Campus Greeks on Mission to Restore Fraternal Order

When Cal State Fullerton student Thomas Smith joined Phi Kappa Tau four years ago, the fraternity seemed like something out of the movie “Animal House.”

Pledges underwent humiliating hazing rituals, such as running around in the nude. Alcohol was never in short supply. Some fraternity brothers missed so many classes that their grade point averages were 0.0.

But over the last year, Phi Kappa Tau has undergone a transformation. The fraternity evicted several members who were causing trouble and worked to clean up its image. Today membership is down from 30 to 17 students, and the average GPA has risen from below 2.0 to 2.8.

“People were staying around here year after year and weren’t going anywhere with their lives. They were taking the whole fraternity down,” said Smith, who is now its president. “It was going to take drastic measures.”

Fraternities and sororities at other Orange County universities report similar stories as the Greek system attempts to leave behind its wild reputation and nurture a new sense of purpose.

“Fraternities have seen the need to return to the values they were founded upon,” said Kelly Willis, a Theta Chi alum of San Diego State University who now is an assistant dean at UC Irvine.

“It used to be in the last 15 years [that] those values went in one ear and out the other. Now they recognize that their actions need to speak to . . . [their] commitment to the university, to education, to community service. . . . Nowhere in the original rituals does it say, ‘You will drink four shots of tequila.’ ”

Some of the pressure to change is coming from the fraternities’ national chapters, who have been stung by million-dollar legal judgments in cases involving deaths and injuries at fraternity houses. Out-of-control partying also has prompted some insurance carriers to increase premiums for fraternities.

Many college officials said fraternities these days talk about returning to the values of their 19th century founders, who formed the houses to give members a chance to express themselves and experience a fraternal sense of purpose.

“Our Greeks provide a great deal of community service,” said Ryan Alcantara, assistant director for Greek life and student development at Cal State Fullerton. “The side of Greek life that does not get high-profile examination is that they do raise thousands of dollars annually for breast cancer and other organizations.”

No one is arguing that alcoholism and abusive hazing are gone. Incidents of injuries and deaths from hazing and drinking at fraternities continue to make headlines nationwide.

Last year, for example, homeowners who lived around the Tau Kappa Epsilon house in Fullerton tried unsuccessfully to have fraternity’s operating permit pulled because of loud, drunken parties.

But fraternity and sorority members insist that such incidents aren’t accurate reflections of Greek life.

“The kind of student attracted to the sorority is someone who likes to be involved, who wants to be a leader,” said Ruth Herrera, a 21-year-old Chapman University student and a member of Alpha Phi.

“It’s also someone who is looking for some semblance of a family,” she said. “I had a rough family life. I didn’t have a mom, and I didn’t have anybody to call when I had a problem. Now I can call 44 different girls.”

Herrera and other sorority sisters feared that a television movie last year depicting hazing rituals that included the circling of body imperfections with magic markers would scare potential rushes.

Instead, the house saw nearly 80 girls rushing last year, compared with the usual 50 to 60.

Drinking is still done, the sisters said, but they try to get a handle on it by chartering buses for events and discouraging those wearing the Alpha Phi insignia from drinking or smoking in public.

“It’s a poor image people haven’t let go of since the 1950s,” said Tami Patterson, a 27-year-old senior at Chapman’s Alpha Phi. “We’ve just gotten a lot more sophisticated.”