Quote:
Originally Posted by dznat187
I work as a live-in fraternity advisor and this case has really frightened many of us who work in the field. As much as I can keep an eye on what is going on in my house, I can't be there at every moment of every day nor can I make good decisions for my fraternity men. I can educate them and be there for them but ultimately decisions are their's. Granted officials and advisors should be able to spot trouble issues.
I think this whole case will bring to the forefront the whole live-in/housemanager job. Many schools are beginning to require professional live-in advisors, like myself (with a masters) and are moving away from having members of the fraternity serve as the house manager/advisor. I think Rider is making good strides in changing these positions and hopefully other schools will see the benfit of this change and see how it is worth the added expenses.
I really am interested to see how this all pans out and what effect it has on those working in higher ed administration and specifically those working in greek advisor positions. In general greek life is entry level and does not pay that well. If you add in the possibility of being charged or sued because of a chapter's actions, there may be even fewer people willing to work in Greek life and the retention of greek advisors will continue to decline.
Natalie
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Natalie,
Very well stated. It hard enough to find alumni and outsiders willing to do the work to help care for a fraternal chapter- and if these prosecutions are successful, then it will become even harder. In fact, the more coverage this situation gets- the more reluctance it will create no matter what the outcome.
Reading through the articles I get the sense of a prosecutor who cares more about sending a message and setting precedent than in dealing with the facts at hand. Mike Nifong reincarnated?
We do not know the facts at hand, but I think any reasonable person can agree that University officials could not have the direct ability to forsee the imminent danger of a specific occurrence of this kind of event and effectively prevent it except in extremely unusual circumstances of insight. An example of that might be a University official who was an alumnus of a chapter where such an event took place and had been present- and no evidence of any such circumstances has been presented to date.
This is going to sound very hard and cruel, but it is right time to say it.
Looking back at my chapter- I cannot remember a single pledge class where there was not at least one person who did not drink alcohol at all. And I cannot remember any events where pledges were physically forced to drink, or nagged into excess drinking.
I am sure it happens- but I have never seen any evidence to suggest it is an epidemic problem. I am still waiting for anyone to produce substantive evidence that drinking-related deaths among college students are convincingly disproportionately associated with membership in a Greek organization.
Now, houses where that kind of thing happens on a routine basis are going to naturally attract the kind of kids who want to drink heavily in the first place.
This is still a bad thing, but not in the sense that totally innocent youths are being corrupted- rather people with bad habits tend to congregrate.
Going back to my example about non-drinkers or infrequent drinkers, there were voluntarily sober people at every Greek party I ever attended. It is not that hard to say no if you really don't want to drink, or if you don't want to drink irresponsibly.
And so I find it hard to believe that a fraternity can systematically corrupt youths so quickly. That assumes that at 18, the average young man is weak-minded and not much of a man.
Perhaps this young man's parents should reflect on what example they might have set and how their childrearing choices might have contributed to this.
Maybe they are not to blame at all. Maybe this was an isolated incident.
But just think for a second about the fact this young man made a very bad choice.
Does it make more sense the conditioning for that bad choice came from a few months of fraternity membership or nearly 18 years of parenting?
Consider also how many of us have imbibed incredible amounts of liquor a time or two in college. I sure did- I remember those 2 incidents well (or rather the 2 day hangover that followed.)
In the grand scheme of things, this unfortunate young man paid the hardest price for something a great many of us have done a time or two.
That is a tragedy- but it is no excuse for this kind of criminal prosecution.
I do not see a search for justice here. I see a deliberate attempt to wipe out Greek Life by making it impossible for it to exist.
Natalie, it is a worthwhile concept to have well compensated individuals living in and running Greek houses- but it is not financially practical.
And as many fraternities have learned the hard way, when you have a dry or strictly managed house that is populated with members who are not prone to making good choices about conducting themselves- a few guys/girls in the chapter renting a house nearby will soon be host to a completely unsupervised environment where the drinking and other things will take place anyway.
It will be interesting to see how this unfolds, but unless some extraordinary circumstances emerge regarding the University officials and direct knowledge of events in this particular chapter- I don't see this prosecution succeeding in the long run (meaning in the appeals process if there is a conviction.)
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