Letters
As you are a trustee of Colgate, I am sending to you
probably one more of many e-mails that you have probably received from
disgruntled alumni about what the university is doing to the Greek system.
(And if not, I know many who are quite unhappy). It is transparent to
me that Colgate, as well as many American colleges, are attempting to
destroy the Greek system on college campuses. It seems that the good things
that fraternities bring are being overshadowed by the bad things they
have done. Furthermore, it seems that colleges have their own social agenda,
which they feel they should impose on today's students.
Colgate is doing this under the guise of a new residential
program,
designed to foster more interaction and understanding among its student
body. But I note that Colgate also wants to encourage its students to
take a more active interest in arranging their own social lives, they
want
students to take a more active community role, and in general, they would
like their students to be more active in arranging and taking responsibility
for their own lives.
Now given that fraternities do these now, a pre-existing
infrastructure
already exists to help facilitate these desires. And yet, the college
prefers to abolish them (apparently through slow strangulation) and then
take over the entire system themselves, and force the students to accept
the model of society that the college thinks they should live by.
I think this is a mistake and wrong. When I was a fraternity
member, we
took an active role in the very things the university seeks to encourage
from today's students. We collectively cleaned the house and rest-rooms
during our many industrious work weekends, mowed laws, painted and fixed
things, arranged social activities, paid our bills and other activities
that dorm-students didn't have to do. We did it as a team, allocating
tasks as needed. We learned responsibility, while encouraging brotherhood
(pardon the word, but I can't think of a better description of what we
did), and frankly, learned to live together which is not that easy in
a confined house. Many of these traits would be rare for dorm students,
who only had to look after themselves to get by and frankly, in this day
and age of computers and the internet, students need to do more socializing,
not less.
What is wrong with brotherhood, taking responsibility, working
together,
sharing and caring? From what I see of today's college graduates, they
need more of all of this.
Today, I still see many of my fraternity brothers, and together
we love
Colgate. But I came to realize at my first reunion that without them,
Colgate is just a pretty campus, devoid of soul. My fraternity brothers
were what gave Colgate the soul I attribute to Colgate. In fact it is
my
friends from Theta Chi that really are the reason I love Colgate so much.
The college seems open-minded when it comes to gay and lesbian
rights of minorities and women, peace studies and whatever, but god forbid
you are a social male, looking to live with a bunch of guys you like.
(I notice the college is okay with selecting and living with your friends,
as long as
they are few in number). In this matter the college becomes very
closed-minded.
I had been a member of the President's Club. I dropped my
annual
contribution last year to $50 in protest, but wanted to assure that Colgate
continues its good US News and World Report rating. I now will probably
drop down to $5, again in protest. If discontinuing my contributions entirely
gets my message across, I will do so, even if I contribute to the lowering
of the alumni contribution percentage so revered by the rating done by
US News and World Report.
Stephen Scammell
Colgate,'73 Theta Chi
Summit, NJ
Towers Perrin, Senior Consultant
Captive Insurance Company Reports, Editor
Morris Corporate Center II-F
Parsippany, New Jersey 07054
(973)-331-3522
(973) 331-3576 (FAX)
email: steve.scammell@towersperrin.com