I spent 3 years living in one of the co-ops briefly mentioned in the article ("In 2013, the administration took over the student-run anarchist house and painted over the old murals."). I wouldn't call it an "anarchist house" but it sure as hell was a lot of fun to live there. I painted some of those murals that are now apparently gone. We built a giant illegal loft in our room to make it two stories (which we would disassemble for a day every year when the fire inspection happened). We did some stupid and illegal shit, sure. But the sense of community was unparalleled. The alumni association owned the house, so we had to deal with all the maintenance. We came back to campus a week before everyone else every year to work on the house. We cooked and cleaned for ourselves. I've never since experienced anything close to that same feeling of communal pride. It was a mess, but it was our beautiful mess.
I was in the co-ops and also a frat in the early 2010's. I knew about XOX, SAE, and KA but not theta delt or sigma chi -- let alone french house, slav, haus mitt, or casa italiana. Aside from undergrads, the school will miss out, too -- my pledge class founded thirteen companies in the few years after graduation, and I hired several friends from EBF for my own -- but the administration will probably never realize what they've done to the undergraduate culture. This is really sad news; I hope the rest of the co-ops escape -- most of the housing options are extremely uninspiring to actively anti-social and not great for mental health, as the article points out.
I like how we're immediately jumping to "this is going to ruin the financial success of future graduates and thus hurt future fundraising."
"Thing I like must be directly responsible for this other thing that happened later" is sad to see from someone from what's supposed to be one of our nation's best schools.
Turning high school into middle school and college into high school, etc, in terms of adult supervision isn't my favorite thing in the world, but it's also something that been happening since long before you made it to a college campus in the early 2010s. So it's not very clear that it's going to cause corporate or economic pain. The social arguments are much more compelling, but also far harder to unwind. Parents have been both complaining about but also calling for this sort of thing for decades.
Isn't that pretty much definition of nepotism? Those jobs would go to someone, they wont disappear out of economy. However, they should go to "the best person for the company" rather then the school friend. I can understand giving jobs and promotions to friends, it is tempting. I am surprise over it being treated as a "something to strive for".
I lived there too! What a wonderful mess it was lol
One of my friends from high school was in Stanford's LSJUMB and while visiting him I got to briefly visit a couple of the Stanford co-ops. What struck me most was how similar the co-ops were despite being on literal opposite sides of the country. If there had been a magic wormhole-esque[0][1] portal that _actually_ linked the houses together, I would've only been mildly surprised
Collegehouses is still going strong, 21st went through some renovations a couple years ago :)
Something different from what is mentioned in the article is that the Austin co-ops are not owned by alumni orgs and are not officially affiliated with any school or university.
God bless the USCA (or BSC, or whatever they call it now).
It breaks my heart that other students don’t have that opportunity for community. It’s not for everyone, but by far the most interesting years of my life were living in the Berkeley coops 2002-2005.
Hey, I lived in a very similar system at Michigan State University. It was a ton of fun and I made some of my best friends in that house. Really sad to hear that Stanford painted over the murals.
> We built a giant illegal loft in our room to make it two stories (which we would disassemble for a day every year when the fire inspection happened). We did some stupid and illegal shit, sure. But the sense of community was unparalleled.
Sounds like toxic “bro” culture.
First of all, fire safety regulations are one of those things that are written in blood so speak. Casually bypassing them is not something to be celebrated.
Second, is it any surprise that people who come out of this environment then end up creating startups which skirt regulations, sell out their users privacy, and do “stupid and illegal shit”.
In fairness, this sort of transformation has taken place in every station of American life. My dweeb chemist parents regularly hosted and attended parties with their dweeb chemist colleauges. My wife and I have hosted 3 parties in the last 17 years.
We had to fight for the modicum of freedom our kids had growing up. Our oldest now has a car but his licence forbids him taking friends along.[1]
Our youngest built his first model rocket this week, to find it's only feasible to launch with a club. The nearest club, which used to host monthly launches at Moffett field, is closed until Fall. So it'll take as long to drive to and from the launch site as to buid a rocket, and the maximum launch cadence is monthly. Not a viable hobby for a 13-year-old, unless it's your only hobby and your parents help with everything.
Churches have disintegrated, workplaces are toast. The loss of "third places" was measured by Putnam.[2] Somebody on twitter suggested companies should have sports teams, aparrently unaware it was quite common until recently.
On my first day of work in California in 2001, my boss asked me if I'd tried ecstasy yet.[3] Nowadays you must be mentally ill to take it, under a doctor's supervision. Hope you get better like us!
Freedom is wonderful because you can go out and build what you want to see more of in the world. Chances are, if you're missing "third places" in your life, then other people are. Or, just as likely, there is a reason you gave it up, and maybe you weren't aware of the trade-offs at the time, and now it's time to correct it. Universities are (somewhat) unique in that they are microcosms, with very central control over a relatively small population. But the public, the world at large, is far more chaotic and free.
