Author: Riley Kimball
Occidental and University of Southern California (USC) do not have much in common. The latter has an endowment of nearly $3.5 billion, compared to Occidental’s $300 million. The student body at USC is nearly 18,000, where Occidental’s is a mere 2,000. It would be hard to imagine a setting any more different. And yet the Greek system at Occidental models itself after those at schools like USC, University of Washington and other huge universities. The outcome is that Greek life at Occidental, in the model of those other schools, detracts from key components of the liberal arts experience.
At a giant university, fraternities and sororities create small, personalized communities in which members can regularly see, spend time and live with friends. They have an important function because at such a large school, running into friends is less likely than on a smaller campus. Greek systems there form gathering points to help maintain and strengthen friendships.
Of course Greek life at big schools is also famous for the parties. The stereotypical college party is one held at a fraternity or sorority – unabashed festivities with hundreds or thousands of students debauching themselves in mansions, anonymous among the masses. This image, seen everywhere in pop culture, is generally considered an exaggeration.
Yet it appears to be what Occidental Greek life strives for. When fraternities and sororities have parties, the standard result is beer pong, day-drinking and pledge rituals. Themed parties like “Anything But Clothes” and “Stoplight” even attempt to introduce the debauchery of the stereotypical frat party.
There may seem to be nothing wrong with this on the surface, but when viewed in the context of Occidental, a number of additional problems emerge. Unlike its ability to create friend groups on large, impersonal campuses, Greek life at Occidental fosters exclusion by creating members and outsiders, splitting the small community that characterizes Occidental and which contributed to many students’ decision to attend. Moreover, it manufactures relationships at a college where meeting and continually encountering new people is already relatively easy.
The Occidental community has always been characterized by its intimacy. There’s a satisfaction in walking across campus and seeing friends wherever one goes. The social life here should follow suit — parties should be for everyone. Occidental can capitalize on its small size by striving to be a borderless community, while simultaneously offering a variety of different venues for different interests. The fact that we live in a residential community means that our neighbors limit the size of parties, so our goal might be many small parties, each with something for everyone.
Younger students who have yet to experience the full range of socializing at Occidental might be led to believe by the large, open parties fraternities and sororities occasionally throw that the range of social scenes at Occidental is narrower than is the case. Freshmen in search of free alcohol and the famed rowdiness of college usually attend these functions in large numbers. These parties do not characterize the Occidental experience, but to those who attend early in their tenurem, fraternity and sorority gatherings may be all they ever see.
The greater issue is the stratification fraternities and sororities create between the Greeks and the non-Greeks. Greek life functions by setting itself apart from the community, becoming “brotherhoods” and “sisterhoods.” These are formed by groups of people who may or may not know each other well at first but are brought together by their common desire to participate and willingness to pay to do so. In a fraternity or sorority, relationships are given more importance because everyone calls each other “brother” and “sister,” or “bigs” and “smalls.” By association with a national charter, these fraternities and sororities become a part of the imagined community of branches around the country. This creates an impression of belonging to such an extent that those who do not participate do not belong.
Because of these brotherhoods and sisterhoods, Greek members relate well to one another through mutual understanding of rituals and the habits of Greek life. They spend a great deal of their time with other members of their own or other fraternities or sororities in normal life or in mixers. This social insularity reaches a point where the only means of hanging out in earnest with Greeks is to join Greek life, to join the brother or sisterhood.
The student body is separated into Greeks and non-Greeks, with Greeks remaining exclusive and non-Greeks holding parties for everyone. The relationships that a Greek must pay dues to maintain supersede those that can otherwise be built by common interests. Athletes quit their teams to participate more heavily in Greek life. Greeks date heavily within the Greek system. Greek life becomes the all-encompassing extracurricular, wherein people can pad resumes, do community service and have carefully orchestrated social lives.
These artificial brotherhoods and sisterhoods don’t make good on the hope that our college remain one open community, and among their results is their disruption of the normal development of relationships at Occidental. The stereotypical college party may appeal to some, but it does not mesh with the social life experienced by the average Occidental student, and as a result Greeks and non-Greeks remain divided. This division goes counter to the community for which many chose to attend Occidental, and if the school is to restore its social life, it should consider drastically reducing Greek life’s role both on and off campus.
Riley Kimball is a senior DWA major. He can be reached at kimball@oxy.edu.
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