131–140 of 402 posts
I thought Kappa Alpha got "un-housed" as part of the fallout for hosting the party where the Brock Turner assault took place. That kind of event would have led to a frat being dissolved on my campus in the 1990s. Obviously there are many other examples in this article, but that one doesn't seem to quite fit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Going on the GP's line¹, diversity of cultures is a result of balkanization. Just like genetics speciation, but with memes. Once people start moving around, multiculturalism dies. 1 - I'm not sure I agree, but after reading the comment, I'm tending this way.
> balkanization FYI: I suspect the meaning you are trying to convey diverges from the meaning many others would use by that word. And perhaps tautological?
I don't think why people don't move is important for the wording, is it? (Yeah, historically the word origins from a very bad setup, but that's not how I see that word being used.) Anyway, if the reasons have any importance, it just means I've used the wrong word. Still, it's arguably if many cultures can survive when people move from one group into another freely.
(I guess the alternative is a form of tribalism, where people just pick their tribe independently of the mainstream. This only seems to work for non-impactful values.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was a (possibly-overly-blunt) attempt to tie this cultural shift to outcomes the bureaucracy cares about, but absolutely the biggest loss is to the undergraduate culture and future students' experiences. Both future grads and the university will obviously be fine financially.
My theory is that the root cause is the financialization and rat-race-ification of everything. You gotta go to college to make a good living. You gotta go to a TOP college especially. You gotta work your ass off in high school to get in. And so everyone just is told their whole childhood to compete harder and harder in this race to the bottom and there's no more room for interesting experiences since a truly interest…
You can absolutely have a highly successful career and life, for a wide variety of definitions of successful, without attending a top college, and while having "interesting" life experiences for all sorts of definitions of interesting.
There are many paths through life even in our current bureaucracy-ridden society -- it's just that we very heavily oversell one specific one to the point that we make it destructively competitive.
(There are some paths, mostly in medicine and law, which actually+/- require the Standard Elite Collegiate Life Path, but many other happy and successful outcomes do not actually)
I can see why there's a push to eliminate Greek life given all the unfortunate events associated with it. But I'm extremely confused this example: > One such case was the end of Outdoor House, an innocuous haven on the far side of campus for students who liked hiking. The official explanation from Stanford for eliminating the house was that the Outdoor theme “fell short of diversity, equity and inclusion expectations…
>unless it passes some bureaucrat's standard of diversity? That is what was said, but not why the school is attacking student organizations. Any student organization presents a liability to the school. An outdoor club, something with the schools name on it where student go out and teach each other how to ski on glaciers or climb rocks? The schools are listening to their lawyers, their insurance schemes. They are agai…
It is a sad, soulless world in which we live today. I went to an otherwise anonymous state college on the east coast in the latter 1970s. One of the fun things I remember was picking up lunch from McDonalds using my former roommate's Ford Pinto. If you're not familiar with the Pinto, look it up. It was a "great" car. Yeah. Driving to McDonalds was fun and exciting! This Pinto was a 4 speed manual, where the shifter c…
https://chicagomaroon.com/2015/04/28/residents-of-satellite-...
I read the whole article, and it seems to be entirely about the push to remove Greek / Frat / Sorority life from campus and convert these houses to more traditional dorms. I know that some people who got a lot out of Greek Life equate it with Social Life, but most college students don't pledge/rush and it doesn't get in the way of social life. There are plenty of ways to socialize without frats.
It sounded like perhaps the answer was "no." The author describes all his friends living in different bureaucratic "neighborhoods," neighbors not knowing each other, and seniors wondering whether anyone would find their bodies.
To me this, as much as the loss of Greek and co-op housing, would have completely destroyed my university experience. Yes, it would absolutely have turned into a soulless triangle of dorm -> lecture -> dining hall.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
While it is tempting to blame universities entirely for this, and I can go on all day about it, students culture has changed a lot too. I'm not sure what has caused it.
Can you elaborate on this? How do you think culture has changed?
It is a sad, soulless world in which we live today. I went to an otherwise anonymous state college on the east coast in the latter 1970s. One of the fun things I remember was picking up lunch from McDonalds using my former roommate's Ford Pinto. If you're not familiar with the Pinto, look it up. It was a "great" car. Yeah. Driving to McDonalds was fun and exciting! This Pinto was a 4 speed manual, where the shifter c…
I'm sympathetic to the idea of not infantilizing college students, but not to the anecdote of driving 5-10 miles to McDonald's in a Pinto without brakes. Sounds like it'd endanger others.
> Lake Lagunita was closed to student activities in 2001, ostensibly to protect an endangered salamander that had taken up residence in the artificial waters. Eventually, Stanford let the lake go dry. Simple: Stanford should be held responsible for the impact their actions, that here directly caused harm to an endangered species. Either they did lie before, about the salamander (then they're on the hook for lying for…