The problem is, as usual, a fundamentally corrupt justice system that serves only the parochial, low-intelligence, low-curiosity instincts of it's law enforcement officers ("that don't look right. Time to put a stop to it, and if they don't stop I'll beat and arrest them under one of the many pretexts available to me." Lots of things don't look right when your IQ is 90.) Time, of course, is the enemy, since the court defaults to "no". The court is not interested in speeding anything up. Ever.
Still, scrappy entrepreneurs hanging a shingle and offering a "third place" for profit are somewhat respected by the establishment. Hence 3rd wave coffee shops with live music, microbreweries, and so on. Otherwise the need to keep a low profile with physical exploration puts a serious damper on real world experimentation, much to the detriment of society as a whole. This is, perhaps, the most positive light in which to see the conservative side of the gun debate: if dying kids isn't enough to motivate gun control, then its also not enough to prevent them from launching rockets or mixing up explosives in their kitchen for fun, or working on cars in their front-yards. At least if they die doing one of those things, they'll die happy. And if they don't die, they'll know something about the world.
I think the availability and type of "3rd places" largely depends on where you live. I live in Denver and a buddy of mine lives in Miami, both cities I would consider pretty high on the amount "3rd places"; however, they reach this stat in very very different ways.
Denver is a very outdoor oriented place, so most of our "3rd places" are literally carved into nature. Pick just about any outdoor sport here, and there will be a group that will happily take you in. Even if you aren't in a group there's a certain community all around liking to go outside. We also have a ton of other "3rd places" like Microbreweries, bars, etc.
Miami is a very different place, very very different. I visited my friend there and the culture I got at least was that people just liked to party. The clubs there would open at 10:30PM and close Noon the next day. Overall very fun place, part of the fun was seeing just how different people were. The folks I met there couldn't believe that I didn't find clubs all that fun and I couldn't believe that they didn't find hiking and camping fun. There was this mutual respect there that we were just very different people and sorted ourselves appropriately.
I totally understand the feeling if you live outside of these areas that have a ton of "3rd places" where options like this might not exist. I used to live in a place pretty devoid of "3rd places" that I liked, so I moved to a place where I liked the "3rd places" better.
It's a small bronze age now - the age of weak and fearful, with sloppy morals. The 40s will be a small iron age - when strong and amoral will run things, they will wreck freedoms with competence. The 50s will start another golden age.
Indeed, I think we have too many laws on the books. However in this climate I am afraid of unscrupulous legislators who are looking pare down on hard fought freedoms for ideological reasons.
> Stanford students live in brand new buildings with white walls. We have a $20 million dollar meditation center that nobody uses. But students didn’t ask for any of that. We just wanted a dirty house with friends.
From my experience, covid exacerbated this significantly. I don't know if it's just the universities or a broader cultural shift. And as the article says, the administrators introduced more "community initiatives" to exonerate themselves of gleefully destroying campus life and letting it atrophy for two years straight (while making students pay in person tuition for online school)
It feels like in the past couple years we've gone from a culture of spontaneity and grassroots initiative to one of bitter obsequiousness that's obsessed with taking itself seriously. The only way to subvert it is by turning it into one big joke
edit: thanks to OP for posting this magazine, it's the first thing I've seen in a while that actually has something to say
We moved early-covid to a neighborhood in my wife's hometown. Got twice the space inside and outside for the same price we sold (moving from major metro -> minor metro). In a few short months, our bff neighbors were gone, meeting new neighbors was hard, bars closed and spontaneity was gone, so we settled into Covid life. I was watching a lot of Monty Don and so I did the most logical thing to do to a new backyard: I ripped up a huge chunk of grass on the southern side of the house, built soil with lasagna gardening techniques, and hand-laid a bluestone path.
Sure, gardening is some privileged shit in this day and age, but I basically put myself down a 5 year path determined by seasons, weather, microbiology and how much I was willing to learn in my spare time. It's beautiful chaos half the time, but it's starting to surprise and delight everyone who visits.
It's also a place to be less serious about life. You need some humility. Sometimes being off by two weeks can ruin a plant. LOL let's try again next year. No biggie.
Americans need more of that. It doesn't have to be gardening of course, but please go out of your way to find something that can introduce more surprising and rewarding variables into your life that you enjoy figuring out.
Interesting aspect of this is that in Stanford survey, overwhelming majority of students (83%) want to see Greek life reformed, de-housed, or abolished. This is not administrators against students in general issue. This is administration doing moves that are broadly supported by majority of students.
I was wondering about the other side of this issue. Thanks for providing a glimpse of it.
Reformed, de-housed, and abolished are very different. "Reformed" in particular could encompass a wide range of measures which don't necessarily involve heavily policing student organizations.
Its not. Stanford and other elite schools know their brand name is immensely valuable and students will keep enrolling even if campus social life is bleached of all fun. The only real force pushing back at all are alumni whose donations fall (briefly) when a university squashes something too explicitly that had an unusual amount of sentimental value. But that just slows things down a bit.
I think what gets missed about greek life in general is that its just a group of students. It's not inherently more dangerous or not than any other group of college age students. In my experiences in undergrad, organizations like club rugby or even the marching band were where you seriously got hazed or had risky partying going on. Greek parties in contrast were regulated. Representatives from the interfraternity council would walk through and inspect that you had people staffing the party and supplies like water and food. Pledges would work as bouncers or watch out for people getting too ill. People who were misbehaving would get tossed out routinely for the parties open more to the public, and members showing poor behavior would also get removed from the fraternity entirely.
