an Alpha Phi at DePauw University
in Indiana.
About a half-dozen of the fraternities at UGA have banned alcohol in
their houses, the most recent being Tau Kappa Epsilon, which
announced in the spring it would refocus on maintaining high academic
standards.
UGA also has made an effort to participate more in Greek life,
maintaining contact with the chapters on campus and the national
organizations.
"In the last 10 years, we have been able to refocus and put more
emphasis on that relationship," said Rodney Bennett, dean of students
at UGA. "All of us recognize we can't go about business as usual."
There has also been more effort in recent years to crack down on
chapters that break the rules or create a problem on campus. In
April, Georgia Tech suspended the Chi Phi fraternity for two years
for violating the school's policy against hazing.
In February, Emory passed a new party policy for fraternities after a
November bash turned into a drunken street brawl. The policy, adopted
by the school's interfraternity council, requires that at least seven
members of a fraternity remain alcohol-free during parties and that
only three times as many people as there are members may attend.
A UGA task force is exploring possible policy changes for Greek
organizations after a white sorority sister accused the Alpha Gamma
Delta sorority of discriminating against a black student two years
ago. The sorority also agreed to provide diversity training to new
members.
Perhaps surprising to some who think of fraternities as the party
leaders on campus, Greeks tend to have a higher grade-point average
and retention rate than other students.
The average GPA of Greek undergraduates at UGA last spring was 3.2,
slightly higher than the 3.09 average for all undergraduates. Student
retention at Tech is higher for Greeks than non-Greeks, as well. More
than 92 percent of the freshmen enrolled in Greek organizations from
1999 to 2001 returned to school for their sophomore year, compared
with 88 percent of non-Greek freshmen.
That's one of the selling points for Phi Gamma Delta, which has one
of the highest GPAs at Tech. Upperclassmen in the fraternity provide
a tutoring service for younger students struggling with classes, said
Matt BeVier, 22, who graduates in December with a degree in
mechanical engineering.
"It's one of the reasons my dad wanted me to join a fraternity," said
BeVier, whose father played football for Tech in the early '70s.
In addition, each chapter has a commitment to philanthropy and
participates in community service projects throughout the year.
Every Thanksgiving before the annual Georgia Tech-UGA football game,
the Phi Gamma Delta chapters from Tech and UGA join up for the Run
for the River.
Members form a relay team to make the 70-mile run between Atlanta and
Athens carrying a football. Money raised from the event last year
went to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and the Upper Chattahoochee
Riverkeeper.
"They're a great bunch of guys," said senior Glen Iannucci, president
of the Georgia Tech chapter, "even though they go to UGA."
Graphic: GREEK LIFE
Students in Greek organizations at selected Georgia colleges.
School............ 2001
Emory............ 1,742
Georgia State...... 530
Georgia Tech......2,347
Morehouse.......... 173
UGA.............. 4,032
Graphic: ON GREEK ROW Percent of undergraduates in Greek
organizations. Year.... Emory.... GSU.... Georgia Tech.... UGA
2001.......29%..... 3%............. 21%.....19% 2000.......30%.....
3%............. 20%.....19% 1999.......34%..... 3%.............
20%.....18% 1998.......32%..... 3%............. n/a.....19%
1995...... n/a..... 3%............. 26%.....20% 1992...... n/a.....
3%............. 26%.....23% 1990...... n/a..... 3%.............
27%.....26% 1988.......60%.... n/a............. 25%.....26%
1985...... n/a.... n/a............. 25%.....27% 1982...... n/a....
n/a............. 24%.....22%
Copyright 2002 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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