For many students, this weekend will mark the beginning of the process of pledging a fraternity. The process occupies the entire semester for most Greek house, and many students are critical of fraternities and the pledge process because they feel that it distracts students from their academic obligations. But many of those who have endured the long nights and top-secret events of pledging reject the stereotypes that fraternities are not conducive to getting good grades and being a good citizen.
"Having a full schedule, helps me personally, and a lot of people, get more stuff done," Alpha Epsilon Pi president Josh Gold said. "My GPA during pledging was my second highest during my time at Tufts."
There are also certain fail-safes in the system, as well as academic benefits to being a member of a fraternity, Gold explained.
"We have brothers studying in every field - basically someone majoring in every department at Tufts - to help [pledges] out," Gold said. "Whatever they need to do, education is, up front, the most important, and [pledges] can always get help within the frat."
In addition to help from the other brothers, most fraternities still institute library hours for the pledges to do their schoolwork.
"We care about academics a lot," said sophomore Jon Bram, whose fraternity, DTD, mandates three library hours per day for its pledges. "Grades come first, sports second, pledging third."
Despite the internal help and library hours available, some pledge brothers still found it difficult to balance academics and pledging, as sophomore Matt Raucci explained.
"Everyone felt the pinch, but some people got through it better than I did," said Raucci who pledged Sigma Phi Epsilon last spring. "[Pledging] did hurt my academic standing, but I bounced back last semester."
While some say the Greek system should be changed to allow pledges to focus on education, many brothers feel that that would be going against the time-honored traditions of entrance into any fraternity.
"People have been doing the same things to get into fraternities for decades," said Raucci. "I wouldn't want my experience to be a watered down version of what pledging a frat is supposed to be. It would be disrespectful to tradition and I wouldn't want to take any part in it."
Sigma Phi Epsilon president Jeff Fox does not view pledging as a major threat to academic success.
"I don't believe that [pledging and academics] are mutually exclusive," Fox said. "To do well in academics doesn't mean that you have to have a watered down pledging."
According to Fox, there is nothing in the fraternity system that causes pledges to do poorly academically. It is the individual's responsibility to balance the pledging and schoolwork effectively, and when those individuals ignore their obligations to both their schoolwork and the fraternity, it hurts the entire Greek system. Fox believes that it is the reputation - not the reality - of fraternities that leads people to judge them as being detrimental to academics.
"A lot of people like to push up the tough drinking angle and embellish, but it's not true," Fox said. "People like to embellish stories to make them look cool...When people perpetuate these rumors it just makes it harder for all of us."
Events in recent years at fraternities across the country have caused a change in reputation for Greek life, Fox said, specifically the 1997 death of an MIT freshman from an alcohol-induced coma. According to administrators, Fox's theory is in many ways, correct.
"In the past, faculty critics of the Greek system voted to do away with fraternities as they then existed," Dean of Colleges Charles Inouye said. "The contention was that life in some of the frats was blatantly sexist, homophobic, racist, elitist, crude, etc., etc. As a faculty member, I voted against the fraternities."
But if given the chance to vote today, Inouye said he would take a different stance. Living with the Greek system in an educational environment is an exercise in patience, the dean said.
"If I had to do it again, though, I think I would probably vote to keep them around," said Inouye. "If we really are interested in the educational possibilities of diversity, and if we cherish free speech and the free exchange of ideas, then it seems wrong to do away with Greek life because we may not like it."
According to Fox, the aspects of Greek life that give rise to opposition and negative views of fraternities are magnifications and generalizations of individual actions.
"When one negative thing happens, it is blown up and strict measures are taken," Fox said. "Sometimes an individual will do something that the whole group would not agree with and then the whole fraternity gets punished, not just the member who gets drunk and does something stupid."
Though many fraternity brothers dislike the stereotyping, they know that it is not completely off base. Bram admits that some fraternity brothers do exemplify the stereotypes, though at the same time, many do not.
"I think to some extent, [the stereotypes] can be true," said Bram. "There's a lot of drinking going on, but there's guys who don't drink, if they don't want to drink or party they don't have to."
Some brothers even believed the stereotyping before they decided to pledge.
"I used to think frats were not the thing for me," Raucci said. "But once I saw what they were actually like, I realized that they were just a group of people who share a common name, common idealism, brought together toward common goals."
Though the whole process of pledging can be disruptive at times, many brothers feel that it is integral to preserving this common goal.
"[Pledging] is a trial to see if you have the force to survive and become a brother," said Raucci. "For what I've done, becoming a brother is the ultimate award."