Its a much safer environment to party than at some random off campus house where there's no rules, no inspections, no one deciding not to party and be a bouncer, and therefore anyone is potentially wandering in off the street into the party. Ironic that the university would go so hard after these student orgs that actually do a good job managing things like underage drinking or keeping drug use from getting too out of hand, while turning a blind eye to the fact that most partying isn't even happening withing student orgs but just from random people throwing big parties in their off campus houses. Just goes to show they care more about optics and how easy it is for the media to write a hit piece on greek life than actually being pragmatic about safety.
I can totally see the logic of why the admin would want to remove them. Popular school, always in the news, greek life poses a liability, even if that liability is so small. The DEI Office is screaming because greek life is a diversity nightmare to the casual onlooker (the one writing the hit pieces, which is what they are really scared of).
The logic makes perfect sense from one line of thinking, but it's stupid because it overlooks the benefits of these places. I almost can't describe why they are beneficial, part of it is the community and part of it is just having to deal with problems and conflict.
I look at greek life as "partially structured community building". This is where a university gives you a piece of land and a building, some funding, and tells the students to figure the rest out with a framework to guide them. Inevitably there will be messy moments, but that's kind of the point, because greek life is basically a giant class on figuring out life. You drink on a tuesday afternoon on the front lawn when you're a greek so you can realize that's not a worthwhile thing to do as an adult.
> "while turning a blind eye to the fact that most partying isn't even happening withing student orgs but just from random people throwing big parties in their off campus houses"
This is overall a good argument that Greek parties aren't necessarily unsafe, but I question this reasoning. Would universities have jurisdiction to intervene in off-campus houses?
If not, even if they can't stop all potentially dangerous parties, wouldn't it still be progress to improve safety at alcohol-heavy events where universities can? In the 2020s in the United States, three deaths were related to fraternities due to overconsumption of alcohol, with many other cases in the 2000s to 2010s (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hazing_deaths_in_the_U...). It is plausible that off-campus parties could be more dangerous, but it looks like it's still an ongoing issue at Greek parties too.
Current scrutiny by universities and the media have directly led to Greek societies to want to introduce safety measures to reduce this from happening, and the scrutiny is justified by past deaths.
At my university IFC did have authority off campus. You would register your off campus address with the university. Even by the early 2010s the rules were downright fascist which made them completely unproductive imo. The univesity argued any gathering of more than 3 people in a student org constituted a student org event. Therefore, a sober game of smash bros with four greek players in a single bedroom in an off campus would be considered an event worthy of registration and inspection from IFC (obviously the letter of this law would never be followed because it couldn't practically be followed nor even enforced, but served to shift liability should anything happen at the smash bros match). IFC would have hearings for incidents that would happen at places like bars all the time too (mostly underage drinking but the occasional fist fight as well).
It is absolutely impossible to take this article seriously, because the author refuses to acknowledge the un-fucking-believably fraught legacy that the Greek fraternity system has, at Stanford and at every other school.
> Driven by a fear of uncontrollable student spontaneity and a desire to enforce equity on campus
Oh, yeah, Stanford’s really afraid of “student spontaneity.”
They’re definitely not afraid of organizations that:
- ritualize physical and mental abuse
- force people to consume dangerous amounts of drugs and alcohol
- institutionalize racism, classism, and misogyny
- protect - and encourage! - sexual assaulters
Fraternities aren’t all bad. Fraternity brothers aren’t all bad. I was one, and I met some of the best friends of my life. But that also means I know just how fucking bad it gets, even now (2016-2020).
Yeah, sucks, you don't get to live in a big fun house and pull Animal House-style pranks any more. You lost your privileges after killing a fucking kid.
This might be a slightly more trenchant critique if Stanford weren't simultaneously declaring war on houses devoted to everything from French culture to cooperative vegetarian meals.
But, as little as I liked the frats, I'm not going to throw them under the bus and push the idea that they were some kind of dens of misogyny and rape. They're not. If Stanford really wanted to combat those ills, perhaps it should focus more on the more general culture of binge drinking.
In my sophomore year, my roommate came back at 7am after being out all night with his thighs literally purple from paddling. He couldn't stand up for a day - I had to bring him meals.
He was in the professional society for international relations students.
This is a characterization of fraternities that reeks of stereotype. What can you offer to substantiate the list of negative claims you're making about Stanford fraternities? Eitan Weiner died due to fentanyl laced drugs. This death occurred in the new year, outside of the rush time frame so hazing is not a likely cause.
Furthermore, it also ignores that plenty of other theme houses outside of greek life were also eliminated.
To be clear, these are all things that I personally watched happen and had happen to friends in fraternities. Not technically any Stanford ones, so I guess you got me there - maybe they were all squeaky clean.
Google "hazing death" if you want to learn about the fun-time rituals of drinking, drugs, and abuse.
