[1735] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: [Mit-talk] Seeking feedback on alcohol policy
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jeff Roberts)
Fri Feb 10 12:44:37 2006
Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 12:44:13 -0500
From: Jeff Roberts <thejoker@alum.mit.edu>
To: Brian Sniffen <bts@alum.mit.edu>
In-Reply-To: <86slqr6s8v.fsf@teleri.evenmere.org>
Cc: mit-talk@mit.edu
Errors-To: mit-talk-bounces@mit.edu
On 2/10/06, Brian Sniffen <bts@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> That's an interesting point. Wasn't Freshmen-on-Campus supposed to
> resolve this problem? It got all the vulnerable students out of the
> hands of fraternities who might dump them from a moving van at the
> e15 loading dock and into the hands of caring, attentive
> dormitories---as personified by housemasters and GRTs.
>
> If the HMs and GRTs don't want the burden of dealing with this, aren't
> the dorms likely *less* safe and nurturing than the fraternities?
>
> -Brian
An interesting point, indeed ... we could argue about whether
"freshmen-on-campus" was really a good idea (though I'm sure most of
us on mit-talk would agree that it wasn't, or at least not a well
thought-out one), but on the subject of whether dorms are more or less
"safe" than fraternities, I think that's another discussion
altogether. In dorms, there is generally a greater emphasis on
independence and personal responsibility than on collective
responsibility, which is more strongly supported by the
bidding/pledging concept and "membership" nature of fraternities.
GRTs and Housemasters are in dorms to provide advising and support,
they're not there to serve as supervisors or parents.
We also have to consider the fact that freshmen-on-campus has not
really taken freshmen out of fraternities. Freshmen are still very
much members of fraternities (from the statistic I hear, 53% of
freshmen men pledged last year) though they are living in dorms. What
has been the result of this? Has it led to more fraternity members
doing dangerous drinking in dorms, where they feel less of a
connection with their residential community (and thus are less aware
of what resources are available), and where they are outside the
supervision of the more responsible "house elders"? I could also
speculate -- though this is by no means an accusation -- that some
fraternities might even encourage their freshmen members to do their
drinking in dorms, to avoid putting their houses at risk?
And that's all I have to say about that ...
Jeff
--
Drink Moxie
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