Greek Life

[Maitre]

So I was kind of curious - who participated in Greek life back in their college days? What houses? What did or do you perceive as the positives & negatives nowadays?

I have mixed feelings about my Greek experience. While at school I was an acive member of Kappa Kappa Psi, national honorary fraternity for college band members. Not a traditional social Greek fraternity, but we incorporated many elements of the social houses on campus into our membership process, and our operations, though our mission was the advancement of music and musical participation, and their contribution to campus and community life.

Our chapter was all male, which has become less common for chapters of KKPsi on campuses across the country (while the organization began as all male, and a sister sorority [Tau Beta Sigma] of common purpose was founded decades ago, both organizations are co-ed nationally, and many campuses have chapters of only one of the groups with co-ed membership).

We did not have a "house," as the majority of social fraternities do. Instead we had four 4-6 bedroom houses off campus that had been rented continuously by members of the fraternity for a number of years. Three of these houses were owned by the same landlord, who liked us as tenants because we always paid our rent on time, found new tenants to sign next year's lease, and never complained about the condition of the houses.

Enough background. I was fortunate to make a number of friends with whom I have kept in contact; but these friends were people that I knew through other activities anyway. There were some very enjoyable experiences that I had with my fraternity brothers, but I don't think there was anything that was truly irreplaceable (of course my view on that has radically changed now that my son has started asking if we can go "ou-schide" for a "wok"). I also had a few very negative experiences with some of my fraternity brothers, one of which completely ended my relationship with my "big-brother" (the mentor who assisted me through the pledging process).

To me, rather than comparing the positives of membership to the negatives, it would be more relevant to compare the positives and negatives of membership to a college experience without membership in a Greek organization. In my case, I would have made some of the same friends, and could have had the same negative experiences without joining a fraternity, though YMMV, especially in looking at a true social fraternity.