I’m another U of T grad from the same generation as Spoons, and we have had somewhat similar career trajectories. I agree with him that frats were residential social clubs, and were no big deal.
I joined a frat and lived in it for periods during my first two degrees. I also lived in my parent’s home, in a dorm, and off campus on my own, with quality of housing ranging from a tent to a gutted house to the standard cinder-block two-or-three-to-a-room dormitory complete with vomiting students, to decent apartments.
For me, frat life was terrific.
From my fraternity’s Mission and Values statement:
We fraternity brothers shared – we lived – these values. The single greatest difference between life in the frat when compared with life in the dorm was that in the frat we collectively worked together with our common values in mind. It provided the opportunity for us to spread our wings. The dorm had lots of nice people, but little sense of community, and it also had some problem students who would come in loudly at night, puke in the halls, and mark their territory by failing to flush after defecating. I don’t even remember the names of my first-term dorm room mates. They were nice enough chaps, but they dropped out at Christmas due to too much partying. The frat brothers of my cohort? We have deep abiding friendships that have grown over decades, sharing with each other through the ups and downs of life, and always being there for each other. I’m a very lucky person to have such good life-long friends.
As far the problems that fraternities in the USA often have, it comes down to lack of guidance and oversight. The national office of our fraternity, our chapter’s alumni, and we the active student members, held no truck for uncontrolled bacchanalia or for hazing or for drugs, and we discussed these things each fall when planning our activities. The guidance and oversight led to good people joining, so it was a self-perpetuating social environment that has continued for generations (184 years nationally).
There is a tendency for some groups of young men who are left too much to their own devices to sometimes act inappropriately – for example, by trying to out-do each other by drinking too much, or by taking excessive risks, or by hazing. Have a look at the songs of British military in the 19th century and then look at today’s rugby party songs – plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. Boys will be boys, pushing boundaries, often grossly inappropriately.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:
“There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good,
She was very good indeed,
But when she was bad
She was horrid.”
The problem, of course, is that it bad behaviour should not be excused because “boys will be boys.” The bad behaviour of some individual and groups of young men since time immemorial has ranged from disturbing the peace and public drunkenness to hazing (emotional and physical abuse), to taking excessive physical risks, to getting into drugs, to brawling, to sexual assaults up to and including rape (sleeping beauty campus rape is a big problem, and very often it starts with beer bashes). If a fraternity is so lacking in guidance and oversight that it falls into these types of behaviours, or if the student members tolerate these bad behaviours themselves, then yes, without equivocation, the fraternity chapter needs to be suspended until it cleans up its act, failing which it should be disbanded by that fraternity’s chapter itself, by it national office, or if it is under the aegis of a university, by the university’s administration. Fraternities can only look to themselves when it comes to deciding how they behave, and they only have themselves to blame if the fall short. It is no loss (and indeed is of some benefit) to a university’s community if a bad club closes.
A leg-up? It’s a lot more than a leg up. Spoons mentioned “the movers and shakers on Bay Street.” That was the reality in my frat. When you were working on frat projects or just hanging out with the same people who were repeatedly on the front page of the Globe’s business section, when you’re staying over at the homes of name partners of the two top corporate/commercial law firms in the nation, or when you won the watch off of a future prime-minister in a game of craps, you’d be sharing experiences and building relationships with movers and shakers. The alumni with whom you developed friendships got a feel for your ability to make good decisions within the limits of your thin knowledge base. They provided very wise career guidance, directing you to outfits that were hiring, and providing references based on personal knowledge coming from someone who had far greater depth and perspective than a junior supervisor would.
Cat Stevens:
“If I could meet 'em I could get 'em,
But as yet I haven’t met 'em.
That’s how I’m in the state I’m in.”
Well, in a good frat, you meet 'em. A connection does not automatically lead to a job, but often it can make a difference at two critical points: first, getting an interview out a raft of competing applications that are mostly indistinguishable from each other (all top grades and extracurriculars, yadda yadda yadda), and second, providing personal insights that help the interviewing committee learn more about you – your ability to make good decisions, your ability to play well in the sandbox, etc. – than other less fortunate applicants on the short list. Employers want the best of the best, and it is often very hard to identify the pick of the litter. A recommendation from a mover and shaker might be the grain of sand that tips the scale in your favour.
As far as careers go, where it really pays of is in the long-run, for the connections introduce you to the extended business community at all levels, which over the years leads to a broader and deeper base of connections. Out of connections comes knowledge, and out of knowledge comes opportunity. Getting top grades, scholarships and community service hero badges gets your application looked at, but then what is the dominant competitive issue that will identify you as the pick of the litter? Sometimes the assurance of a mover and shaker can be what it takes to differentiate you from the pack.