FARWELL COLUMN: Lessons from the frat house

In a seminar during the last day of classes, I referenced my fraternity in passing. My professor turned to me, his eyes bulging with incredulity.

"You're in a fraternity?" he gasped.

I guess since I was a student in his challenging and thought-provoking political theory seminar and had--I hope--demonstrated reasonably progressive thinking and a willingness to engage with ideas about equality, he thought I didn't fit the stereotype of the frat boy.

If he'd known that a medical condition diagnosed freshman year prevented me from partaking in Animal House binge-drinking sessions and that rewarding, committed relationships saved me from ever having to use the, "Hey, you should come join us for drinking in my frat section tonight," pickup line with freshman girls, I think he would have found my membership in a fraternity even more puzzling. And maybe you do too.

Don't laugh. I don't mean the fraternal writings you've seen your freshman hallmates struggling to memorize before pledge meetings, although those are at least indirectly involved.

A fraternity is a crucible in which personal values can take shape. As in any tightly knit group, tensions arise, tempers flare and people misbehave. In the fraternity where discussion--formal and informal--is the ultimate activity, interpreting, understanding and punishing improper behavior becomes a major responsibility. Personal engagement with the issues--What is right and wrong? How does the action hold up against the standards of conduct in the fraternal writings? Are the writings right and realizable? How does one punish and teach?--forces each member to consider his own values and to hold them up to the flame of others' scrutiny. This scrutiny does not, in my experience, lead to a homogenization of views, but rather a crystallizing and expansion of individuals' beliefs.

Although this type of philosophizing will occur by necessity in any small community, a fraternity creates the atmosphere of trust and of true interdependence that allows its members to express themselves honestly and requires that they consider each issue seriously.

Having participated in this crucible week in and week out for three years, I know much more clearly what I believe--and I can express it better--than I could when I was a freshman, and I thank Sigma Chi. Many have not been as fortunate as I in this regard, and I watch dolefully as college administrators struggle to find ways of providing this education to their charges.

Therefore, I find it deeply saddening that, nationally and locally, the trend in education is to de-emphasize fraternities. In these organizations, administrators have a valuable tool, and either don't know it or refuse to utilize it.

In a time when many bemoan the lack of associations and community here, it seems a waste to let founder a rare institution that offers both. Running from class to class and activity to activity, often eating meals on the go or while working, I find the fraternity a respite where I can have meaningful interaction with other people. At Duke, where pressure to perform drives people apart, into their own social and emotional isolation, communal places such as fraternities are especially valuable.

Of course, fraternities' strengths do not negate their significant failings, and this seems to be the reason frats now appear on the endangered species list. Fraternities are inherently exclusive in their membership, but they also tend to be so in their social interactions. Their members often remain ignorant or insensitive of how others think and live, as my own fraternity demonstrated this fall. Some of the excessive drinking in which many fraternity members engage leads to destructive and reprehensible behavior. Indeed, plenty is wrong in the greek world.

Fraternities have such power to do good, however, that I am disappointed to be leaving Duke at a time when many think fraternities' days here are numbered. Certainly, they are not perfect, but these organizations provide an opportunity for students to learn and grow and develop. They are ultimately responsible for the advancement and improvement of their own members, and not for the betterment of the community--although such betterment is an ancillary benefit of the improvement of individuals. It is unreasonable to expect them to focus on serving the greater community more than the Newman Center or the Duke Cricket Club do.

With the much ballyhooed quad system looming, it's incumbent on administrators and greeks to find ways for fraternities to exist on this campus in a way that accentuates their substantial potential for good and minimizes the harm they can cause.

A Duke that features more fraternities, small residential sororities and selective-living groups--tight, intense communities where members must forge for themselves a moral education--would be doing its students a much better service. Although this moral education doesn't have its own column in U.S. News, it's what many Duke students need above all else.

Tyler Rosen is a Trinity senior and editor of TowerView.