From: elm@cs.berkeley.edu (ethan miller)
Newsgroups: soc.college
Subject: Re: Fraternal Reality From a Greek
Date: 20 Nov 92 03:31:10
Organization: Berkeley--Shaken, not Stirred
Reply-To: elm@cs.berkeley.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: terrorism.cs.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: buccim@newton.hartwick.edu's message of 16 Nov 92 15:00:04 -0500

In article <1992Nov16.150004.36@newton.hartwick.edu> buccim@newton.hartwick.edu writes:

=>To begin with, the majority of philanthropic work done in the
=>surrounding communities is performed by Greeks.  Secondly, if other
=>campuses are like mine, you would be hard pressed to find an
=>organization not led by Greeks or with Greeks making a positive
=>contribution.  On my campus, over 30% of the student body is Greek
=>affiliated - at some campuses it approaches 90%.

And I thought the only predominantly Greek universities were in Greece
:-).  The number of Greek leaders is due to (at least) two factors.
First, there are a lot of them.  I bet most of these leaders are
Chrisitian, too, but it's not because Christians are any better.  It's
because there are more of them.  Second, those who join fraternities
tend to be more social and more active in organizations.  The
organizations come first, i.e., these people would lead these groups
whether or not they were in fraternities.

=>Lets end some misconceptions.  Fraternities bagan as academic organizations.

Agreed.  Phi Beta Kappa still is an academic group.  It's coed and
non-residential, too.  Most fraternity critics would consider these
conditions acceptable for any fratnernity.

=>The first Greek letter fraternity was Phi Beta Kappa founded on Decemver 5,
=>1776 at the College of William and Mary.  As such Greeks have very high
=>academic standards.

Socrates is a human.  Socrates is smart.  Therefore, all humans are
smart.  Clearly, the author of this post has never taken a course in
logic.  We learned to avoid invalid syllogisms like this in 8th grade.

=>We may be social, but we are so in the
=>sense that one of our purposes is to build strong social bonds for
=>future years, and to develop necessary social skills.  We are NOT
=>rapists.

So that's why most fratnerities exclude women -- they don't want to
"build strong social bonds" with them.  All that most people ask is
that fraternities go coed and stop hazing.  Both of these activities
seem to be against what you just said.  Hazing hardly encourages
positive relationships, and excluding women doesn't exactly promote
good bonding with them.

There are fraternities that have done this at most schools.  At Brown,
for example, ADPhi is coed.  Do they still drink beer and have loud
parties?  Last I checked, they did.  Do I object?  No.  After all,
partying is part of college life.  So is learning to deal with the
opposite sex, though, and single-sex groups worsen dealings rather
than improve them.

ethan
--
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ethan miller--cs grad student   | "Anybody not wearing 2000000 sunblock's
elm@cs.berkeley.edu             |  gonna have a REALLY bad day.  GET IT?"
#include <std/disclaimer.h>     |  -- Sarah Connor, _Terminator 2_
Newsgroups: soc.college