Greco

Fraternities -- not just for date rape and kegstands!

A growing new movement in Greek life is attempting to refine the animal persona that has dogged the system for generations. Or is that legacies?

Nationally, programs such as Beta Theta Pi's "Men of Principle," Lambda Chi Alpha's "True Brother Initiative" and the Sigma Phi Epsilon "Balanced Man" effort seek a return to the roots of campus Greek life. Organizers talk of honor, virtue, scholarship, civic engagement and other core values. Where there were once panty raids, keg parties and indiscriminate sex, there are now trips to the opera, morning yoga sessions, wine tastings and documentary film screenings.

Welcome to Queer Eye For The Frat Guy.

After decades of wrestling with the stigma and the legal liabilities created by alcohol abuse, cheating, poor grades, and hazing, fraternities are looking to both reinvent and restore the Greek identity. Many national chapters are eliminating the pledge system and brutal hazing rituals in order to gain respectability to potential members. Now, GPAs and an appreciation of more cultural pursuits are empathized over loafing about and partying. Not that it has been easily accepted -- some decided to leave the system but others not usually interested in the "typical" frat experience have filled their ranks.

The Greek system can do and say whatever they want to clean up their image, but it will always be an elitist network of douchebags who need to buy their friends rather than seek them out and earn them. No amount of exposure to activities that are deeper than throwing a football around is going to make those meatheads gentlemen or scholars. Like joining Scientologists, Nazis, or the Republican Party, it's voluntarily giving into an agenda, identity, and perspective that is clearly defined. And frat boys and sorority girls are just as bad as any of those.