1 Benny Rigsbee English 1102 3/18/14 Assignment 2 Draft Introduction: Throughout my entire high school years, I absolutely despised

Fraternities and Greek life as a whole. I always had a misconceived and negative impression of the way that Fraternities ran and what they were all about. A big part of this was because there were many guys in my classes that wanted to join fraternities and I did not exactly think so highly of them. Neither did anyone else for that matter. I thought that if you wanted brotherhood and to join a meaningful organization that being a douche bag was not the way to go about it. Therefore I came out of high school with an already impacted and misinformed view on fraternities. This was a major part of my past that helped contribute to my current view and affiliation with fraternities now. Leading into my freshman year of college, which I am currently still in right now, my perception of fraternities and Greek life began to gradually change. During my orientation for college, I went to the Greek fair where I had the chance to meet and talk to every single fraternity on UNCCs campus. This gave me an amazing amount of insight into Greek affiliation and what it was all REALLY about. After attending this fair, I knew that I wanted to go Greek when I was officially a registered student of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. It was quite amazing how I had a complete change of heart and had an absolute turn around regarding fraternities. It just goes to show that you can learn to love anything, and as corny as it sounds, dont judge a book by its cover.

2 The fraternity that I decided to pledge and become an initiated brother of was Alpha Sigma Phi. It did not take me long to realize that this was the right organization for me. I had rushed other fraternities at the beginning of the rush period and was indifferent toward most of them, but when I rushed Alpha Sig, I knew that I had found something different. This was most certainly the case cause it has been the most intelligent and best decision that I have made in my life and my college career up to this point. This fraternity has helped me better myself as a man and learn to hold 5 important values dear to my heart. These values are Silence, Charity, Purity, Honor, and Patriotism. When I decided to officially become a brother of Alpha Sig I did not for see the issues that could oppose the fraternity or that would come out of Greek life in general. For example, during just this first year of college and being in a fraternity, I have already seen 2 major IFC fraternities be removed from this campus due to hazing and alcohol related incidents, not to mention many other foolish activities that responsible adult men should not subject themselves to. This is also another reminder that this can happen to any fraternity on campus, including us, and that we need to be more careful and better manage our risk. My purpose here in this paper is not to give a long story about how I joined Greek life or the issues in Greek life today, but to consider multi-faceted arguments about Greek involvement and how these opinions influence Greek life reputations. More specifically we will focus on Fraternities and issues with identity, social drinking, and cognitive development.

Entering the Conversation: The conversation of Greek life at a college university is a very rigorous and controversial topic that is currently going on. There are a few common misconceptions among people about Greek life. The misconceptions are that people believe Greek life members to be lazy, less productive, more prone to heavy drinking, and have

3 slower cognitive development. Capone found in a study that Greek affiliated people came into college as heavier drinkers (Capone). Although many of the results of a study like this are self-reported, and not exactly factual. This leaves room for the results to be susceptible to a bias. Pascarella also had something to bring to the table in the conversation that went along the lines of cognitive development. He did this by telling us that men in their first years of college who belonged to a fraternity made significantly lower scores in reading comprehension and mathematics. Keeping that in mind, these slower gains ceased after most fraternity mens freshman year. The negative impacts on their cognitive development also came to a halt (23). This helps reveal that the misperception is in fact a misperception because these cognitive habits and behaviors tend to stop completely after the mens freshman year and do not follow them into their later years in college. One other topic that is a major controversy in the fraternity setting in the modern society today is hazing. Now personally, my brothers and I in my fraternity do not like to even use the word hazing. We feel that it is not a necessary word to have around and in our vocabulary because we do not condone it or support it in anyway. In a sense you could say that we just dont believe in it. This does not mean that it still does not happen though. There are many hazing cases across the country every single year that impact the fraternity and university community severely. Hazing also goes along with alcohol abuse, in the sense that there have been instances of hazing with forced alcohol consumption, which can later lead to alcohol abuse. These are the types of things, that as a Greek organization, we are trying to get rid of and improve our universitys campus. Currently and for the future of IFC, a plan must be devised to help improve the cognitive development and hazing issues at hand. My brotherhood and I have been brainstorming some

