Interesting comments on good and bad GLOs

[hoosier]

(I believe the author is a Chi Phi from U Nebraska)


Some fraternities fail to live up to principles

December 05, 2002

I spent four years of my college life under the roof of a fraternity house. I thought my fraternity wasn't one that people talked about when they spoke of "those frat guys." We were doing positive things in our community.

We were different.

I last lived in the fraternity house in 1997. In 1999, a woman got so drunk at one of our parties that she fell out of a third story window. We shut our doors in the summer of 2001.

We were doing negative things in our community. We were the same.

The worst of what we did is as follows:

We thought that we were the best on campus;

We did not challenge ourselves to get better;

We rarely looked at our principles;

We constantly broke the laws of our university, campus, and state;

We did not look to learn from our differences.

Specifically, what we did was:

Vote to have alcohol in our house;

Provide that alcohol to anyone;

Tolerate drugs in our house;

Not tolerate gay members;

Allow members to default on dues and housing bills;

Allow members to continue to participate even though they were failing out of college;

Not say anything when they did;

Never talk to our brothers about their drinking problems;

Figure out ways around the laws;

Engage in inappropriate activities with our new members.

Each fraternity on this campus was founded on a specific set of principles. Those principles contain words like truth, friendship, integrity, honor, academic achievement, chivalry, civic duty, commitment and responsibility.

The words I always associated with my fraternity were truth and friendship.

But where was the truth when all we did was lie to others and ourselves about our behavior? Where was the friendship when we allowed our brothers to drink to a point where their behavior hurt themselves and others?

The words others often associate with fraternities are hazing, alcohol abuse, immaturity, racism, elitism, homophobia and intolerance.

What did I do when two members of my fraternity verbally taunted another member for having the courage to come out to the fraternity and the desire to still participate? Nothing. I was doing those three members, and myself, a disservice by not saying or doing anything.

After graduation, I went to work for my national fraternity as a consultant.

How can a man who came from such a fraternity background go on to be a consultant for that fraternity? How is he qualified to teach others?

The fraternity was my greatest learning experience in college. For every bad thing we did, there was a small group of us fighting to change things.

Fighting to end hazing.

Fighting to recruit diverse members.

Fighting to make scholarship a priority.

Fighting to learn from our mistakes instead of repeating them over and over.

At my chapter, we lost that fight.

As a consultant I learned a lot about how a fraternity is supposed to work.

Your social program is there to help you learn how to socialize with others, not to teach you how to sit together with your brothers and drink until someone passes out. We idealized those guys who could drink the most, not the ones who went to class. We held several parties where all we did was sit around and drink together until everyone was severely intoxicated. Examples are playing games like "Beiruit" (15 full cups of beer per three-man team), "beerhunter" (downing one-ounce shots of beer every minute until only one man hadn't vomited), and Christmas stag (elves, usually freshman pledges, drinking from every bottle).

Community service is built around actually doing things in your community, not just playing kickball (that was ours) with sorority women and cutting a check for their entry fees. That's philanthropy. While it is good, it does not teach young men the importance of giving themselves to their community. The best of who we are to become is found in mentors. Who will tomorrow's youth turn out to be without positive influences?

Education is why we came to college. Fraternities are supposed to develop programs to promote this. We never spoke to members who were flirting with academic suspension or dismissal; instead we just dropped them from our rolls so our house grade point average would look better.

These are just a few small examples of what I am talking about.

Challenge yourselves to do the things that you say you stand for. Don't let what happened to my chapter happen to yours.

I still volunteer to teach at my fraternity's leadership institute every year. I'm hoping to challenge those who don't think about change, to help them see that it will yield a stronger brotherhood. I'm hoping to challenge those who think about change to do so more completely and with a louder voice. I'm hoping to challenge myself to become a better man - one who will inspire those around him to stand up for what they believe in. My fraternity founders would expect nothing less from me.

What are you fighting for in your chapter house?

Mark Zmarzly is an undeclared graduate student from Lincoln._

[OrigamiTulip]

Its a good article. Its very interesting to compare it to an article about fraternities he wrote as an undergrad. Its amazing how just four more years of maturity can change the way you look at things.

"Can't buy Brotherhood"
By Mark Zmarzly
University of Nebraska
Daily Nebraskan (U. Nebraska)
2 April '98


I buy my friends.

I don't have much money so they aren't good friends. Just kidding, fellas.

That's the reason I joined a Fraternity. I figured I wouldn't make any friends on my own so I'd better buy them. I pay for the privilege of friendship.

What I can't figure out is why my room and board at the Fraternity was only $3,240 for the school year. Dorm rates next year are $3,640. Our double occupancy rooms are bigger than the dorms. Our room rates also include extended cable. If I'm paying for my friends, why am I not paying as much as a person living in a dorm?