Google "fraternity sexual assault" to learn why girls I knew avoided the "handsy house" -- careful, your computer might not be able to handle that many search results.
As for institutionalized discrimination -- what exactly do you think goes on at rush deliberations? Why else would fraternities be so overwhelmingly white and rich?
And Greek houses aren't the only ones who do these things. See my other comments.
Aside from the factual problems here, which others have pointed out, I can't help thinking that the unfocused, angry, self-righteous tone of this post is related to the problems described in the article. It's as if people and organizations have bent over backward to appease the loudest, most furious, least reasonable zealots. I mean, OP has been made fucking sick! How can we not listen?
To be explicit about this: I think many people have discovered how to progress through life by being as angry as possible. I very much doubt this anger is real, and when it is, it more often reflects the writer's personality than the flaws of the world around them. This is bad, and has seriously harmed society and culture in the past 10 years. We should develop social norms that very clearly and pointedly discourage it.
From what I've seen a lot of this comes from two trends; a fall in popularity of frats and sororities, and a sharp rise in reported on campus rapes. I don't know if you recall, but there were stories about this just about every week a few years ago. If your biggest argument is complaining about that makes me sound shrill and self righteous, then I guess that's what I am. But there are some real problems that have for a long time been excused by "its just kids being kids, don't ruin the fun".
That's not even getting into the fact that it's only certain groups of people who even have the ability to engage in such shenanigans and get away with it. I may not sound like much fun, but I don't know why everyone would be expected to overlook these things for the sake of someone else's fun
Agreed, OP's comment is a perfect example of moralizing that saps energy and interest from generic everyday life, the exact type of conservativism that would rather live in a safe, boring world than an interesting but flawed one.
Even if OP's comment is made in good faith (which I don't think it is), it shows a growing trend in the position that everyone shares collective responsibility for all wrongs committed.
That's less than 3 students per year, nationwide? If that's at all representative of the scale of the issue, universities would be better served promoting physical activities or healthy eating so as to reduce student fatalities due to heart disease (~2 deaths/100,000/yr in the 20 to 24 demographic).
These sort of incidents are possible in any student org or group of young people in college. Going after fraternities is just a knee jerk reaction because it seems right to go after fraternities given the notoriety we've given them in the culture, but I can tell you that some of the worst examples of hazing I've learned of when I was on college took place in orgs like the club rugby team. Those sorts of student orgs also have like zero oversight over any social activity from the university. There is no IFC checking these parties, the parties aren't registered with anyone. The university doesn't even know of the off campus houses where these groups live and party in.
Its easy to react emotionally, but rationally, there is no reason for fraternities to be inherently worse than any other student org or even just a random group of people living off campus and hosting parties. The problems you cite are really broad college problems, and if we continue to just assume that they are solely fraternity problems I don't think we will ever make meaningful progress on any of them.
It's like mass shootings are possible in any country. Well, they are, The Onion is right that there is no 100% way to prevent this. However, all countries but one can prevent 99% of them.
> You lost your privileges after killing a fucking kid.
If a person is in a frat and did none of these things you mentioned, then that person can absolutely not be held responsible for any of the ACTUAL COGNIZABLE IN LAW CRIMES that you have mentioned no matter how dramatically. "You lost your privileges?" WHO the F are you?
Hmm, did they kill a kid, or did the kid OD'ed THEN declined medical attention?
> According to Weiner’s family, the sophomore overdosed two days before his death. Paramedics were called to the frat house, but Weiner declined medical attention. Two days later, he was found unresponsive in a bathroom by a janitor
> And the author makes this out to be some fucking stick-in-the-mud administrator trying to take away their toys. Makes me fucking sick
I don't know, but you certainly did a ninja-fast edit of your post to find more chopwood for the axe you're grinding.
Life is dangerous. Unfortunately, given the glacial pace of research, odds are you may even die in the end.
If you can't accept the risks, don't ruin the fun for the rest of us.
Do we really need Lord of the Flies to tell us that in certain environments, at certain ages, around certain people, people can be pressured into doing things that they would never do otherwise?
People have no idea what a base rate is. And they don’t realize that the world for young people who didn’t go to college is even sketchier - those numbers just don’t get held up as a spear to attack institutions with.
Sometimes it feels like we're living in the second Victorian age. Living sanitized lives and speaking sanitized language, with recurring bouts of moral panic.
Even in the early 00s when I was in college everything seemed to have become lamer than it was just a decade prior. 20th century libertinism peaked in the 70s and has been in retreat since then.
20th century libertinism peaked in the 70s and has been in retreat since then.
This is certainly true, but it is also not the only source of the problems outlined in the essay (and by others in this discussion). It's this:
Stanford’s new social order offers a peek into the bureaucrat’s vision for America. It is a world without risk, genuine difference, or the kind of group connection that makes teenage boys want to rent bulldozers and build islands. It is a world largely without unencumbered joy; without the kind of cultural specificity that makes college, or the rest of life, particularly interesting.
And this isn't just university life. Read Matthew Crawford's The World Beyond Your Head and Why We Drive to get a sense of the ways that safety-ism is the new American way. As humans, we develop cognitively and emotionally when we are placed in risky situations (whether emotionally or physically). Perhaps it's college kids doing dumb things, or perhaps it's kids building bike jumps in the local park or homemade zip lines in the local park.
