Choosing Not To Change
Seth Bisen-Hersh
Professor Ron Loui of Washington University in St. Louis says in his column "A Tragedy With A Difference" [Oct. 21] that President Charles M. Vest should "offer to be removed from his position this year" in the aftermath of the death of Scott S. Krueger '01.
This is audaciously unfair. Vest was not the person who drank the alcohol that Krueger drank, nor was he the person who bought it. He had nothing to do with the unfortunate death.
Loui goes on to say that fraternities have "their own ritual bravado"
and that they "manage to find the lowest common denominator in search of
some fiction of fun." What kind of jargon is that? Since I am not a member
of a fraternity, I wouldn't know for certain, but those statements seem
totally false. Fraternities are about brotherhood. From the way I
understand it, new pledges must undergo numerous bonding
activities This is not to mention the fact that the brothers are very open to
pledges about drinking. I have friends in many different fraternities and
know for a fact that if they do not want to drink, they do not have to. It
would be wrong to punish all fraternities and change rush just because of
one incident. Another prevalent misconception is the idea that only members of
fraternities drink. This is not true. There are many halls and even whole
dorms that consume alcohol on a regular basis. Doing away with the
fraternity system will not halt the drinking. The two subjects of drinking
and living groups are totally unrelated. There are people who drink and
people - like me - who don't. This will not change because living
arrangements change. Changing rush would be a bad thing. And this is coming from a guy who
had an awful experience in the first couple of days of rush. But it made me
grow up and be stronger as a person as I struggled to find somewhere I fit
in. And I found a place I liked. That's the glorious thing about this
system: We get to pick the people we want to live with. A randomized
assignment system would completely ruin the wonderful living groups that
have been created throughout the years. If we switch to a random system, I would feel really sorry for the
quiet, shy freshman who ends up in a noisy hall. I know a lot of people,
and I do not know a single person who is unhappy with where he or she is
living. As it says in the housing guide to MIT that I read this summer,
most people find they are with where they live happy and choose not to
transfer in later years. Another topic being thrown around is the proposal for more dorms. Do we
need more of them? Of course we do, but this has nothing to do with
fraternities or drinking: It is simply a fact. Right now, there are many
freshmen who are crowded. If next year all freshmen were required to live
in dorms, there would be even more crowding. I don't know about others, but
I'm certainly not going 100,000 dollars into debt to be crowded for four
years. When we then have the space for all freshmen on campus (the wrong way to
do that is to lower the number of people accepted), we could then think of
pushing rush to Independent Activities Period or the spring term - but not
before then. And it should not be pushed later because once sophomore year
comes around and students have to worry about grades, they are not going to
want to make the time commitment to a fraternity. Thus, they may miss out
on something they could really get a lot out of. From what I have heard of one of the parents' meetings this past
weekend, many parents said that we are still kids. This is not true. I will
not be treated like a kid, and MIT has not treated me like one. If MIT did,
I would not have come here. We are in college and are old enough to make
our own decisions without parental consent. We are also the brightest in
the country. Given the fact these facts, I again see absolutely no reason
to change the unique, wonderful way in which this campus is run. I would like to tell Loui to kindly worry about his own campus and not
ours. Drastic, quick changes are never good. I would hope that Vest will
not be hasty in the decisions to come. There is no one, definitive way to
make this campus have no more problems. But it would be a grave mistake to
tamper with the good system that is already in place.
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