Draft #3

Kohlman Minter

Maddie Kahl

ENC2135-142

6 February 2018

Greek Life at FSU

Greek life at Universities in America is a controversial subject. Most people either agree and like it or they disagree with it and would prefer to see it gone, while the rest do not care one way or the other. There is a significant amount of research about whether or not these organizations help the academic development of the students involved or harm their academic development. In the news, it seems like a lot of headlines that have to do with Greek Life are something irresponsible or illegal that a fraternity or sorority did. However, there are other aspects of Greek life that really help the community. For example, how they raise a lot of money for philanthropies or participate in community service. At Florida State University, Greek life has a huge presence on the University’s campus. I would like to take a closer look at this community and how it effects student’s futures.

There have been recent studies on this exact subject. Micheal S. Hevel, a researcher at university of Arkansas, teamed up with Daniel A. Bureau, the vice president of student affairs at University of Memphis, and together they wrote a research driven practice on fraternity and sorority life and its influence on students during college compared to students not affiliated with Greek Life using research done by the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education (WNS). Two important findings by the became very apparent in the WNS’s research. The first, and possibly biggest thing they found in their research is that fraternity and sorority life have no significant impact on their educational outcomes. Hevel says, “On all educational outcomes explored by the WNS except leadership, fraternity/sorority membership had no direct effect” (Hevel 29). This is important because there is a stereotype that fraternity and sorority member do worse in academics than students not affiliated with Greek life. However, this also shows that proponents of Greek life who say that fraternity or sorority membership actually influences the student in a positive way academically. The WNS tested students on critical thinking, moral reasoning, inclination to acquire life-long learning, intercultural competence, and psychological well-being. In all of these categories they found that there was not a positive or negative influence on any of these categories when sorority or fraternity membership was involved. They also found that early membership in a sorority or fraternity will have gains in leadership in the early parts of their career as a student; however, later on in college by their fourth year the leadership opportunities dwindle. This shows that early on Fraternity and Sorority members are given a lot of leadership opportunities. In my experience with Fraternity life at Florida State University there are so many leadership opportunities offered through the fraternity. You have the ability to run for over 10 different executive positions and many other chair positions and committees. However, the further on you get through college the harder classes get and the more internship and job opportunities start to arise, so people tend to get more focused on those. Also, the fraternity has a minimum GPA that all members are required to have at least a 2.6; however, they really push members to have above a 3.0 GPA.

Another study that was done by Wesley Routon, an assistant professor of economics at Georgia Gwinnett college, and Jay Walker, an assistant economics professor at Niagara University, is called “Going Greek: Academics, Personal Change, and Life After College.” In this they found Greek members have been shown to be more involved on campus and for fraternity members they have higher post-graduation income than non-affiliated students. They say that Greek life does not have a big effect on GPA, however, Greek membership correlates to a higher retention rate and a shorter time to graduation. The evidence shows that being a part of Greek life can open a lot of doors that help in the future. Routon says, “According to the North American Interfraternity Conference (2015) reports that half of the top ten of Fortune 500 CEOs are—and 44 percent of American Presidents, 31 per-cent of Supreme Court Justices, and 39 senators and 106 Congressmen in the 113 Congress have been—Greeks” (Routon 61). I am not saying Greek Life causes people to be successful, but there is a correlation that can be seen when 106 of the 113 representatives in the United States congress participated in Greek Life. also see job opportunities come through Alpha Tau Omega at FSU all the time. Just recently the manager of the Morgan Stanley branch in Tallahassee, an ATO alumni, gave an internship to a current member he met through ATO. Things like this happen all the time at FSU through Greek Life.

The faculty at Emory University in Atlanta, GA wrote an article called, “Greek Life on Campus: An Asset and a Challenge.” It was written by Ajay Nair, PhD, who is the senior vice president and dean of Emory University. Victoria L. Chan-Frazier, a co-writer, is the assistant director of student conduct at Emory University. In the article, they talked about how Greek Life can be a problem; however, it is also a big asset to the community and the students. Nair says, “Even with the many challenges still facing Greek life, students continue to rush for many reasons, including legacy and a desire for a shared experience with their peers” (Nair 12). He is not wrong. Friendships are kindled through experiences shared between people. This is people make great friendships. These friendships often turn into networking later in life, and can lead to jobs and strong business relationships. Even though he supports Greek Life, he does recognize that it needs to be changed. Greek Life is often rooted in long tradition, and with time change comes. Greek Life is no different. They need to adapt to the new standards that are considered accepted and unacceptable. Greek Life is trying to do this. For example, Sigma Phi Epsilon voted to extend membership to any transgender man. In some states, mandatory hazing awareness programs are being implemented everywhere. Sigma Alpha Epsilon went into Title IX training nationwide to try and influence Fraternity culture in a more positive way. This does show that Greek Life is trying to adapt with the times. At Florida State, most fraternities are adopting a Title IX chair to advise the fraternity on appropriate ways to treat women. Our Title IX chair at ATO gives a speech every meeting we have to try and make us more accepting better people.

