I'm honestly crushed right now.
We met with the Dean, who told us again how impressed she was with the presentation and that she really appreciated all the effort we'd put into it, and she had felt it was a solid enough idea to pass along to the next level, the university president. Then she told us that when she had done so, he had replied within a few hours and said that there was no way he would even suggest a meeting to the Board of Trustees because it “just wouldn't work here, our students don't want it." (really? 10% of the student body expressing an interest counts for nothing?! argh!)
I would never like to hear no as an answer, but what I'm really most hurt by and disappointed about is that the answer was no without any thought, and without even giving us the chance to be heard and to voice our opinion. It just seems so hypocritical, when all we talk about here (especially in the last couple of weeks, since we've had so much negative student activity on campus!) is how we need to be a student driven university, and students need to take charge and work with the administration to make the campus and the community of the campus what we want it to be, that they'd be so close minded as to refuse to even listen to what we have to say. If, having heard how Greek life has changed since they were in school in the 70s and 80s and seeing the passion behind the (substantially sized!) group of students who wants this, they still thought it wasn't a good idea and weren't willing to allow it -- well, I certainly wouldn't be happy, but I would understand it and learn to accept it. This on the other hand - I can't accept it. I won't accept it, frankly.
We expressed to the Dean how disappointed we were in the negative attitude and refusal to even consider the information and interest available before giving a blanket response of no (seriously, every time I think of it, I get the mental image of the president and board of trustees with their fingers stuffed in their ears going “nah nah nah don’t want hear this nah nah nah”). And she seemed to agree with us that it wasn’t the best way to respond. She told us that she would be willing to bring it up with him again and discuss with him our reaction to refusal. She can’t make any promises that it will help, or that he will agree to at least hear us out, but she’s willing to go to bat for us to bring it up again, which we really appreciate – especially since she came into the presentation having had a negative experience with a sorority in her own undergrad experience! So for someone who saw Greek life as a negative thing before our presentation to come out of it, perhaps not still loving it but willing to see that it can be positive and could potentially be positive for our students really does give me hope that we could, with work, get anyone who is actually willing to listen to our presentation and see our compilation of research materials to see things that way also. If only they’d give us the chance to speak! And if the President refuses to listen, we’re going to go to his open hour (he periodically has an open hour, in which students can come and get a 10-minute timeslot to discuss any issue they want with him) and sitting until he’ll give us at least 5 minutes to discuss the issue with him. Ignoring us will not make us go away – we’ll be polite and respectful to the utmost, but we deserve it in return and to ignore the voice of 10% of your university’s undergraduate population is unacceptable.
I’m just really bummed out. It makes me feel as if all this discussion of student activities being run by student initiatives and student desires, and about the administration working with and listening to the voices of the students, is just something we print in the brochures to bring in prospective students.
Nonetheless, we are continuing with our Meet the Greeks because above and beyond everything else, it’s an event to educate the students here, many of whom have little to no firsthand experience with Greek life, about what fraternities and sororities are REALLY about (hint: it’s not about solo cups and hazing, guys). Apparently, though, word about the event got around to other schools and people have been calling the Student Life office asking why they weren’t invited to come recruit!! AH! That’s a hot mess, apparently several of them were out and out rude to the Dean’s secretary, and the groups invited were ones someone on campus had a personal connection to, or was a group suggested to us by a group we had a personal connection to. It’s a wreck but we’re taking care of it, and we’re hoping the event is still a success – even though we’re going into it with heavy hearts.
We'll keep fighting until they either tell us yes, or are able to hear us out and give us a real reason why the answer is no, other than a refusal to entertain the idea of anything new. I've always been an obstinate child, my mom tells me - it'll pay off now.
Hybrid Mode
