Key to residential policy lies in gradual, reasoned change

Duke's residential problems are not limited to excessively dominant fraternities. Coming from a small high school last year, I felt lost among Duke's 6,000 undergraduates. Knowing that feeling, I can certainly understand why first-year students would want the smaller group identity that comes from being in a fraternity. For all the negatives attributed to fraternities, they do provide one function performed by few other university organs--they offer a sense of belonging and acceptance to their members. If administrators are truly serious about improving residential life, they must examine not only the social problems arising from fraternities but also the dearth of residential options that causes people to join them.

Though fraternities hold only 25 percent of West Campus housing, their social influence is much greater. Too often last year, it seemed that the only Friday or Saturday night activity where I could meet large numbers of new people was kegs. Despite my belief that other social options would develop in the absence of a large fraternity presence on West, the Duke community must have a reasoned plan before it begins to reallocate housing.

This plan must have at least three distinct components. First, the administration must make certain that students do indeed want residential change. Though I and many others feel residential change is preferable to the status quo, we have no right to speak for the campus as a whole. It is likely that a majority of students finds the current residential situation acceptable. Do we, as advocates of residential change, have the right to insist that our cause must supersede that of the majority? Second, the administration must make the public commitment that within a specified time frame residential change will occur. This declaration would signal to all interested parties that they must actively promote their views now or lose the opportunity to shape Duke's residential future. Finally, having set a definite date for change, the administration should establish committees to develop viable residential alternatives to fraternities.

Although residential fraternities do indeed negatively dominate West Campus and stunt intellectual life at Duke, individual fraternity members do not. Fraternity members currently living on West had every right to suppose their housing would remain constant over their remaining years at Duke when they pledged. Any residential solution must be minimally acceptable to current residential Greeks. Why should we care what is acceptable to fraternity members? Because they represent a significant part of the Duke population. Although a large percentage of Duke students are fraternity members, they are by no means a majority. If enough of the independent population decides that the status quo is unsatisfactory, then the administration will have a mandate to proceed. On the other hand, if most independents are not terribly dissatisfied with the current situation, and we assume that fraternities like their current housing, then change should not occur. Those who desire change should organize and lobby. Any change which comes through dialogue between all concerned parties will develop more positive, long-term results for Duke than change which comes from the outspoken demands of a small segment of the student body. To those who demand immediate change, if your vision is indeed as splendid as you believe, then you should have minimal difficulty in convincing a majority of students that your road is correct.

Such a unified front, however, should not resort to "activism" to advance its cause, and the administration should not give in to "activist" pressures to change. First, the situation is already getting better. Residential change is on the agenda--student groups such as Students Acting for Residential Change have been organized and a greek life task force exists. Second, gradual change is preferable to immediate change because it allows for a carefully coordinated approach that will insure whatever genesis West undergoes, the new order will be in the long-term best interests of the Duke community. Immediate and abrupt changes offer no guarantees that what replaces fraternities will improve residential life at Duke. Finally, think about the lesson the administration would be sending if it bowed to bench painting and student insurrection--it would be teaching students that the only way to effect change in the "real world" is to circumvent the law.

The only way to restructure residential life while being fair to all students is through determined, yet reasoned and gradual change.

Alex Rogers is a Trinity sophomore.