4 ideas that we think may be successful and we have come to a conclusion on a few. Since scores and mens cognitive development is proved to be lower during their freshman year within the fraternity, we decided to raise our current library hours that are required for the pledges. The requirement was 5 hours a week, and recently we have augmented the amount to 10 hours a week, no exceptions. We feel this will give a stronger sense of encouragement to the under classmen to study hard and want to improve in their studies. The hazing issue is a different story. Since our brotherhood does not participate or even acknowledge the idea of hazing it was hard for us to relate to this one. Although we came up with a solution that we think will be valid for the future. The idea is that we can start up hazing awareness programs to inform people of how serious an epidemic this is. Another way to have the program acknowledged and flourish is to connect it with our philanthropy, so that it is made known that hazing is a sever problem and that our fraternity is trying to assist in solving the issue. There is no guarantee that any of these ideas will work, but the best that we can do is cross our fingers and hope for the best. Literature Review: Terms: Pledge Process: This is the period during pledging when the newly inducted members or pledges learn the traditions and are educated on the information and history of the fraternity. Cognitive Development: This can be defined mostly as the progressive development of the ability to think and learn. Moral Development: Moral Development is thought to be the process through which a child develops proper attitudes or behaviors towards the other people in the society, based on various things such social and cultural norms, laws and rules.

5 Hazing: Hazing is a very controversial topic among the Greek world on a college campus in modern day society. Finkel helps to define hazing as the imposition of strenuous, often humiliating, tasks as part of a program of rigorous physical training and initiation. These activities can include verbal and physical humiliation, paddling, calisthenics, etc. Cognitive Development: Pike and Pascarella base their articles on the relation between Greek affiliation and cognitive development. They both seem to basically have the same viewpoint on the matter of cognitive development. Also, they coincidentally see eye to eye when it comes to the conversation that Greek affiliation hinders men in their cognitive growth and learning in college. What is also mentioned is that this mainly only happens to men in a fraternity during their freshman year at the university. For example, Pascarella states, This negative impact was in the conventional wisdom area. Men in their first years of college who belonged to a fraternity made significantly lower scores in reading comprehension and mathematics. Keeping that in mind, these slower gains ceased after most fraternity mens freshman year. The negative impacts on their cognitive development also came to a halt (23). Once they were sophomores their grades in the same exact areas were indistinguishable from those of other men who were not Greek affiliates (23). In one study that was conducted Pike discovered that Greek freshmen reported greater gains in interpersonal development than independents did (119). Positive Influences and Growth Among Fraternity Members: In the first observation that I conducted among the fraternity members in the house including myself I noticed that there were several positive aspects between people in the house. For example, when there was no vacuum cleaner for us to use in the house, we came together and devised a plan to get one to use. I feel that that is a strong positive influence among friends and brothers. Also it demonstrates how we build off of each other and make valiant conjoint efforts when we come together as one. Not to

