New College Fraternity thread

Originally posted by dtdfever1
Like I mentioned before. I can't believe the school allowed this pretty much racist column to be published. I can't believe there are still racist people like this. Black fraternities and sororities are an important part of our greek community and should be brought up not put down. It sickens me how that the black sorority has acted, but it seems like a two way street (I'm conlcuding that the traditional sorority probably did something to deserve it) since it was written biasedly I guess we won't know.

What kind of school has greeks who fight each other? I haven't seen this kind of stuff before.

This was written at Mizzou. My guess is that intelligence is not considered super-important during sorority Rush when houses are evaluating new pledges. It isn't that they make a point of looking for dumb people; it's just that appearance is valued more. Therefore, they end up getting people that write things that aren't very bright. (I mean, come on, what kind of reaction did this twit expect?)

I had heard about the Gamma Phi blood drive thing when it first came out. Apparently the campus has the record for most blood donations in one location or something due to the strong involvement the Greeks play in the drive. The Greeks at that school would try every year to out-do each other in terms of donation... guess that girl got a little over ambitious.

As for the article regarding the USFC orgs and black GLOs, I have never heard of such thing where members of different Greek councils had such beef with each other. My first year in my house was also the first year that the cultural houses were included in Greek week, until then it had always been just Panhel and IFC. However I always noticed that although the Hispanc and Asian and multicultural houses always showed up, nationally black chapters such as AKA which I know exists at my school, never participated. Since the were in the same governing council as the other orgs, I never did understand why the black orgs never participated. I heard once that it was because they didn't really have the numbers, but since you are paired up with 3 other houses numbers arent that big of an issue. Plus you would think at that school, there must have been signs or somthing leading up to the girls' actions. It seems unlikely to me that other students really were oblivious and that the attack just came out of nowhere.

And about fraternities fighting, I remember my first rush party the girl rushing me told me about how fun it was living in their house because "The TKEs and Sigma Chis always end up fighting in our backyard every weekend!" Yeah sounds like a blast honey But as far as all-out rivalries, no way. Of course every house has it instances of fighting with other chapters, I can't tell you how many times ABC got mad at XYZ because the ABCs wouldn't let the XYZs into their party, or because ABC destroyed XYZ at intramural sports, but as for an all-out hatred of specific houses, no way. I can't imagine a Greek system existing like that, if the chapters were constantly fighting. Good, honest competition is one thing. Full-on violence and hatred is another. And there certainly aren't any competitions between governing councils. If so, Panhellenic would whoop on IFC...just kidding boys

There is always bound to be screw ups. We can only hope that they pay for their mistakes individually or locally rather then nationally.

I haven't had any experience with fighting between fraternities. I guess it doesn't make sense. Someone mentioned that a fight would occur if a fraternity was not allowed into another fraternity party. Everyone knows there is a specific guest list where only certain guests are allowed. In most campuses. No men besides the fraternity men are allowed. And all women must be put on the guest list and checked by the list when they attend. There is not supposed to be open parties. The IFC should look into it if there are open parties.

About the Black organizations. It doesn't make much sense to push those organizations down. It only hurts the tradition groups and doesn't do much for race relations.

There are some black fraternities that are members of the NIC. I am not sure why those groups are not on the local IFC. I don't think there should be a multicultural or black IFC, only one group for all fraternities and one group for all sororities. That's the only true way to develop a greek community.

Nikki, you are the only sorority girl I know on this board. Have you read the book "Pledged" by Alexandra Robbins? I just started it yesterday and I question it a bit, but it does point out some questionable things in the rush process for sororities.

At one point she mentions how two best friends decided to go through rush. One was selected and the other wasn't and how their relationship pretty much died. Does this happen very often?

I would include more as I read. She includes a lot of stuff about eating disorders, drugs, and forced relationships. It's kind of interesting whether its true or not.

