Residential Education and the Office of Greek Life’s decision to require incoming fraternity pledges to take a class continues the University’s steady assault on fraternities on campus. We’ll investigate those trends in a separate post. For now, I’d like to focus on the decision at hand and the obvious lack of thought that has been put into it.
Here are 7 questions for ResEd and the Office of Greek Life that need to be answered:
- Why were fraternity leaders not involved in the decision-making for the course, especially with regard to logistics? In fact, why weren’t fraternity leaders even consulted about the idea until it was officially announced?
- Why were sororities not included? They’ve got alcohol issues as well. Plus, the curriculum consists in large part of generic lessons on the “history of Greek life at Stanford” — if that history is valuable, why single out frats?
- If the logic for the course goes something like “Fraternity houses host parties, so members should know how to host responsibly,” then why not sign up all those thinking about living in row houses as well?
- Did either office even consider the implications the decision would have due to the rush schedule and the add/drop deadline?
- And if they did consider it, why did they wait until halfway through winter quarter to announce a massive policy change that would take place at the very beginning of spring?
- Why did they decide to offer the course at: A) only one time per week, and B) on Friday afternoon from 2-4PM? Do ResEd and Greek Life understand how that scheduling will affect athletes with afternoon practice?
- Will “Athletic 1” be placed on the transcripts of students? If so, has the administration considered the effect of having such a class on one’s transcript when applying for jobs and fellowships?
We’ll keep you posted as we hear more. Please email me (alexkatz AT stanford DOT edu) with any info that you’ve got.