6 mention, Kiesling and Hebert have some input on the situation also. Kiesling explains the ideology in the Fraternity, which focuses greatly on how a man presents himself within the fraternity. Which in other words is referring to ones identity and how it develops. In Keislings Data and Analysis section he describes some of his fellow brothers interactions and conversations in the fraternity chapter meeting. He explains how when the men present their statements they are more reserved and constrained in their manner because they are in a business sphere (373). This goes along the lines with what Hebert is trying to say. The point the Hebert is trying to get across is that, Fraternities provide members with experiences to develop mature interpersonal relationships, learn leadership skills, become involved in community service, benefit from healthy psychosocial development, and enjoy a psychological sense of community, (27). Also that people who choose to go Greek in college are less likely to be lonely and isolated and more likely to stay in college. This is because the fraternity mandates support systems for these young men to meet academic standards (27). These are just some of the few positive influences that the Greek life can offer a student in a university. Alcohol Use and Social Influences: Greek organizations have underwent much criticism along the lines of alcohol use and social influences in the current media. Capone and Larimer both advocate for this and go into greater detail about how it is affecting Greek involvement as a whole. In the results of one of the studies conducted in Capones article it says that it was found that Greek affiliated people came into college as heavier drinkers (Capone). Although in my personal opinion I think that this is a misperception that people have when associating drinking with fraternities. Larimer begins by saying that Greek letter organizations at the universities are at an even greater risk than the rest of the student population. This leads into the topic that drinking among fraternities is much more common and at a higher risk than the rest of the

7 students. By using these campus wide general norms it is ineffective toward the Greek students who already set themselves apart and are different than the others. Injunctive norms have been suggested to be most influential within close social networks with high group identity (Trafimow & Finlay, 1996), characteristics common to Greek organizations, (204). The study that is discussed in Larimer and Turners article was designed to evaluate the overall and relative influence of descriptive and injunctive norms on alcohol use and alcohol problems among Greek-affiliated university students., (208). One main limitation that still exists in this situation is that all of the information and research was self reported which means that it is very susceptible to be biased. This can be the case with many studies, where the information is actually self reported and not necessarily factual. Larimer and Capone do an efficient job at dissecting the alcohol use and social influences among Greek life members in fraternities. This provides us with insight to the Greek community that is essential. Identity: Identity is a common area of conversation within the society, and especially within the fraternity. During peoples entire lives they travel along their own unique path of self realization to discover their true identity and who they really are. Keisling and I help define and explain identity in the fraternity and university setting. Kiesling (2002) starts in his article by discussing mens identities within the fraternity and how they come into their own identities, whether they are pushed into it or create it themselves. He also mentions the ideology in the fraternity, which focuses greatly on how a man presents himself within the fraternity. This can help structure a man and form his identity by giving him simple yet compelling guidelines to follow. In my personal observation of my fraternity house, I mention things along the lines of this. In the fraternity house everyone is themselves, and the rules are much less strict than in a chapter or formal setting. This shows us how the members behave inside and outside the

8 fraternity house, which are all certain attributes of his identity. My observation shows all of our true identities when we are in the fraternity house cause we are all always acting like ourselves and arent trying to conceal anything or impress anyone.

Conclusion/ So What: Once having read these individual responses and excerpts of information on identity, social drinking, and cognitive development it raises an important question, such as, So What? or Why is this important? To grasp why this is currently important to myself, our society, and fraternity life one has to understand the current situation with Greek life and Fraternity involvement in my life. All of these previous explanations and detailed excerpts actually mean a great deal to me. The first reason being because I am a active brother of Alpha

9 Sigma Phi and am involved in IFC. This gives me incentive to want to know more about all of the current issues at hand, ways to solve some of the issues, and strategies to avoid situations like these that could tarnish the reputation of our fraternity. As previous stated in this paper, I have witnessed two fraternities be removed from campus just in this first year of being a Greek affiliate. This makes me want to be scrupulous with risk management and safety regarding everything we do, and also to do everything in my power to make sure that it does not happen to us next. With all of our current dilemmas, I felt that this research paper would offer some valuable insight and influence to other fraternity members involved in Greek Life. Not to say that they arent already aware of what is going on, but sometimes it helps to have some outside encouragement. This outside encouragement being the information from all of the credible sources and the reassurance that another organization is just as involved and aware of the current conflicts. Even though one could discuss the topics of identity, cognitive development, social influences, hazing, and alcohol abuse in a fraternity and university setting forever; my fellow brothers and I feel that this paper sufficiently does the job. If all of these ideas and information are put into a plan of action, most of the current conflicts within Greek life today could be resolved.