Hey Slick-

At my school fraternity members can go to other fraternities' parties provided they sign up on the guest list beforehand. Usually it happens when the party fill up too fast and they reach maximum capacity that they turn other guys away. And of course the other fraternity takes it as a personal insult, and...well you get the idea

I have read Pledged. I think its an interesting idea, but Robbins does a lousy job. Honestly I could have written it better. The stuff she mentions and highlights as really outrageous (ie the girls discussing sex, piercings, etc) are just typical college conversations. For every "shocking" story or detail she shares I could give you one ten times worse, not trying to brag because it isnt worth bragging over, just to show that she could have dug a bit deeper, listened a little closer if shock value was her goal. Near the end she mentions some secret info about houses, including my own. She reveals Sigma Kappa's "secret" motto, the phrase she uses is correct; however it is NOT our secret motto. I am fairly certain after reading the book, looking around online and talking to other sorority girls that she is at a campus either in the South or Midwest. Some people say its Vandy or SMU, but since she mentions SMU elsewhere in the book I doubt thats it. Most girls I talk to about this book say it doesn't reflect their experiences much, if at all. I would have to agree. The aspects she points out are typical college issues, not anything exclusive to sorority girls.

OK I could go on about the book. Let's discuss as you read it further, u2u or email me. I'd love to know your thoughts.

Originally posted by slickwilly95991
Nikki, you are the only sorority girl I know on this board. Have you read the book "Pledged" by Alexandra Robbins? I just started it yesterday and I question it a bit, but it does point out some questionable things in the rush process for sororities.

At one point she mentions how two best friends decided to go through rush. One was selected and the other wasn't and how their relationship pretty much died. Does this happen very often?

I would include more as I read. She includes a lot of stuff about eating disorders, drugs, and forced relationships. It's kind of interesting whether its true or not.

I read "Pledged" too, even though I'm not Greek. I think there's a lot of variation in different schools and chapters. One thing that jumped out at me was the way she didn't identify the women, the school, or the sororities. Sure, protecting her sources is great, but this also gives her a lot of opportunity to make stuff up. I mean, does it seem at all funny that she could recreate all those conversations word for word?

Originally posted by nikkerbokker
Near the end she mentions some secret info about houses, including my own. She reveals Sigma Kappa's "secret" motto, the phrase she uses is correct; however it is NOT our secret motto.

It was sort of interesting that a lot of the "secret" stuff was publicly available on the web. There's a site www.fraternitysecrets.com... that has some dubious information, and a lot of that showed up in the book. There's also things like pledge manuals that you can get right off the national organizations' websites. The Chi O secrets stuff was online for a while too. I did a casual google search and noticed that before the book's publications, Alexandra Robbins been making posts to Greek bulletin boards asking for information.

Originally posted by slickwilly95991

At one point she mentions how two best friends decided to go through rush. One was selected and the other wasn't and how their relationship pretty much died. Does this happen very often?

I would include more as I read. She includes a lot of stuff about eating disorders, drugs, and forced relationships. It's kind of interesting whether its true or not.

Happens all the time that girls go through rush with their friend or roommate and they will join different houses, or one won't join a house at all or whatever. In my experience usually when a girl is rushing with someone else, its because "My roommate was rushing and didnt want to do it alone" etc Also the girls are assigned into groups so they are not going to be at each other's sides the entire time, they will be lucky to see each other at all. And as for the friendship dying, that does happen sometimes sadly, usually because a girl moves into the house and gets close with her sisters (as Vicki does in Pledged) and of course the house just takes a lot of time in general, time that might have otherwise gone towards the friendship now goes to philanthropy and meeting and exchanges. However I rushed and my 3 freshman roommates thought rushing was the dumbest thing. We're still great friends. So its really what you make of it, all friendships take work.

