It is a common perception among members of the Greek system that College administrators are out to get them. Not only is this perception generally false, but by holding it, the leaders of the Greek system blind themselves to the genuine source of discontent -- the faculty.
Certainly there are various members of the administration who hold the Greek system, specifically fraternities, in low regard.
However, each administrator, from Dean of the College Lee Pelton down to the lowest bureaucrat in the Office of Residential Life, is responsible to College President James Freedman, who himself is directly responsible to the Board of Trustees.
The stance of the Trustees on the Greek system is rather clear. Barring several nationally publicized gang rapes, they are not going to touch the Greek system. Freedman knows this. He also realizes that his job is in the hands of those same trustees.
Does Freedman have a secret plan to directly contradict his employers? He would have to be an idiot, one thing he is never accused of being.
In order to recommend extreme change to the Trustees, Freedman and the rest of the administration recognize that they must justify their recommendation with enormous amounts of student support.
While the administration is almost certainly actively working to encourage student opinion in a direction less favorable to the Greek system, the ultimate power in that relationship rests with the students.
The faculty, however, has no reason to fear either student or Trustee opinion. Faculty members have a rather limited responsibility to the Trustees and virtually zero fear of losing their jobs for expressing their distaste for the Greek system.
In fact, a tenured faculty member has more job security than a Federal employee, no matter what he or she says.
In regard to student opinion, faculty members have an equally small reason for fear. Students have a rapidly decreasing voice in the hiring and firing of lower level faculty. In the case of tenured faculty, students have no power at all.
Members of the faculty, however, are not isolated thinkers without outside influences. Every single one of them is still human and therefore subject to peer pressure.
Currently faculty members are under enormous amounts of peer pressure to denounce the Greek system. A member of the faculty may consider an extremely limited field of factors before succumbing to the peer pressure.
And once these faculty members are appointed to various committees, they feel a responsibility to ensure that the faculty opinion finds its way into committee reports. They face a tough crowd in the coffee lounge if they do not.
The faculty lounge opinion can be changed. Professors at an institution of Dartmouth's caliber are intelligent enough to change their minds. They will not do so, however, without reason.
It is a job of the leaders of the Greek system to give them that reason.
This means an active effort to show professors the benefits of the Greek system. In specific houses that have no redeeming qualities, it involves an active effort to create positive sides to otherwise negative organizations.
If there is to be a conspiracy about the Greek system, its place is not within the administration.
If Greek leaders are smart, they will recognize that the conspiracy needs to be their own concerted effort to improve their relationship with the faculty.
This will help to ensure that as Dartmouth evolves, we do not leave the positive aspects of the Greek system behind.
