Now it all become clear. Zywicki just wanted on the board because he lies the idea of fraternities: where kids’ parents can buy their friends and cheat.

Larry, at 8:02 am EDT on June 28, 2005

Shift to Freedom not Partydom

Wow, harshish comments here. This is hardly a shift to the Right. Its a shift to freedom. Thats neither left, right or center. Its a shift away from social engineering attempted by the Student Life Initiative. The restrictions placed by SLI were an insult to the intelligent students that the school admitted and educated. Todd and others are asking the college to return to an environment where students can make their own choices about what to say and how to assemble socially. Lifting the restrictions is not an invitation to party its a recognition that students are capable of making their own decisions.

FreeDo, at 2:22 pm EDT on June 28, 2005

Well Said

Enough is enough with useless college administrators with their Masters Degrees in Higher Education spending money and trying to tell college students how to live their lives.

This is a revolution against not allowing hard working students to have a beer and enjoy life—shouldn’t really be defined along conservative/liberal lines

TJ, Alum, at 2:48 pm EDT on June 28, 2005

Correction

Doug, the four losing candidates actually were not “nominated formally by the institution” but were nominated by the alumni. They were just nominated by the Alumni Council, which represents alumni, rather than by a petition drive among alumni. (I know, it’s not clear why the alumni who signed the petition thought that their representatives were not representing them, but that seems to have been the case.) Even the two men who won were not (technically) elected to the board, only nominated to the seats; it was the board that elected them and would have elected others if the alumni had not taken the opportunity to propose names for those seats, part of the minority of seats for which the trustees let the alumni nominate candidates.

P., at 3:18 pm EDT on June 28, 2005

Enough With the Stereotypes!

The comments that refer to fraternities as havens for “jocks,” and accuse fraternities of being means to “buy friends” and “cheat” are absolutely ludicrous. I am a student at Dartmouth College, and I take great offense at some of the statements that have been issued.

I’ll begin by sharing information about myself. I’m an actor and politics geek. Most of my studies revolve around political science, and particular political philosophy. I’m also a financial aid student, and, after Dartmouth and other organization’s provide me with financial aid, I typically owe roughly a thousand dollars per term. In other words, my family is not well-off. And, contrary to the stereotypes I’ve read here (on a higher education forum- for shame!), I am a fraternity brother.

Despite the earlier claim that fraternities are for “jocks” (not that I endorse that stereotype either), I am a functioning unathletic fraternity brother. I am fairly inept at virtually every sport I have ever played. Simply put, I stink at sports.

I’m not very good at “buying friends” either, even though I am a fraternity brother. As a brother, I pay for as much as I can (which isn’t very much), and the other brothers who are more wealthy pitch-in to help me out, not unlike any other group of friends with disparities in wealth. Yes, some of the brothers are wealthy, but the distribution of wealth in my fraternity is roughly equal to the distribution of wealth at Dartmouth as a whole. In fact, as of this past year’s rush, our brothers’ median and mean family incomes fall below the respective median and means of the entire student body. I’m not the exception; I’m the rule.

The final accusation, that fraternities at Dartmouth encourage cheating, is an absolutely absurd notion with no empirical evidence. One would have just as much evidence to level such charges at the debate team or a cultural society, for example.

I am shocked that such stereotypes would be employed on a forum that professes to be for people concerned with higher education. Unless you have firsthand experience with fraternities at Dartmouth in recent years or empirical data to substantiate your claims, I would advise you to avoid unpleasant stereotypes and prejudicial assertions. Otherwise, you damage your own credibility more than Dartmouth’s.

Joel Ornman, Enough With the Stereotypes at Dartmouth College, at 6:39 pm EDT on June 30, 2005

Funny (But Disturbing) Stuff

Wow, Archie, that was some funny stuff. Trying to bait me into making an angry reply is a pretty solid rhetorical strategy. Kudos to you on that one.

Getting back to business, Archie, perhaps you simply haven’t met the right “frat boys.” Do you have any experience with Dartmouth, or are your comments driven by experience with men in fraternities in general?