Eating disorders, drugs, bad relationships...Slick do you really think these things only afflict sorority girls? Of course not. Robbins kind of neglects to mention that. I know more people who weren't in houses that did drugs than vice versa. Robbins mentions one house's "drug room" which was outrageous, but she never mentions heavy drug use again really aside from the girls smoking weed. I have seen much worse than that and not even in my own house. And never once did a girl in my house pressure me to drink or do any drugs, but I can tell you there is always at least a small clique of girls in every house that is up to this stuff. Eating disorders a plenty existed of course, I myself have battled one for years and can say it was something that took place well before I even knew what Sigma Kappa was. Same with most sisters I know who have eating issues, it isnt as though they joined the house and thought "OK well I never ran 5 miles a day before but I will now that I'm a Sigma Kappa!" And c'mon, who among us hasn't had a bad relationship?

OK really im done ranting about the book for now. Hope this clears things up for you a bit Slick.

Conflation you are absolutely correct. She could be making stuff up or embellishing. If you read a lot of those exact boards she posted on, a lot of people tear her a new one for that exact reason. Her sources are crap, she uses things like "A Girl's Guide To Rush" which are outdated and overall not to be taken seriously. And I already knew most of the "secret" stuff she reveals anyway. But c'mon if you're gonna blow the lid off secret info pertaining to my house, at least get the info straight Jeez!

I'm too lazy to look up the figures again, but she quotes a People magazine study that says 80% of sorority girls have eating disorders while the college female population will have 50% and that's including the sorority girls. I think that's pretty bad if beauty is pushed to so much of an extreme. (If you think that beauty comes from not eating, which I don't)

I know that it's a college issue, but if the pressure to look skinny is pushed from more than just magazines and tv but from a large group where females are all living together, it may be something to address. And I know no one in the sorority is saying, "Make sure you puke after eating", but it seems like there is a indirect relationship between the disorder and the sorority. For instance Jenny is skinny (she's also bulimic) and she gets guys all the time, if I looked like Jenny I would get a lot of guys too, thus I must purge.

It may be something that may never be resolved.

Originally posted by nikkerbokker
Robbins mentions one house's "drug room" which was outrageous, but she never mentions heavy drug use again really aside from the girls smoking weed.

That part was really hard to buy. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that technically women weren't supposed to have alcohol in sorority houses, so if they did, they might not be really blatant about it. (This is why you hear about parties at fraternities, but not sororities.) Given this, it's hard to believe that a sorority would have a dedicated drug room. The part about the sorority advisor saying that she could not allow Robbins to write about the drug room doesn't seem too believable either. I mean, the advisor really wasn't in a position to tell a reporter what she was allowed to write about, and it's hard to believe that most adults would be naive enough to think otherwise.

Yeah but have they done a comparision of eating disorders nationally among college woman vs among girls on competitive cheerleading squads? How about models? Of course some groups have above the average, and naturally its among groups of women that are known for placing a high price on looks.
I'll admit I wasn't in the Barbie house, but I was far from the bottom rung as well. Of course being girls we would be mean and gossip-y about who's gotten fat and who needs to lose 5 more points etc But never flat-out tell a girl "You need to lose weight" And of course I see your reasoning behind the Jenny analogy. But that could go for more than just the weight issue. Just replace "skinnier" with "smarter" "more popular" etc. But if someone really thought like that, chances are she thought like that well before she joined a sorority. Of course we will never know what those girls are thinking, I mean look at MaryKate Olsen. Someone who has fame, money, looks, brains (and a hot sister!)....and still for some reason she too fell victim to an eating disorder. I think its more based on a girl's psychological state than meeting someone (or joining a sorority) and wanting to mold yourself after them.

Originally posted by slickwilly95991
I'm too lazy to look up the figures again, but she quotes a People magazine study that says 80% of sorority girls have eating disorders while the college female population will have 50% and that's including the sorority girls. I think that's pretty bad if beauty is pushed to so much of an extreme. (If you think that beauty comes from not eating, which I don't)

I know that it's a college issue, but if the pressure to look skinny is pushed from more than just magazines and tv but from a large group where females are all living together, it may be something to address. And I know no one in the sorority is saying, "Make sure you puke after eating", but it seems like there is a indirect relationship between the disorder and the sorority. For instance Jenny is skinny (she's also bulimic) and she gets guys all the time, if I looked like Jenny I would get a lot of guys too, thus I must purge.