It is a commonly held stereotype that members of the Greek system buy their friends.

There are social, pledge and initiation fees the first year that push your total living expenses as a freshman over that of someone living in the dorms. There are also in-house scholarships, paid offices and payment plans that reduce that cost back below that of living in the dorms.

I didn't join a Fraternity because I feared I wouldn't fit in. I joined because I thought the guys there would be loyal friends for life. On March 27, I received a reminder of that fact.

It was the last day of spring break. I was sitting around with five friends in our Panama City Beach (Fla.) hotel room. We were sitting around talking, waiting to go out for the evening. We were supposed to be talking about the week, women, the trip home or what club we would be going to.

Instead we were talking about another friend of ours who was back in Nebraska.

In March 1996, a brother in my Fraternity came up to me at 8 a.m. the Thursday before spring break. I had heard his little sister had passed away the night before. He walked into my room and told me when the funeral was so I could spread the word among the Fraternity members.

I asked him how he was holding up, and he broke down crying. I hugged him for 10 minutes, not knowing what to say. I told him how sorry I was and that I would see him at the funeral.

I didn't know his sister; I didn't even know he had a sister before that morning. But I felt an instant connection to the pain he was going through and I felt devastated. The funeral was on Saturday. My Fraternity Brothers took off work, delayed spring break trips, put off going home and even came back from out of town to be there in support.


When we arrived, the church was packed. There were five seats reserved in the pews for myself and four of the other officers. The other 30 or 40 of my Brothers watched the funeral on a television in another building, without sound.

We weren't there to hear the funeral service. We weren't there to speak. We were there to support our brother. That support came in the form of simply being there for him.

We saw our friend for a total of only 30 seconds that day. In those 30 seconds, he walked out of the church, looked over at all of us standing in the grass and said to his mother, "That's my Fraternity."

That brother had a difficult time with the death of his sister. The next time we saw our friend he made it obvious how much our support that day meant to him. When I think of that day I think of tragedy and pain, but most of all, I think of support.

Brotherhood and the Fraternity experience are concepts without definition. When someone comes up to me and asks me to explain what brotherhood is, I can't. It is something different to all members.

Friendships are formed and tightened in every aspect of our lives. A simple conversation over dinner can make a friendship stronger. Fraternities and sororities add another dimension to a friendship.

Members of the Greek system are there for a common purpose - to add their abilities and skills to the organization. This common purpose and the shared experiences bond members together tighter than in a normal situation. You work and live with these same members, and it only increases the bonds that you feel.

Just two weeks ago the women of Gamma Phi Beta Sorority buried a sister and friend, Laura Cockson. These women have been each other's support for the last two weeks. Not only have they given a shoulder to each other but also to the Cockson family.

The grief that all of these family members feel is eased ever so slightly by the knowledge that so many people knew and loved their daughter.

The goal of this article is not to convert all members of this campus to Greeks. The truth is that being Greek is not for everyone. It takes a lot of time, dedication, personal sacrifice and selflessness. The unity and friendship that results from this conscious time sacrifice has been enormous.

I could not imagine surviving and excelling the way I have over the last five years without my Fraternity Brothers. People in the dorms may have friendships that match or even exceed the ones I have described above.

If you believe that Greeks pay for their friends, I won't disagree with you.

We pay with time, sacrifice and ourselves.

[ThetaPrincess24]

Both of these articles are awesome. Thanks for sharing them

[sigtau305]

Good Articles

[GtownGirl98]

I sometimes wish that God had given me the gift of word, but then again I may not be as appreciative of the ones that were blessed. These are both really great articles.

[UDZETA]

Wow these are really good articles

[DeltAlum]

Why don't you ALL print them, make copies, and try to be sure that everyone in your chapter reads them. And every other Greek at your college or university.

There are important things in those articles -- both of them, but especialy the first one.

Take a hard look, particularly you fraternity men. Is he talking about your chapter?

If not, that's good. If so, do you want to change it?

[hoosier]

We should come up with an email list of all chapters.

Then whenever we find something good, we could just zap it out to them.

Maaybe that guy who runs the cigar shop would have the time to compile it.

[AlphaGam1019]

Originally posted by hoosier
Maaybe that guy who runs the cigar shop would have the time to compile it.

lol

[Buttonz]

Wow! I would send both of these out to my chapter but sadly I cant see anyone reading them . These are awsome articles

[TriDeltaGal]

Those were great articles! If only all those anti-greeks out there would read them...

[Tom Earp]

DeltaAlum, thank your for posting this on Risk Management Thread. I had missed this and am sorry!

I plan to send this to My Chapter and Brothers from other Chapters.

It is something that will and can strike the Hearts of many Actives and Alums with Children who will be attending College!

HOOSIER-DADDY Ye right!