Marc Choquette
Assistant Perspectives Editor
Greeks. Sure, they were a rad bunch of people back in the 7th Century B.C. But going Greek these days is not quite the same as opening up a Gyro eatery and changing your last name to Petropoulos. No, Greek these days means the ever-popular fraternity and sorority scene on campuses.
Long before the days of “Animal House,” Greek systems shared a rich tradition with colleges and universities. One quarter of Pepperdine makes up the Greek system here and just recently, a new chapter of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity was founded at Pepperdine. New recruits from the freshmen class are beginning rush. Things are pretty rosy if you are Greek these days.
My wandering mind brought me to the idea of the Greek system as a whole. Do we actually need a Greek system here at Pepperdine? While I am not against the Greek system (many Greeks are friends of mine), many of you probably agree to some extent that the social scene here is in need of a spark.
I long to imagine what Pepperdine would actually be like without such a system. While it could be entirely possible that the Greek system is the solution and that more people should get involved, there is the flipside that it could be hindering us as a student body. It would be foolish not to at least examine this second possibility.
The first task was to check out schools similar to Pepperdine, and check out their setup. The handy Princeton Review, a forgotten-since-high school source for the skinny on every quad from Maine to San Diego, was a good place to begin my search.
Listed under “Other Schools to Consider” was Boston College. It is a school founded on Christian principles. It has similar types of students and is outside a major U.S. city. It sounds like a good fit.
I talked with Boston College junior, and close friend Nathanel Connors about his experience at BC, a school with a student population three times the size of Pepperdine’s and no Greek system. Many Jesuit Catholic schools (BC is one of these, LMU is not) do not have Greek systems, although these schools are not legally bound to adhere to the tradition.
“People are far more open to everyone, I think,” Connors said. “No one has a certain ‘group’ that they belong to other than the athletes.”
The one major fault with the Greek system is this idea of segregation within a campus. Sure, this would work at a UCLA sized school where the frats and sororities offer a sense of community when it is easy to be completely lost in the crowd.
However, a mere 700 of us make up a class here. The sense of community should already exist or could be forged in a way that does not involve weeks of pledging and possible exclusion. Further segregation combined with the loose stereotype of every single Greek organization on campus (you know them all) immediately sets in this sort of class structure of the student body.
Whereas many freshman coming into Pepperdine may feel pressured into going Greek to meet more people, Connors points out that the first few weeks at BC, “you meet everyone just by being friendly and going around and introducing yourself.”
While one can argue that this still can be achieved regardless of where there is a Greek system, many Greeks have events only with other Greeks.
Although this seems harmless, it forges bonds between all that are Greek, many times excluding from the social scene the remaining 2,376 students who are not.
So what do the 9,000 students at BC do since there is no frat or sorority for them?
“Clubs,” replied Connors. “They are everywhere, millions of them.” He added that clubs range everywhere from community service trips to sketch comedy.
He was not wrong. BC lists 220 clubs available for any student to join, as opposed to Pepperdine’s 50. Would the number of clubs shoot through the roof at Pepperdine? It cannot be proven that such a thing would happen. However, it is safe to assume that clubs would fill the void left by a departed Greek system.
More clubs would mean more offered to the student body, in that people would be meeting in ways less traditional than ones the Greek system offers, ways that are open to everyone and ways that suit the interests of everyone on campus, not just 25 percent of students.
Connors added that at BC getting involved means, “doing what you’re interested in and meeting people instead of doing what everyone says is cool.”
Lastly, recent disciplinary problems with various Greek organizations are problems that would not exist sans a Greek system. Problems would be dealt with on a personal level only, and the common occurrence of people feeling that they are being punished for the actions of one would cease to exist.
While I have nothing against the Greek system at Pepperdine, I believe our school could achieve a higher sense of community based on what I have seen with my own eyes at schools like BC and Providence College, a hometown Catholic school I am very familiar with, also without a Greek system.
With many complaining that the only thing Pepperdine lacks is better student life, it makes more sense to possibly attribute this to the stranglehold the Greek system has on student life instead of the “dry campus excuse.”
Maybe this is the option Pepperdine needs to examine. Maybe it is not. You decide.
09-21-2006