It may be something that may never be resolved.

Originally posted by conflation

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that technically women weren't supposed to have alcohol in sorority houses, so if they did, they might not be really blatant about it. (This is why you hear about parties at fraternities, but not sororities.) Given this, it's hard to believe that a sorority would have a dedicated drug room. The part about the sorority advisor saying that she could not allow Robbins to write about the drug room doesn't seem too believable either. I mean, the advisor really wasn't in a position to tell a reporter what she was allowed to write about, and it's hard to believe that most adults would be naive enough to think otherwise.

It is against national Panhellenic rules to have alcohol in sorority houses. But let me be the first to tell you, Panhellenic's rules aren't stopping anyone. A drug room may be hard to believe, but I for one will admit to having broken Panhel rules SEVERAL TIMES when I lived in the house. All those girls, 30, 40+, and ONE house mom? Like anyone is gonna stop them. Persnally, we would all decide which private room we would meet in beforehand, and 5-10 of us would sneak in there before exchanges or whatever. Not saying it was OK, just that drinking in the house (&worse) happens more than you might think.

Originally posted by nikkerbokker
It is against national Panhellenic rules to have alcohol in sorority houses. But let me be the first to tell you, Panhellenic's rules aren't stopping anyone. A drug room may be hard to believe, but I for one will admit to having broken Panhel rules SEVERAL TIMES when I lived in the house. All those girls, 30, 40+, and ONE house mom? Like anyone is gonna stop them. Persnally, we would all decide which private room we would meet in beforehand, and 5-10 of us would sneak in there before exchanges or whatever. Not saying it was OK, just that drinking in the house (&worse) happens more than you might think.

Oh, I believe you. It's just that the idea of a sorority house having a room with the primary purpose of doing drugs seemed a little farfetched. "Oh, and this is the Drug Room?" What you said sounded more plausible - girls pick a place and then go do their thing. And the business with the adult advisor supposedly allowing Robbins to see this room and then telling her she wasn't allowed to write about it? Sounds a little fishy.

Originally posted by conflation
And the business with the adult advisor supposedly allowing Robbins to see this room and then telling her she wasn't allowed to write about it? Sounds a little fishy.

Conflag, the part that took me as unbelievable was the fact that someone who advises and is the authority figure would allow such a thing to knowingly occur in the house. I am an advisor, I know hundreds of other advisors and I know each of them, if they saw something stupid, would put a stop to it. Of course, if you don't know about it, that's another story and I'm sure there are many things that go over the advisor.

Even as a chapter president, I would be busting down heads of guys who were drinking in their rooms. Maybe I'm just a die hard for the rules or just have better values then my brothers.

It just seems farfetched that the advisor would allow such a thing. She is the authority of that chapter. She has the power to strip anyone of their office, they have the power to take the charter if they wish. What happens when a consultant from the national office comes, does the drug room get cleaned up. The consultant also has the power to take a charter, expel a member, everything else. I'm sure a consultant wouldn't allow such a thing.

I remember one time when there was a thought that we had beer at a recruitment event. I was hassled by the consultants and greek advisor. We were at a bowling alley and there is beer everywhere, but we didn't have any. We were too busy trying to recruit.

I'm just going on and on now. I need to stop.

Originally posted by slickwilly95991
I would include more as I read. She includes a lot of stuff about eating disorders, drugs, and forced relationships. It's kind of interesting whether its true or not.

Nikki, I said forced relationships not bad relationships. Like when the girls were told to go out with guys from a certain fraternity because the stock in the sorority would rise. Is this what goes on at your school? I think when I was in undergrad, the dating spectrum was pretty even along with independents. Of course, at our school we didn't have a stock exchange on how good a fraternity or sorority was. There was only 1 bad sorority out of 4 in the looks department, and only 2 bad fraternities out of 7. Geeks and potheads. But dating from those groups didn't harm the image from other organizations.

Does anyone have a system for homecoming and greek week like it is explained in the book where there is a courting process? At our school there is a drawing conducted by a steering committee and no groups could be paired up with each other in consecutive years. During my time, we were with every sorority and paired up with another fraternity 2 times.

