2008 Woodie Awards
Arrogant frat guys unite
By: Matthew Newill
Issue date: 11/30/07 Section: Opinion
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This is a message for the juniors and seniors, but freshmen, listen closely. What has happened to the once legendary DePauw social scene?
There once was a time when it seemed fraternities were vibrating from the music every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday night. Students from surrounding universities would drive to DePauw to party instead of the opposite trend that seems to be developing of late. In the glory days of my freshman year, one could venture to the night's 'party' house, making everyone's wildest Animal House dreams came true.
In today's social climate, each fraternity seems to battle for the best party on each of our traditional social nights, making for a disappointing turnout for everyone involved. A message to all overly arrogant frat guys refusing to mingle with others because of the letters on their shirt: We have to change.
When was the last time two chapters came together to create a social event? In my memory, it's only happened once this entire semester, and it turned out to be a great success. Fraternities at Purdue and IU join together on a weekly basis to throw joint parties, and these are schools with a seemingly infinite amount of people to pack into their basements and hallways.
We, however, have a finite number of people, especially due to the restrictive freshman policy, and I feel we must join together to create the maximum social climate. Each chapter's ideal social scenario is to have the majority of the campus over to party, but as each fraternity plays the game, the small number of total students socializing leads to disappointing turnouts for all.
I have had this conversation with guys from many different chapters, and the consensus (especially among juniors, the last to enjoy the freshman social scene) has been that the social atmosphere has been disappointing of late. We all enjoy spending our time with the people we live with in spit-covered mansions, but I believe to have the college experience we all envisioned as giddy high school seniors, we have to join together.
There once was a time when it seemed fraternities were vibrating from the music every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday night. Students from surrounding universities would drive to DePauw to party instead of the opposite trend that seems to be developing of late. In the glory days of my freshman year, one could venture to the night's 'party' house, making everyone's wildest Animal House dreams came true.
In today's social climate, each fraternity seems to battle for the best party on each of our traditional social nights, making for a disappointing turnout for everyone involved. A message to all overly arrogant frat guys refusing to mingle with others because of the letters on their shirt: We have to change.
When was the last time two chapters came together to create a social event? In my memory, it's only happened once this entire semester, and it turned out to be a great success. Fraternities at Purdue and IU join together on a weekly basis to throw joint parties, and these are schools with a seemingly infinite amount of people to pack into their basements and hallways.
We, however, have a finite number of people, especially due to the restrictive freshman policy, and I feel we must join together to create the maximum social climate. Each chapter's ideal social scenario is to have the majority of the campus over to party, but as each fraternity plays the game, the small number of total students socializing leads to disappointing turnouts for all.
I have had this conversation with guys from many different chapters, and the consensus (especially among juniors, the last to enjoy the freshman social scene) has been that the social atmosphere has been disappointing of late. We all enjoy spending our time with the people we live with in spit-covered mansions, but I believe to have the college experience we all envisioned as giddy high school seniors, we have to join together.
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