Greeks struggle with diversity

[moe.ron]

Link to the Article

Discuss among yourself.

[adpiucf]

I'm sure I will sound racist in saying this, and that isn't my intent. So here is my opinion:

Why do GLO's need to be racially diverse? Why is it even an issue? GLO's market to all incoming students to promote recruitment events. Those students choose to sign up for recruitment and go through the process. Based on this pool of PNM's, the chapters select their new members.

Minority groups have done an excellent job of setting up supportive organizations to supplement minority students' active campus involvement; those organizations were cited in the article. If students can find a home-away-from-home in an NPC GLO, IFC GLO, Multi-cultural GLO, Divine Nine Sorority/Fraternity, Minority Student Union, Religious Society, Pre-Professional Club, Athletics.... etc... why, again, is it an issue? White males no longer dominate campuses. I think our universities are racially diverse.

If a traditional-age Greek college student acts inappropriately to another traditional-age college student, it's going to be pinned on him and his letters regardless of whether he was drinking underage, disrespectful to another person, performed poorly in school, or destroyed public property. That much will never change. I think the university administrations need to be teaching tolerance of all people, but that needs to come from the school. I really don't see where the Greeks are creating racial barriers as a group. Ongoing membership training and leadership training preach the need to be accepting of others, tolerance, etc. Why is it fully up to traditional-age students in a GLO chapter to "teach" diversity when they are in the academic environment to "learn?" Teach all students.

[PsychTau]

Well said, adpiucf.

We cannot force people of different ethnicities, cultures, backgrounds, etc. to join the Greek system. Recruitment is advertised, people sign up if they choose, and new members are selected from those who sign up. We cannot require people to sign up.

Each campus culture and environment is different. With that in mind (and knowing that one solution will not work on all campuses), what can NPC and IFC groups do to draw in students of different ethnicities, cultures, backgrounds, etc? Because once you draw them into recruitment, you're more likely to draw them into joining.

PsychTau

[IowaStatePhiPsi]

They have a Diversity Encouragement Council for their Greek Community... I'm not sure I like the name, but I like the concept of a committee or council to meet, discuss issues and develop programing within the Greek Community for issues like racial tensions, homophobia, etc. I think that would be a good addition to IFCs, PHCs, et al.

I don't think that quotas would be appropriate at all, so it's hard to say "you need to rush people from group X", but I do think a distinction should be made that it is not appropriate to say "Don't rush people from group X".

[Kevin]

I think that racially, we are slowly being integrated, but there are challenges to this.

I've told the story here several times. I had a friend who I had a class with for several years. He happened to be black. I thought he was a pretty good fit to my house, so I tried to figure out what he was all about. When I suggested to him that he go through rush, he told me that his roommate (a member of a D9 fraternity) and many of his friends would disassociate with him. He'd discussed that with them already and it would be a pretty serious affront I guess.

I never really raised the issue after that.

But it does tell me that there are diversity issues and people with that have problems with racial diversity on both sides of the tracks so to speak.

That was about 3 years ago. I look at today's class of Freshmen going through rush and I can say that they are without a doubt the most racially diverse group I've seen -- probably about 1:5 were not white. I think it's finally becoming less and less an issue at my alma mater, and I like that.

[RACooper]

Basically I think the writer of the article is expecting too much change too quickly. GLOs much like any organization are much slower in their rate of change (of membership diversity) compared to the community that they are in... mostly because it takes time for the members to become comfortable with the change, and also because it takes time for the changing community to become comfortable with the GLOs. I have seen this article format applied to many organizations in my time: the military, the police, the government, local politics, businesses, school faculty, news media, etc. Change takes time, but change does happen.... by simply looking at the composite photos on display around the chapter it is easy to see a slow change in the make-up of the membership, but that change is always there.... mostly because if you don't adapt you die.

[adpiucf]

If a house catches fire, someone hazes, dies or a student wins a prestigious honor (and happens to be a GLO member), that's newsworthy. I would also say if a GLO raised an extremely large sum of money for a charity (I'm taking $100K or more), then yes, print.

An "undercover" rush story, a fluffy blurb about finding "sisterhood" or that XYZ hosted a slumber party jammy-jam and donated $3K to a local hospital-- that's a big yawn and it has been done to death.

The diversity story would have merit as a human interest piece if the reporter had actually done some digging.

News needs to pass a SO WHAT, WHO CARES test. I think there is a lot of reporting right now that starts off with a good idea, and then goes to a lazy reporter who doesn't really do the work-- he just "writes pretty." Journalists are the independent watchdogs of society-- this story was very weak, in my opinion.