At my school we had a couple of sororities that were looked down apon for they were not as beautifull as the others. And yes slick if you dated one of these girls you would get made fun of by both girls and guys. There are a big five of fraternity's also. The other ten are smaller and girls usually don't date these guys for fear that they will be looked down on for they are not from the big fraternities. Yes it really happens, at least at my school it does. One of the smaller girls sorority was looked down on so much it got shut down for the lack of members.

OK I get what you're saying Slick. Well in my house it wasn't that girls were encouraged to go out with guys from a certain house, but there was kind of an unspoken awe/admiration of the girls who dated guys from the top houses. Don't ask me why, that's just how girls are I guess. And of course if Alpha Beta and Gamma Delta both had parties on the same night, but AB was the "better" house, of course the girls would go to AB (younger girls would be encouraged by older girls to look nice, impress the ABs!) to "get their faces out there" to their guys. But on the flip side, I have known several fraternity guys who have flat-out told me "I only date girls from ABC and XYZ" or express interest in a girl and, upon finding out which house she is in, immediately lose interest. A guy I knew who was interested in one of my sisters even said to me once "Lisa's hot, too bad she's a Sigma K or I would date her"!!!!!! One guy in my bf's house told me about how his girlfriend pledged a sorority and that she dumped him once the girls in her house found out what house he was in, but the guy was kind of a jackass and I know he cheated on her so who knows the real reason. Anyway my personal experiences have been GLO association matters much more to the guys than the girls.

We don't have any courting like in Pledged, like you said Slick our teamings for Homecoming and Greek Week are selected by the Greek Life staff. However every semester for Preference, the semi-formal right after rush ends, the fraternities all go around and ask the sororities to Pref. Of course who you go to Pref with is a big deal. The fraternities/sororities a house goes to Pref kind of reflect who those houses hang out with: the top houses with the top houses, the smaller houses with the smaller houses. And is a huge selling point during rush too, especially for the guys. If the sorority is asked by more than one house, we vote on who to go with. If more than one house accepts a fraternity's offer, they vote on it then. The fraternities invite sororities to Pref before the end of the semester for the following term, so of course we got a lot of "Look cute for the XYZ party, we want them to ask us to Pref!" and during Walk-Arounds (when sorority girls go to fraternity meetings or vice versa) of course we would bring more treats to the houses we wanted to go with and the older girls would arrange us so that the "face cards" of the house were in front.

OK I'm stepping off my soapbox now.

That amazes me. From the book it seemed like that only happened at southern school and maybe some lower midwest states. I noticed you are from California, do you mind saying what school or area of California you are from? Also about what size is your school and the size of the greek community?

I went to a smaller school I guess you could say with a small to medium greek community. I know of schools a lot smaller, I'm just putting it into the perspective of a U of Texas, or UCLA.

I met a guy who only had 2 fraternities on campus, no sororities and only about 1000 kids at school. There was also a guy who said his school had about 10,000-15,000 kids at school 10 fraternities and 10 sororities and 98% of the student body were in the greek community. That's pretty good numbers and I'm sure the school really promotes the system. I can't remember the school cause I would like to visit. I wonder about the negative aspects, if there is hazing and such.

Slick I went to San Diego State University, which has about 35,000 students. There are 9 sororities and 15 (I think?) fraternities. Some houses have as many as 120 members, some have as few as 25. I don't know the exact numbers but I would say maybe 30% of the school is Greek, give or take a few. Being in lovely Southern California, there is quite a bit of emphasis on appearances. One sorority even had their members sign a contract promising to have fake nails & blonde highlights done for rush, as well as tan at least twice per week before rush. Walking to class at SDSU is a fashion show, girls will wear a miniskirt and heels to class, not just sorority girls but just about any pretty young thing. Its also surprising how many beautiful girls I meet on campus that any sorority would be lucky to have who wouldn't step foot into a chapter house. Just isn't their thing I guess.