"I once thought about making my own frat," sophomore Peter Zaroulis said. "It would work something like this: You walk in and navigate your way through an obstacle course of human bodies until someone finally hands you a beer. Another beer is dumped in strategic places all over your body. Some kid walks up to you and swears you were in his Wilderness group, but before you can get his name, the cops show up and everyone scrams."
Such cynicism and disdain appear to dominate attitudes regarding the fraternity party scene among the underclassmen at Tufts. Many complain that other options for partying and socializing are also limited, contributing to the view that the social scene at Tufts has been going downhill, and is currently less than impressive.
Some freshmen come in with party-scene expectations already low. "All my friends at [Boston College] were like, 'You're not going to have any fun at Tufts,'" said freshman Kevin Madher, who agrees that fraternities aren't as popular this year as they have been in the past.
"It's not like what people talk about from last year," Madher said. "Frats don't really figure into my usual plans. If there's a themed party going on somewhere, then we'll all go, but it's not like I sit in my room going, 'Yeah, ATO tonight!'" Madher said.
Many other freshmen echoed these negative sentiments. "The frats are really a last resort," freshman Glenn Ferreira said.
"The frats are a little more lame than a lot of us expected," freshman Pranai Cheroo said. "We have a lot of hall parties, and just meet people through hallmates."
But some underclassmen find the dorms inadequate as a social scene, and find few alternative venues for socializing, especially with the Tufts chapters of fraternity Delta Tau Delta and sorority Chi Omega suspended this year.
"There's less deviance here than in my high school," freshman Mikey Goralnik said. "It would be different if the RAs were more chill, but they're strict too. Where are we supposed to go to be deviant?"
"It's not abnormal for a college student to want to go out," junior Kim Harrington said.
The decline of the campus party scene may extend farther than just the fraternities, according to some upperclassmen. "There's nothing going on now," junior Stephanie Schnur said. "The police are cracking down on frats, house parties, everything."
Schnur said that she finds the party scene on campus today is a far cry from that of her underclassmen years.
"When we were freshmen, there were big parties every weekend at DU and DTD, but now, I think underclassmen don't have anywhere to go, so they drink in their rooms," Schnur said.
Other upperclassmen note a change in the administration's attitude toward the social scene. Although senior Jeremy Setton said he doesn't believe the party scene has changed much since his earlier years at Tufts, he has noticed a change in the administration's attitude.
"You definitely get the feeling that this place is turning into a corporation," Setton said. "[There are so many] liability issues around drinking, making the University crack down on it."
In an informal discussion with students in Nov. 2004, President Lawrence Bacow explained the administration's stance on partying on campus: "We can't say 'anything goes' and then wait until someone dies," Bacow said in response to a student's suggestion that school authorities turn a blind eye to underage drinking.
"The police presence is almost always notified by a phone call, which we can't ignore," Bacow added. "Just because you pay tuition doesn't make you or us exempt from the law. If I had it my way, the drinking age would be 18. But that's not the law."
Although many lament the administration's policies, others recognize good intentions behind them. Sophomore David Spitzer, Public Relations Chair for Theta Chi, views the recent developments with a more complex perspective.
"In the short run, I think people may think of it as negative," Spitzer said. "But maybe in the long run, they will see that it is definitely positive. I mean, you hear about what goes on at places like [the University of] Wisconsin and all, where kids are almost dying because of alcohol poisoning - that's not what we want here."
Spitzer said, though, that Tufts' fraternities still do have a central role in the social scene of the campus, particularly for underclassmen. "Frats act as a social outlet for underclassmen," he said. "We just want to show everyone a good time."