Another way Greek Life is trying to be better is by learning how to address some of the issues that have risen due to outdated traditions or ignorance. One of the ways they do this is through speakers that come and teach. Mike Avalon a public speaker who addresses Greek life problems all across the country. He addresses major issues in the Greek community by addressing Greek culture as a whole. He tries to change the culture at schools. He has headlined over 350 presentations on over 125 college campuses addressing Greek culture. He addresses issues like alcohol abuse and sexual assault in Greek communities. Mike Avalon think that Greek Life is a very good institution that molds successful people so it is worth saving. He says, “Fraternities and sororities have always been a major contributor to the lives of highly successful people. There are issues on college campuses that need to be resolved, and we can use their leadership to do that. What we need to do is fix what is broken, and those issues are both real and perceived. In my talks, I address both” (Presswire). In my experience, Greek Life is trying to educate itself on how to be better at FSU as well. Florida State has addressed this problem by having every single person going out to rush go to a seminar on hazing. This seminar explains what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior from a fraternity while pledging. This is a big step in the right direction.

Where Greek Life does have positive aspects on most people’s futures there is a long history of hazing associated with it. To not talk about this would discredit everything in this paper. On November 2nd of this year at a Pi Kappa Phi party at Florida State a pledge named Andrew Coffey died from alcohol poisoning. It was held at an off-campus house and was their “big brother” night where Pi Kappa Phi created an environment that made these pledges feel like they would be ostracized if they did not participate. Unfortunately, this is not the first time this has happened. The year previous at Penn State University, Beta Theta Pi had a drunken pledge fall down a flight of stairs but they didn’t call the ambulance until the next morning when it was too late. Following both of these incidents the Universities indefinitely suspended all of Greek Life. At FSU, major changes occurred following this event. There is a large effort aimed at recognizing when you see hazing and reporting it when it is seen. Also, the University on both campuses have really cracked down on drinking policy. As of right now Chi Phi and Phi Delta Theta have both been suspended for violating this policy at FSU. The University is setting a serious tone that change is coming and that is Greek Life can either change and meet the University’s standards or cease to exist. Which is a very good step that unfortunately had to come as the response to a terrible tragedy.

At Alpha Tau Omega at FSU the Community Service Chair is a man named Clayton Hobbs. I had the opportunity to interview him about his experience with Alpha Tau Omega and the community service opportunities he puts together. This is one of the most exciting aspects of Greek Life. Community service gives members the opportunity to go out into the community and positively influence it. Philanthropies in the community also rely on Greek Life to help fund them, “Locally they do rely on us heavily to come out and volunteer our time to help them and also the money we raise for them really goes a long way,” (Hobbs 2) says Clayton Hobbs. Last year at Alpha Tau Omega there was a fundraiser for the Attack Aviation Foundation. This organization was set up to provide aide to wounded veterans in the Air Force. Hobbs said, “It was the highest amount of money raised for any philanthropic event in Greek history at FSU” (Hobbs 2). While raising money is great, the fraternity is also concerned with volunteer time as well. They try to make sure every brother has at least ten community service hours each semester. This is Clayton Hobbs’s primary goal as the community service chair is to make sure that every brother has these hours. When asked for an example on how the fraternity participates in community service Clayton Hobbs said, “We are planting potato seeds at Lotts Community Garden and Produce Program” (Hobbs 1). This is a program run by Second Harvest to provide nutrition to recipients that they would otherwise not receive through Second Harvest’s primary donors. I personally volunteered a lot last semester at Second Harvest making care packages and meal boxes to give to hurricane and flood victims following this year’s devastating hurricane season. I would have never have had known about that opportunity to get involved if it was not for Alpha Tau Omega. Another way I got involved in the local community was volunteering to help set up a store designed to get low income family necessities like clothes and toys for their children. This made me feel good about helping my local community directly. Even organizations that are not affiliated with Greek Life will use them to raise more money. For example, Dance Marathon, which raises money for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, is not directly affiliated with Greek Life. However, what they do is they introduce the aspect of a competition between different fraternities and sororities. This competition aspect is a massive incentive for Greek Life to participate and raise as much money for this as they can. At Florida State, this competition is taken very seriously and is viewed as an opportunity to separate your fraternity or sorority from everyone else in a positive way by raising the most money. This strategy is used elsewhere as well. At the sorority Zeta Tau Alpha, they use this strategy as well. Every year they will crown a Zeta King from a fraternity, this is the guy who raises the most money for their philanthropy over the course of the competition. It ends in a five-kilometer runaround Florida State’s campus which serves as a large fundraising event. Most fraternities will compete for things like this very seriously. This causes substantial amounts of money to be raised for a good cause. When asked about the opportunities that come with being a part of Alpha Tau Omega Hobbs got very enthusiastic showing how much he believes it helps people’s futures. He says, “The people I meet through my fraternity is a large amount of people and I can definitely use that to my benefit career wise” (Hobbs 3). This is very true. In my experience, the fraternity has given me lots of opportunities to get in touch with professionals in the field I wish to work in. Alpha Tau Omega will have lots of events to try and draw older alumni in to get in touch with the current brotherhood and create opportunities. I have had the chance to meet local business owners, financial managers, lawyers, lobbyists, and other well connected people in town that I never would have had the chance to meet without the fraternity’s help. One way Clayton Hobbs says an example of how he has seen this put it work is a, “friend just got a good job out in Las Vegas for an Aviation company through an alumni of FSU ATO. He has a great starting salary and it could really set him up and help his career. Also, just growing up here, there is a lot of ATO alumni still in town. They are always helping the current brothers out with getting internships and things like that” (Hobbs 3).

Greek Life at Florida State University is currently a very interesting topic. Through Greek Life I have had a very positive experience and have made many new friends. I have also volunteered more than I thought I would and have had more opportunities to network than I thought I ever would otherwise. Greek organizations even recognize that there are certain behaviors that are better left in the past and is restructuring how they do things. I believe that with proper change and guidance that is currently being implemented that Greek Life will have a positive impact on student’s futures.