"Give me a little credit. If I wanted to kill the Greek system, I could," University President Lawrence Bacow told the Daily in an interview last week. "It's not difficult; the fraternities are killing themselves."
The state of Greek life at Tufts has been a popular topic of conversation this fall, and while the issue was not raised at last night's Community Conversation on Social Life, some students still feel that recent fraternity suspensions and closures have smothered on-campus nightlife.
The Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) fraternity was suspended at the beginning of the semester for the duration of the school year for violating the terms of its social probation.
The Zeta Psi fraternity nearly suffered a similar fate during the 2004-2005 academic year for having a keg while on social probation, but evidentiary problems saved the house.
More infamously, the Delta Tau Delta (DTD) fraternity was shut down in April 2005 after a hazing incident caused a freshman to stop breathing and be hospitalized. The Chi Omega sorority was also suspended for a year for its involvement in the incident.
Tufts currently recognizes 12 fraternities and sororities, and approximately 11 to 15 percent of the student body are Greeks.
"I wanted there to be more input from the fraternities and sororities, because I'm not sure that the role that's expected of the Greek houses on campus is totally consistent with the role that the Greek chapters want to play," Dean of Student Affairs Bruce Reitman said after the town hall meeting.
The downward trend has caused many students to accuse the administration of targeting the Greek life on campus, and, as the school's most visible figure, Bacow has been the lightning rod for that criticism.
Ask the president, though, and he'll tell you that he's one of Greek life's greatest advocates.
"I belonged to a fraternity," Bacow said. "My best friends today are guys I lived with in a fraternity, and I speak to them regularly. I was an alumni trustee [for the fraternity] for 10 years when I was faculty at MIT. Both of my sons were officers in fraternities and had similar experiences."
Bacow insists that the administration is not at the root of the recent trend in fraternity suspensions, arguing that the blame lies with the Greeks themselves.
"My view of the fraternity system is that, if we're going to have one, it ought to be a good one. Take a look at what they stand for, at their charters. They say they're supposed to support 'fraternal values.'
"I interpret that at a minimum as not putting each other at risk ... My view is, be who you want to be. Don't think that being a member means having a party with 300 people every night.
"It's not as if I'm anti-party," Bacow continued. "I did my fair share of that as well. But that can't be all it is."
What may come as a shock to Tufts students, however, is that most fraternity leaders actually agree.
"It's unfortunate that AEPi and DTD are off-campus currently, but the problem is that they made mistakes that forced them off-campus," Ray Radovich, the President of the Inter-Greek Council and a brother in the ATO co-ed fraternity, said.
"The administration was not trying to shut them down. If the administration wanted to, it probably could find a way to shut the system down. In actuality, the administration as a whole is supportive of the system in helping it to stay on campus."
Members of other fraternities echoed the feeling that the administration is not, in fact, out to get them.
"I don't think we're targeted," senior and Delta Upsilon member Matt Lanuto said. "They're not stricter on our parties by any means. If anything, they've been less strict."
"With DTD and AEPi, you could point to a couple of things they could have done differently," senior president of Sigma Phi Epsilon Kyle Hiatt said. "I don't feel like the administration was targeting them necessarily or changing the rules."
Even junior Ari Allen, who is president of the currently suspended AEPi fraternity, said that he has come to appreciate the administration's balancing act in trying to encourage "responsible drinking" while still having to respect the law, which makes it illegal for any student under the age of 21 to drink.
"I think I was a victim last year of the attitude that the administration was taking a hard line, but once you start to work with them and they explain their position, you realize they're between a rock and a hard place. And it's happening across the country, not just at Tufts," he said.
Nationally, fraternities and sororities have been on the decline. In the NESCAC, only Tufts, Trinity and Williams still have active fraternity systems. Bowdoin, Colby, Hamilton, Middlebury and Amherst have all abolished or greatly altered their fraternity systems in the past 20 years.
At Tufts, the effort has been toward reform. Last spring, the university commissioned T. Jelke Solutions, a consulting firm that specializes in fraternities and sororities, to deliver a series of recommendations for change.
Still, Radovich said that the void left by the departure this year of former Director of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs Todd Sullivan makes it difficult for the recommendations of the Jelke Report to be implemented in an active way. Sullivan's former position has yet to be filled.
In the meantime, while the Greeks feel secure that the administration is not targeting them, they're still trying to avoid the fate of DTD and AEPi.
"My main modus operandi has been, 'Make sure we don't screw up.'" Hiatt said. "We really have to be more careful these days."
This article is the second installment of a multi-part series about social life on campus.
