I remember scrolling through the Penn State Class of 2025 Facebook page the day I committed. I was searching for a roommate at the time and was endlessly looking at post after post. A lot of the faces and bios blended together. A flag (green or red, I’m not sure) that caught my eye was when someone said they were planning on rushing. Penn State is well-known for a lot, and amongst the list is partying. More specifically, it is known for Greek life. College students love going Greek. Parties, friends, more parties, it’s just an all-around good time. Greek life is deeply rooted in the college experience, but there seems to be a decline in fraternities and sororities in some areas. Today I’m going to discuss the pros and cons of Greek life, and possibly some misconceptions about it.
Penn State currently has 44 fraternities and 27 sororities. Numerous chapters have been suspended due to hazing, drug/alcohol abuse, misconduct, etc. These are just some of the reasons why Greek life is frowned upon. One of the biggest issues with Greek life, specifically in fraternities, is the pledging process. It is brutal, and sometimes the tasks assigned to pledges come close to going too far. In 2017, a Penn State student named Timothy Piazza died in a hazing accident during his pledge process to Beta Theta Pi. This was huge in the news, and I remember reading about it 5 years ago. I did not understand at the time how serious it was, but it blew up. Close to 20 brothers were charged with manslaughter because everyone had refused to call 911. Imagine having to call the police and tell them that you killed a freshman because he wanted to join your fraternity. I assume that would be a less than pleasant conversation. There was a backlash (rightfully so) towards frats and PSU in the years following. Penn State banned the fraternity and took great lengths to improve their management of the Greek organizations. Unfortunately, there is still hazing and even underground rushing that frats hide from the university’s eyes.
Tailgate at a Frat
Sororities are just as bad though. Penn State currently has two “underground” sororities, which are officially labeled Special Interest Organizations by the university. These are Epsilon Sigma Alpha (ESA) and Trilogy. Trilogy formed in 2009 after the ban of the sorority Tri Delta. The original sorority was disowned basically for hazing accidents and the former members immediately formed a new group. The convenient thing about such “underground” sororities is that they do not have the same oversight that true sororities do. Meaning they can get away with a lot more. No, this is not a good thing.
So why do people want to join Greek life in the first place? Ask any sorority girl and the standard answer is “I wanted to make lifelong friends”. Like ok…do you not have the ability to make friends without paying for them? Just kidding, there are a lot of benefits to joining a frat or sorority, but it is also very easy to ridicule the idea with phrases such as that. When you join a group of people like this, it becomes easy to build and make relationships that will get you far in life. The community is huge and the alumni are very involved, which is great for connections. It also helps with resume building and gets you involved in community service and fundraising for a variety of organizations. At Penn State, the fraternities and sororities are well-known for heavily participating in THON, the largest student-run philanthropy in the world. The top Greek org fundraisers are typically Alpha Tau Omega and Zeta Tau Alpha. This year the sorority fraternity duo raised over $400,000 towards curing childhood cancer.
Dan’s frat house
While people may have their own opinions of fraternities and sororities, the bottom line is that they are not going anywhere anytime soon. They are so ingrained into the college lifestyle that it would take a lot of time and effort to remove them completely. They are also deeply tied financially. Millions of dollars in real estate belong to fraternity houses, and the revenue that the university gets from members is too appealing for them to give up. So if you can’t beat them, join them I guess.
The topic of greek life is very complex. Many people are very proud of their fraternities or sororities, but there is clearly some pretty dark history around them. While most of the time greek life is not trying to hurt other people, its reckless nature does have that effect. There is not really a good solution to how to fix this because people will still be partying pretty much anywhere. Along with this, there are still some good parts to greek life. As you said, there is a lot of fundraising that comes out of greek life, and it also gives people a small community that they can rely on. Great post!
I completely agree. As someone not currently involved with the Greek system, it’s obvious how important Greek Life is to this campus. The Greek system is probably the second biggest contributor to the social scene behind bars. In addition, the Greek System is huge for philanthropy as Fraternities and Sororities raise the most money for THON and other events. Personally, I can’t attest to the friends you make in the greek system (since I’m not in one) but my friends who love it. With all good things comes dangers however with hazing and other dangerous practices. I don’t know if its worth pain, humiliation, and dues to live this type of lifestyle.
I know Penn State frats are looked down upon pretty much anywhere outside of the state of PA because of the headlines they make for such tragedies. Although they have gotten much better, and I have friends in greek life that love it, it is still something that can be very controversial. My brother’s roommate was in a frat here, and he did not include it in his resume for job applications/interivews, like other schools do, just because of the reputation at PSU specifically. Nonetheless, they do some great things and are a big part of the life here on campus.