> 20th century libertinism peaked in the 70s and has been in retreat since then.
I agree with the 70s. The AIDS epidemic began in the 80s, which could have been a big reason. The wild and free way of life has been in retreat, and epidemics cause big chunks to be lost all at once. Maybe we'll look back on 2020s the same way: "Wow society was so wild and free up until the 2010s."
but were you a social actor(above age 18, etc.) in the 80s or 70s? I'll agree, it could've been pretty great but perhaps not as free as beforehand. I'll invoke the allegory of the cave
> Stanford’s new social order offers a peek into the bureaucrat’s vision for America. It is a world without risk, genuine difference, or the kind of group connection that makes teenage boys want to rent bulldozers and build islands. It is a world largely without unencumbered joy; without the kind of cultural specificity that makes college, or the rest of life, particularly interesting.
Maybe I'm just an old curmudgeon now, but this sounds like the direction the entire country has been heading for a long time now. For each individual choice between risky joy and safe ennui we have chosen the safe option, starting with the riskiest (or at least perceived to be riskiest) behaviors and continuing on. It's hard to argue against most of these choices in isolation, but the final result seems clearly undesirable to me.
The amount of control American universities exercise over their students is mind-boggling to me. I went to Uppsala University in Sweden, which has a rich and varied student life. But none of that has anything to do with the University (any of them, there are 3 in town). The universities provide education, period. Housing is not run by the University, and it certainly has nothing to do with student social life.
What stops a bunch of Stanford students from starting whatever club they want in their spare time? Obviously it can't be on Stanford property, so maybe that's the difference, they have their students over a barrel because they can deny them access to housing which I guess is hard to find otherwise?
American universities are not at all like European universities. Think summer camp for young adults, with classes in the background. Campus life and sports are just as important as academics. European universities are much more bare-bones and focused on their core mission of education. That's mostly good, in my opinion, as university is way cheaper in Europe and students tend to be more focused on their studies, but it also means that as a student, you're much more on your own. At an American university, there are always dozens of administrators or counselors you can go talk to about any issue you have, from "How do I register for this class?" to issues in your personal life.
The difference is that most of Europe considers adulthood to start at 18, whereas the US considers true adulthood to start at age 21.
In most European countries, universities do not have these invasive policies because it’s culturally unacceptable to control the lives of other adults.
> What stops a bunch of Stanford students from starting whatever club they want in their spare time?
Nothing, but greek system was advantaged over random non-greek friends groups or clubs. If you start own random non-greek club, the university wont guarantee or give you house for it. For the record, Standford always had plenty of students who were not members of Greek clubs. They created and participated in own spare time activities too.
In Europe, if your spare time club rents a house, it will have street number and no one will act as if it was great injustice. Based on article, that is destruction and homogenity. In Europe, if you fill the entire floor with sand and bulldozer it away to property you dont own, through property you dont own, the house owner will object - but in article university administrators are the bad guys for objecting.
> Nothing, but greek system was advantaged over random non-greek friends groups or clubs. If you start own random non-greek club, the university wont guarantee or give you house for it.
For what it's worth, the university I went to (UT Dallas [0]) didn't provide on-campus housing to any organization, including the greeks. I had a friend who was in a frat, and I didn't realize it for a long time because he just lived in an apartment on campus like anyone else. Some of the greeks bought off-campus houses, and the rest didn't have any housing at all, just an office somewhere on campus.
The only privilege I remember the greeks having was they were the only organizations who were allowed to post up flyers advertising their events anywhere on campus, while non-greek organizations could only advertise in spaces relevant to whatever department sponsors them and a couple of shared spaces (which is something I remember clubs I was part of being really grumpy about).
[0] caveat: I graduated 15 years ago, so for all I know things may have changed since
> What stops a bunch of Stanford students from starting whatever club they want in their spare time?
In my country, nothing - but if your club is willing to submit to the university authorities, they will provide some resources that will help the club survive your graduation.
For example, spaces at new-member-recruitment events when the university gets a new class of students, usage of university rooms outside of teaching hours, some storage space, maybe some money, and so on.
And because clubs for students have to completely replace their membership every 3-4 years in order to survive, that help can be the difference between a club that continues to exist and one that doesn't.
> What stops a bunch of Stanford students from starting whatever club they want in their spare time?
Technically nothing, but often times its funding. If it's a university sponsored club, the school will give you money in certain cases. Often times students rely on that money to keep the club going, depending on what they do.
Readit News
"Thing I like must be directly responsible for this other thing that happened later" is sad to see from someone from what's supposed to be one of our nation's best schools.
Turning high school into middle school and college into high school, etc, in terms of adult supervision isn't my favorite thing in the world, but it's also something that been happening since long before you made it to a college campus in the early 2010s. So it's not very clear that it's going to cause corporate or economic pain. The social arguments are much more compelling, but also far harder to unwind. Parents have been both complaining about but also calling for this sort of thing for decades.
