Being ranked the number five party school in the nation by Newsweek sounds pretty cool to many of the people who go to or are thinking of going to Union College. However, the administration’s pushback to being ranked so high by shattered any freshman’s dream of burning the candle at both ends. So, the question remains, is the response from Union College justifiable given the circumstances?
Every freshman hears about how awesome the parties are, how amazing the good old days of 2011-2012 were and that must be pretty horrible.
As a junior and a member of the Greek system, I empathize with the frustration that many people feel with regards to the new policies on campus; however, as students we must accept that there is no easy way to handle the problem of being ranked the number five party school in the nation. While this title may attract more prospective students to Union, those may be the “wrong” types of students, and this score is not so helpful when trying to get into graduate school or other programs. It might feel good to say, “I go to the number five party school in the nation” on spring break, but try saying that to your job interviewer— not so cool. Another reason for the change in policy is that there was a dramatic drop in the mean freshman GPA over these past couple of years, and despite Union’s best efforts, they can’t seem to get out of this funk. The logic is that by limiting access to the fraternities the overall GPA of the freshman class will rise. But is it true?
While it may appear that I am supporting the new policy, let me be clear, I am not. I think that it is an unfortunate situation that we find ourselves facing, one that cannot be solved by making things go back to the way they were. The problem with restricting access to fraternities is that the it is severely limiting the capability of those organizations to recruit. If a freshman cannot get a feel for the values and mood of each fraternity on campus then how does he decide which one suits him best, or whether he does not want to rush at all? Students need all kinds of experiences to learn who they are and who they want to be, and deciding how to self-monitor your social actions is a large part of that. The administration is robbing our first years, as well as many of us upper classmen of the experiences that define college. And, consequently, freshmen are seeking alternative experiences off campus which are even less regulated.
To be ranked number five sounds pretty awesome, but the results are not. I am not a fan of the current policies, but I do realize that it is not just about keeping us from having fun. The question is, where do you draw the line between being too strict while trying to protect your students and not being strict enough and letting them potentially throw their time at Union away. While I don’t have a perfect solution, I do know that these restrictions are only causing more problems than they solve.
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Do you really think a good amount of kids are coming to Union for the parties? Maybe like a percent or two of the population, but I’m pretty sure the majority of the population is attending Union because it is a good school. Yes, I agree that being ranked the 5th best party school (or what ever the actual title is) is a bad thing but do you think it’s smart to shut away first years to greek life? Personally, I believe you are putting a lot of freshman at risk to go out into Schenectady with kids they just met (and to be serious, you can’t really call your first year roommate your most trustworthy friend by the end of 3rd week). First years are now being forced to drink behind closed doors, in a more risky environment. At least at greek parties there were upperclassman, greek members, that look out for these people. Screw recruitment, safety is really the issue.
First years, along with most college students, want to experiment with alcohol. This isn’t something new to this world. Allowing safe drinking in safe locations would be a lot smarter then the policy that’s in place now.
P.S. proofread.
Well said 2012 Alum,
I also believe that it is important to point out two aspects of greek life that are often overlooked. First, yes there is a lot of drinking going on in fraternities, but they are a location full of people with experience with alcohol who know how to take care of one another. Union is full of alcohol transports for first year and independent students. There are few that are actually generated from or in the fraternities. Some may say that they are simply covering things up, but due to the lack of hospitalizations and the great track record of no deaths in a long time at Union, this is a bogus argument. Secondly it is important to look at the academic records of the organizations. Most greek organizations do very well in school and the average greek GPA is higher then that of independents. Part of this is because everyone at Union cares about succeeding. It is a college that promotes the work hard/play hard atmosphere and does so in a very balanced way. Union may be the 5th biggest party school (which I agree is negative for the school), but it is also one of the best liberal arts colleges in the country. On top of this it is consistently ranked high for engineering as well. In short, Union may need to tone it down a bit, but targeting greek life to do so is simply going to make things worse and ruin a proud tradition at Union, the mother of fraternities.
This article is well articulated and I would assume expresses the sentiments of most of the student population. The ideas put forth to limit freshmen participation in Greek life will, without a doubt, have a negative effect. The first was pointed out by quite well by alum 2012, in that the lack of a social scene on campus is making kids go to into Schenectady looking for something to do which, historically is exponentially more dangerous than going to even the most loosely controlled fraternity event. When one takes into account that one of the top reasons students who are accepted to Union go else where is Schenectady, it would seem that although the freshmen restrictions might be (kinda, not really) solving the party problem that is plaguing(?) our school, it is doing so at the expense of exacerbating another major problem. Also overlooked in all of this is the positive role that Fraternities play. They keep students on campus, in a safe and centralized location where help is literally 2 seconds away. In effect, going to a fraternity on a Friday or Saturday night leaves very few question marks for anyone, students and administration alike.
Futhermore, I think that it is important to look at the number 5 party school ranking. On the surface this does indeed look like something that is unexplainable and needs to be solved. However, one should take into the account the methodology used in compiling the list. The primary statistic that was used for comparison was the number of on-campus arrests and disciplinary actions taken for drugs and alcohol. Therefore, we can see that the list is in fact not at an accurate depiction of anything, because it doesn’t take into account the percentage of students who live on campus at all the colleges involved. In fact, these numbers paint quite a different picture, one that would show that Union is quite a safe and controlled place because if you’re underage and drinking chances are greater that 1.) you’ll be apprehended and sanctioned and 2.) that in the event that someone does have too much they’ll be in an environment where help can be found quite easily.
The next point that cannot be overlooked is the role that the Minervas have played in all of this, because I think it is, to a large extent, being swept under the rug. While trying to curb the party scene here at Union, these rules were also, undoubtedly, set in place to help the Minervas flourish among first years in a hope that they will one day overrun or at least greatly diminish the role played by Greeks on Union’s campus. Prof. Benack an associate faculty member for Minerva programs summed up the lack of success the Minerva system is having socially quite well when she said “The Minervas have not necessarily [owned] Friday and Saturday night”. Taking this into account along with the statements made by Mr. Foster in an article last week where he expressed the concerns of Greek leaders (and failed to mention that the views expressed by these leaders represented an extreme minority of the sentiments felt by the Greek community as a whole), it would appear that the Minerva system is indeed trying to compete with Greek life and has resorted to blatently imposing regulations to impede its growth.
The next point of focus is culture, I would like to say that while I vehemently disagree with the restrictions that have been put in place they commendable (or cute), but they are dealing with a problem that is bigger than Union. That problem is the culture of college students and the culture of alcohol in this country. The latter creates a problem because alcohol is seen by many as the forbidden fruit since underage drinking is strictly enforced in this country and many people don’t ever drink alcohol until they get college where they are away from an adult who would be able to properly educate them on the correct manner and amount to consume. The former simply boils down to the fact that whenever we see images of college depicted in the media it leads us to think of parties (Van Wilder, Animal house, MTV’s spring break, that movie with Owen Wilson, Blue Mountain State etc…). Thus, when most people come to college they expect it to be like it is these (fairly inaccurate) movies and TV shows and their actions often times reflect this.
To finally finish (kudos to anyone who’s made it this far), the rules set in place to curb to the social problems, which themselves are mildly irregular at best, have clear ulterior motives, and at the same will only make other problems worse. Further, It is unfortunate to note, that the only way for the platonic campus that exists in the heads of those who formulated these rules will come to fruition only after major changes occur in the culture of college students in general.