6 ms·
I read the whole article, and it seems to be entirely about the push to remove Greek / Frat / Sorority life from campus and convert these houses to more traditi
by humanistbot 4y ago
I read the whole article, and it seems to be entirely about the push to remove Greek / Frat / Sorority life from campus and convert these houses to more traditional dorms.
I know that some people who got a lot out of Greek Life equate it with Social Life, but most college students don't pledge/rush and it doesn't get in the way of social life. There are plenty of ways to socialize without frats.
- scarmig 4y agoMost of the houses affected weren't Greek. Many were themed houses oriented around a particular experience: an Italian dorm, a Slavic dorm, a... druggie co-op, for lack of a better phrasing.
- andai 4y agoSounds like it used to be more... hmm... diverse?
- avindroth 4y agoThe point being made is not that the Greek system is being pushed out and that worsens the social atmosphere. It's that Stanford is losing its atypical social community (which includes not only the Greek system but also co-ops), and that will hurt the uniqueness and advantage of Stanford as a breeding ground for interesting thinkers. Not to mention these are just symptoms, there are more problematic things that are not ostensible.
- ip26 4y agoWait, people see Stanford as a hotbed of interesting thinkers? I didn't think that was their brand.
- brightball 4y agoIn the 2000s you constantly saw the Google connection talked about. NBC even made a TV show, Chuck, centered around a guy who got kicked out of Stanford unfairly so Stanford itself is a huge part of the show.
- curiousllama 4y agoNo - but it once was.
- mandelbrotwurst 4y agoIt isn't, but even if it were, the fact that alternatives exist isn't an argument for getting rid of something.
- npc12345 4y ago
- thatfrenchguy 4y agoThis seems to be like "they're removing greek/frat/sororities, so they're coming for co-ops". That said, you know, you're going to a rich private university with other rich kids, what do you expect the administration to do?
- compiler-guy 4y agoThe article well documents that they have come for the coops. It’s not speculation.
- WillPostForFood 4y agoIt was a rich private school for over a hundred years without the administration acting this way. You might expect the status quo, not that they would suddenly get a massive case of bureaucratitis.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- GrifMD 4y agoI can't speak for Stanford, but Santa Clara University has gone through a similar transition. It started while I was there ('11-15), where the "party street" was full of frats, sororities, and just loosely themed houses. The school and the police really started to shut down parties on that street hard my second year there. What used to be just every house open to anyone became closed doors, you had to know someone who actually lived there. I think the school has started to buy the actual property on that street now to control it more. I won't apologize for the behavior of the frats, some of them did some truly awful stuff, and I never was a part of any of them, but I watched the university expand from educational to trying to manage the entire student experience.
- SamBam 4y agoOne thing that wasn't clear to me was whether most students can still choose who they live with in their sophomore, junior and senior years. It sounded like perhaps the answer was "no." The author describes all his friends living in different bureaucratic "neighborhoods," neighbors not knowing each other, and seniors wondering whether anyone would find their bodies. To me this, as much as the loss of Greek and co-op housing, would have completely destroyed my university experience. Yes, it would absolutely have turned into a soulless triangle of dorm -> lecture -> dining hall.