I lived in a similar beautiful mess, but it still exists!
https://pika.mit.edu/
One of my friends from high school was in Stanford's LSJUMB and while visiting him I got to briefly visit a couple of the Stanford co-ops. What struck me most was how similar the co-ops were despite being on literal opposite sides of the country. If there had been a magic wormhole-esque[0][1] portal that _actually_ linked the houses together, I would've only been mildly surprised
Long live pika! Long live shenanigans!
[0] http://archive.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2011/...
[1] https://engineering.stanford.edu/news/wormhole-connects-stan...
[1] https://collegehouses.org/listings/21st/
Something different from what is mentioned in the article is that the Austin co-ops are not owned by alumni orgs and are not officially affiliated with any school or university.
It breaks my heart that other students don’t have that opportunity for community. It’s not for everyone, but by far the most interesting years of my life were living in the Berkeley coops 2002-2005.
Sounds like toxic “bro” culture.
First of all, fire safety regulations are one of those things that are written in blood so speak. Casually bypassing them is not something to be celebrated.
Second, is it any surprise that people who come out of this environment then end up creating startups which skirt regulations, sell out their users privacy, and do “stupid and illegal shit”.
We had to fight for the modicum of freedom our kids had growing up. Our oldest now has a car but his licence forbids him taking friends along.[1]
Our youngest built his first model rocket this week, to find it's only feasible to launch with a club. The nearest club, which used to host monthly launches at Moffett field, is closed until Fall. So it'll take as long to drive to and from the launch site as to buid a rocket, and the maximum launch cadence is monthly. Not a viable hobby for a 13-year-old, unless it's your only hobby and your parents help with everything.
Churches have disintegrated, workplaces are toast. The loss of "third places" was measured by Putnam.[2] Somebody on twitter suggested companies should have sports teams, aparrently unaware it was quite common until recently.
On my first day of work in California in 2001, my boss asked me if I'd tried ecstasy yet.[3] Nowadays you must be mentally ill to take it, under a doctor's supervision. Hope you get better like us!
[1] https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/driver-education-and-safety/ed...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone
[3] https://twitter.com/clumma/status/1519377410810023936
The problem is, as usual, a fundamentally corrupt justice system that serves only the parochial, low-intelligence, low-curiosity instincts of it's law enforcement officers ("that don't look right. Time to put a stop to it, and if they don't stop I'll beat and arrest them under one of the many pretexts available to me." Lots of things don't look right when your IQ is 90.) Time, of course, is the enemy, since the court defaults to "no". The court is not interested in speeding anything up. Ever.
Still, scrappy entrepreneurs hanging a shingle and offering a "third place" for profit are somewhat respected by the establishment. Hence 3rd wave coffee shops with live music, microbreweries, and so on. Otherwise the need to keep a low profile with physical exploration puts a serious damper on real world experimentation, much to the detriment of society as a whole. This is, perhaps, the most positive light in which to see the conservative side of the gun debate: if dying kids isn't enough to motivate gun control, then its also not enough to prevent them from launching rockets or mixing up explosives in their kitchen for fun, or working on cars in their front-yards. At least if they die doing one of those things, they'll die happy. And if they don't die, they'll know something about the world.
Denver is a very outdoor oriented place, so most of our "3rd places" are literally carved into nature. Pick just about any outdoor sport here, and there will be a group that will happily take you in. Even if you aren't in a group there's a certain community all around liking to go outside. We also have a ton of other "3rd places" like Microbreweries, bars, etc.
Miami is a very different place, very very different. I visited my friend there and the culture I got at least was that people just liked to party. The clubs there would open at 10:30PM and close Noon the next day. Overall very fun place, part of the fun was seeing just how different people were. The folks I met there couldn't believe that I didn't find clubs all that fun and I couldn't believe that they didn't find hiking and camping fun. There was this mutual respect there that we were just very different people and sorted ourselves appropriately.
I totally understand the feeling if you live outside of these areas that have a ton of "3rd places" where options like this might not exist. I used to live in a place pretty devoid of "3rd places" that I liked, so I moved to a place where I liked the "3rd places" better.
From my experience, covid exacerbated this significantly. I don't know if it's just the universities or a broader cultural shift. And as the article says, the administrators introduced more "community initiatives" to exonerate themselves of gleefully destroying campus life and letting it atrophy for two years straight (while making students pay in person tuition for online school)
It feels like in the past couple years we've gone from a culture of spontaneity and grassroots initiative to one of bitter obsequiousness that's obsessed with taking itself seriously. The only way to subvert it is by turning it into one big joke
edit: thanks to OP for posting this magazine, it's the first thing I've seen in a while that actually has something to say
Bad enough at any school, but imagine borrowing $60K or more to pay for 9 months of Zoom university.
Sure, gardening is some privileged shit in this day and age, but I basically put myself down a 5 year path determined by seasons, weather, microbiology and how much I was willing to learn in my spare time. It's beautiful chaos half the time, but it's starting to surprise and delight everyone who visits.
It's also a place to be less serious about life. You need some humility. Sometimes being off by two weeks can ruin a plant. LOL let's try again next year. No biggie.