More specifically, I’m not sure what to make of your comment about cheating in fraternities. The statement ”. . . except for the few who figure out how to explain away their cheating by claiming that it is cheating” is nonsensical. I assume what you’re trying to say is that, in your experience with men affiliated with fraternities, fraternity members have attempted to justify cheating. Although I can’t comment on your experiences specifically, I can say that I’ve never seen cheating at Dartmouth, and that Dartmouth does an extraordinarily good job of defining what constitutes “cheating.” Until you share more about the anecdotal information that informs your stereotypes, I’m afraid I can’t answer you completely.

Now, on to your second set of comments, which were about men in fraternities being “athletes” or “jocks,” as well as your assertion that I was probably “kept around to do [my] ‘brothers’ homework.” Out of approximately 45 members of my fraternity, there are a whopping total of 3 varsity athletes in a school where approximately 1/4 of all students play on varsity sports teams. Our most popular activities are watching films and, like many men our age with fast metabolisms, eating (not playing sports, as the slur “jocks” would imply). Again, without better information about your particular experiences, I can’t reply to you very well. However, I can comment directly on your (very insulting) comment that I am only kept around to do my other fraternity members’ homework. First, I have lower grades than the house average, so it’s unlikely that anybody in the house would want me to help them out. Of course, my grades are roughly the same as the College’s average, so you can probably do the math and reason that my fraternity has higher average grades than the College at large. So much for the “frat brothers are dumb” angle, which is a pretty tired and cliche stereotype.

And, finally, let me deal with your assertions about your firm being lucky for not hiring “you people,” by which you mean former members of fraternities. On that note, I’ll provide a fairly rich (but woefully incomplete) list of fraternity brothers who are undoubtedly more powerful than the CEO of your firm: Jeff Immelt (CEO, General Electric, and a Dartmouth graduate), Myles Brand (President, Indiana University), Gary Bettman (Commissioner, NHL), Wolf Blitzer (journalist, CNN), Richard Frank (President, Walt Disney Studios), David Horowitz (world-famous academic), Robert Novak (world-famous journalist and academic), Chet Simmons (founder, ESPN), Trent Lott (former Senate majority leader), President Rutherford B. Hayes, President Theodore Roosevelt, President Gerald Ford, President George H.W. Bush, President George W. Bush ... I could go on. Look, Archie, all but three of the US presidents since 1825 have been fraternity brothers. Approximately 80% of Fortune 500 top executives are former fraternity brothers. Roughly 2/3 of all US cabinet members since 1910 have been fraternity brothers. Approximately 76% of all current US Senators and Representatives are fraternity brothers.

It looks to me, Archie, like your firm might do well to put aside their stereotypes and start evaluating people as individuals. Who knows? You might be passing up the next Dave Thomas (founder of Wendy’s, Sigma Phi Epsilon brother), Ronald Reagan (US President, Theta Kappa Epsilon brother), or Warren Buffett (CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Alpha Sigma Phi brother).

Getting people like those I’ve listed to join your firm just sounds like good business sense to me. Your stereotypes may have justification from a small body of isolated experience, but extending that anecdotal experience to apply to all fraternity brothers everywhere is extreme and unwarranted.

So, to wrap up, I’ll be blunt: Please stop using the totally insulting and anecdotal stereotypes about men who are affiliated with fraternities. Unless you qualify your statements by sharing the limits of your experience, your stereotyping is virtually useless in a productive discussion.

Joel Ornman, Funny (But Disturbing) Stuff at Dartmouth College, at 5:19 am EDT on July 4, 2005

Joel knows that Sig Ep is not the typical Dartmouth frat. Yes, there are a broad range of frats and of course the generalizations made do not apply to all fraternities, you will never find any generalization about anything that is 100% accurate. Just as you don’t have information on every frat across the country, the poster doesn’t have experience with every frat at Dartmouth. You seem to have taken any comment made about fraternities and automatically applied it to Sig Ep. Being in a frat doesn’t mean that you have to defend all OTHER FRATERNITIES as well.(They certainly wouldn’t defend you). The comments that were made by the other poster were only meant to apply to typical fraternities in general, and under that umbrella he is right. Since you go to Dartmouth you can easily look around and see how many of the popular fratenities fit pretty snugly into the stereotypes mentioned (besides the cheating part, i’m not too sure about that one).

Zippy, at 4:36 am EDT on July 20, 2005