Greek Participation Dropping at Utah

[utealum]

No, I know what RLDS is. But I don't understand what the hell that had to do with LDS church members being brainwashed, or what else you meant by your post.

Maybe try less smilies, more complete (and coherent) sentences if you want to get a point across.

[sueali]

Originally posted by utealum
Hmm, that's changed since I was there (almost 10 years ago!)

The U was about 50% LDS, and I would say that while most of the fraternities had almost all non-LDS members (Sigma Chi being a notable exception), the PHC sororities all had LDS members-- some were even almost entirely LDS, but all of them had nearly 50% LDS members (except one house which had more of a 'party' reputation). But the LDS sororities weren't nearly as popular, either.

Thanks for clearing that up, I was told differently by a couple of sorority members from Utah. Do you think the drop in greeklife has to do with LDS members as was previously posted in this thread? Just ignore all of the crazy brainwashing comments.

[GeekyPenguin]

Originally posted by BetaRose
RLDS and LDS are two separate religions, Tom.

If they don't smoke wacky tabaccky, Tom doesn't care.

I have several friends who are LDS and all of them told me that Greek membership is generally frowned upon by the elders of the church.

[utealum]

Well (and again, this could have changed) we had a granddaughter of the LDS Prophet in our chapter and there was another granddaughter in another chapter, as well as a lot of Sigma Chis who went on to be bigwigs in the church, so I don't think it was that frowned upon. I do think that Greek membership at a school outside of Utah, where the prevailing culture is so much different (in most sorority chapters you would have 50% at least non-drinking members, for instance, which I don't think is the case at the other schools I have seen), would probably be more inconsistent with LDS beliefs.

I think Utah's much bigger problem is its status as a commuter school. The large majority of its students are from Salt Lake City or the surrounding suburbs, and many of them live at home and do not get involved in campus life in general. The Greek population consisted of either students whose parents and siblings had also been involved in Greek life and so had a strong tie to it or people like me who came from out of state and were looking for a home away from home. But it was really hard to keep even the people who lived in Sandy (a suburb) and joined a sorority to stay involved, if you could even get them interested in the first place.

[LXA SE285]

Bumping 'cause I'm curious about the current campus situation versus seven years ago.

The LDS-sponsored GLOs were dissolved last year in a restructuring of church programs for college students:

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/52...sigma.html.csp

[33girl]

This quote pretty much sums it up, IMO:

Did it have something to do with LDS President Thomas S. Monson's remarks in April, when he urged young men and young women to do less hanging out and more dating to prepare for marriage?

They may be surprised, though. I can easily see one or more of the NPC/IFC groups becoming the "default" LDS organization. And then they'd have no control over its being open or not - as no national or university is going to disband a GLO full of nondrinking members who study hard.

[DesertRose]

I am bumping this back up to the top in hopes that I can get an update on the situation at the U of Utah. One of my DD's friends has applied to Utah and is considering going Greek. She is not Mormon, but her family is from Utah. I checked out the Greek Life site and the FB pages of the sororities and they look like they are active and not dying out, but I know that looks can be deceiving!