Americans need more of that. It doesn't have to be gardening of course, but please go out of your way to find something that can introduce more surprising and rewarding variables into your life that you enjoy figuring out.
Reformed, de-housed, and abolished are very different. "Reformed" in particular could encompass a wide range of measures which don't necessarily involve heavily policing student organizations.
Its a much safer environment to party than at some random off campus house where there's no rules, no inspections, no one deciding not to party and be a bouncer, and therefore anyone is potentially wandering in off the street into the party. Ironic that the university would go so hard after these student orgs that actually do a good job managing things like underage drinking or keeping drug use from getting too out of hand, while turning a blind eye to the fact that most partying isn't even happening withing student orgs but just from random people throwing big parties in their off campus houses. Just goes to show they care more about optics and how easy it is for the media to write a hit piece on greek life than actually being pragmatic about safety.
The logic makes perfect sense from one line of thinking, but it's stupid because it overlooks the benefits of these places. I almost can't describe why they are beneficial, part of it is the community and part of it is just having to deal with problems and conflict.
I look at greek life as "partially structured community building". This is where a university gives you a piece of land and a building, some funding, and tells the students to figure the rest out with a framework to guide them. Inevitably there will be messy moments, but that's kind of the point, because greek life is basically a giant class on figuring out life. You drink on a tuesday afternoon on the front lawn when you're a greek so you can realize that's not a worthwhile thing to do as an adult.
This is overall a good argument that Greek parties aren't necessarily unsafe, but I question this reasoning. Would universities have jurisdiction to intervene in off-campus houses?
If not, even if they can't stop all potentially dangerous parties, wouldn't it still be progress to improve safety at alcohol-heavy events where universities can? In the 2020s in the United States, three deaths were related to fraternities due to overconsumption of alcohol, with many other cases in the 2000s to 2010s (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hazing_deaths_in_the_U...). It is plausible that off-campus parties could be more dangerous, but it looks like it's still an ongoing issue at Greek parties too.
Current scrutiny by universities and the media have directly led to Greek societies to want to introduce safety measures to reduce this from happening, and the scrutiny is justified by past deaths.
> Driven by a fear of uncontrollable student spontaneity and a desire to enforce equity on campus
Oh, yeah, Stanford’s really afraid of “student spontaneity.”
They’re definitely not afraid of organizations that:
- ritualize physical and mental abuse
- force people to consume dangerous amounts of drugs and alcohol
- institutionalize racism, classism, and misogyny
- protect - and encourage! - sexual assaulters
Fraternities aren’t all bad. Fraternity brothers aren’t all bad. I was one, and I met some of the best friends of my life. But that also means I know just how fucking bad it gets, even now (2016-2020).
Yeah, sucks, you don't get to live in a big fun house and pull Animal House-style pranks any more. You lost your privileges after killing a fucking kid.
https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Family-sues-Stanford-ro...
Oh, sorry -- did I say a kid, singular?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hazing_deaths_in_the_U...
29 dead in the U.S. in the last 12 years.
And the author makes this out to be some stick-in-the-mud administrator trying to take away their toys. Makes me fucking sick.
But, as little as I liked the frats, I'm not going to throw them under the bus and push the idea that they were some kind of dens of misogyny and rape. They're not. If Stanford really wanted to combat those ills, perhaps it should focus more on the more general culture of binge drinking.
He was in the professional society for international relations students.
It's not just frats.
Furthermore, it also ignores that plenty of other theme houses outside of greek life were also eliminated.
Google "hazing death" if you want to learn about the fun-time rituals of drinking, drugs, and abuse.
Google "fraternity sexual assault" to learn why girls I knew avoided the "handsy house" -- careful, your computer might not be able to handle that many search results.
As for institutionalized discrimination -- what exactly do you think goes on at rush deliberations? Why else would fraternities be so overwhelmingly white and rich?
And Greek houses aren't the only ones who do these things. See my other comments.
To be explicit about this: I think many people have discovered how to progress through life by being as angry as possible. I very much doubt this anger is real, and when it is, it more often reflects the writer's personality than the flaws of the world around them. This is bad, and has seriously harmed society and culture in the past 10 years. We should develop social norms that very clearly and pointedly discourage it.
That's not even getting into the fact that it's only certain groups of people who even have the ability to engage in such shenanigans and get away with it. I may not sound like much fun, but I don't know why everyone would be expected to overlook these things for the sake of someone else's fun
Even if OP's comment is made in good faith (which I don't think it is), it shows a growing trend in the position that everyone shares collective responsibility for all wrongs committed.
https://www.collegedrinkingprevention.gov/statistics/consequ...
That's less than 3 students per year, nationwide? If that's at all representative of the scale of the issue, universities would be better served promoting physical activities or healthy eating so as to reduce student fatalities due to heart disease (~2 deaths/100,000/yr in the 20 to 24 demographic).
Its easy to react emotionally, but rationally, there is no reason for fraternities to be inherently worse than any other student org or even just a random group of people living off campus and hosting parties. The problems you cite are really broad college problems, and if we continue to just assume that they are solely fraternity problems I don't think we will ever make meaningful progress on any of them.
If a person is in a frat and did none of these things you mentioned, then that person can absolutely not be held responsible for any of the ACTUAL COGNIZABLE IN LAW CRIMES that you have mentioned no matter how dramatically. "You lost your privileges?" WHO the F are you?
Forced, really?
> Yeah, sorry, you don’t get to pull Animal House-style pranks any more. You lost your privileges after killing a fucking kid. > > https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Family-sues-Stanford-ro...
Hmm, did they kill a kid, or did the kid OD'ed THEN declined medical attention?
> According to Weiner’s family, the sophomore overdosed two days before his death. Paramedics were called to the frat house, but Weiner declined medical attention. Two days later, he was found unresponsive in a bathroom by a janitor
> And the author makes this out to be some fucking stick-in-the-mud administrator trying to take away their toys. Makes me fucking sick
I don't know, but you certainly did a ninja-fast edit of your post to find more chopwood for the axe you're grinding.
Life is dangerous. Unfortunately, given the glacial pace of research, odds are you may even die in the end.
If you can't accept the risks, don't ruin the fun for the rest of us.
Lol. No friends at SEC schools, huh?
Do we really need Lord of the Flies to tell us that in certain environments, at certain ages, around certain people, people can be pressured into doing things that they would never do otherwise?
How does that compare to the number of student deaths falling off ladders, slipping on ice, or bathing over the same time periods?
(or drinking, which I know would be orders of magnitude larger...)
Even in the early 00s when I was in college everything seemed to have become lamer than it was just a decade prior. 20th century libertinism peaked in the 70s and has been in retreat since then.
This is certainly true, but it is also not the only source of the problems outlined in the essay (and by others in this discussion). It's this:
Stanford’s new social order offers a peek into the bureaucrat’s vision for America. It is a world without risk, genuine difference, or the kind of group connection that makes teenage boys want to rent bulldozers and build islands. It is a world largely without unencumbered joy; without the kind of cultural specificity that makes college, or the rest of life, particularly interesting.
And this isn't just university life. Read Matthew Crawford's The World Beyond Your Head and Why We Drive to get a sense of the ways that safety-ism is the new American way. As humans, we develop cognitively and emotionally when we are placed in risky situations (whether emotionally or physically). Perhaps it's college kids doing dumb things, or perhaps it's kids building bike jumps in the local park or homemade zip lines in the local park.
I agree with the 70s. The AIDS epidemic began in the 80s, which could have been a big reason. The wild and free way of life has been in retreat, and epidemics cause big chunks to be lost all at once. Maybe we'll look back on 2020s the same way: "Wow society was so wild and free up until the 2010s."
Maybe I'm just an old curmudgeon now, but this sounds like the direction the entire country has been heading for a long time now. For each individual choice between risky joy and safe ennui we have chosen the safe option, starting with the riskiest (or at least perceived to be riskiest) behaviors and continuing on. It's hard to argue against most of these choices in isolation, but the final result seems clearly undesirable to me.
What stops a bunch of Stanford students from starting whatever club they want in their spare time? Obviously it can't be on Stanford property, so maybe that's the difference, they have their students over a barrel because they can deny them access to housing which I guess is hard to find otherwise?
In most European countries, universities do not have these invasive policies because it’s culturally unacceptable to control the lives of other adults.
Nothing, but greek system was advantaged over random non-greek friends groups or clubs. If you start own random non-greek club, the university wont guarantee or give you house for it. For the record, Standford always had plenty of students who were not members of Greek clubs. They created and participated in own spare time activities too.
In Europe, if your spare time club rents a house, it will have street number and no one will act as if it was great injustice. Based on article, that is destruction and homogenity. In Europe, if you fill the entire floor with sand and bulldozer it away to property you dont own, through property you dont own, the house owner will object - but in article university administrators are the bad guys for objecting.
For what it's worth, the university I went to (UT Dallas [0]) didn't provide on-campus housing to any organization, including the greeks. I had a friend who was in a frat, and I didn't realize it for a long time because he just lived in an apartment on campus like anyone else. Some of the greeks bought off-campus houses, and the rest didn't have any housing at all, just an office somewhere on campus.
The only privilege I remember the greeks having was they were the only organizations who were allowed to post up flyers advertising their events anywhere on campus, while non-greek organizations could only advertise in spaces relevant to whatever department sponsors them and a couple of shared spaces (which is something I remember clubs I was part of being really grumpy about).
[0] caveat: I graduated 15 years ago, so for all I know things may have changed since
At many universities, the rules apply to you even off campus.
In my country, nothing - but if your club is willing to submit to the university authorities, they will provide some resources that will help the club survive your graduation.
For example, spaces at new-member-recruitment events when the university gets a new class of students, usage of university rooms outside of teaching hours, some storage space, maybe some money, and so on.
And because clubs for students have to completely replace their membership every 3-4 years in order to survive, that help can be the difference between a club that continues to exist and one that doesn't.
Technically nothing, but often times its funding. If it's a university sponsored club, the school will give you money in certain cases. Often times students rely on that money to keep the club going, depending on what they do.