Event, cspan is here as well. During the question and answer portion of the program, step up to the microphone over here, we want to be able to hear what you have to say. Always wonderful as well. So today, and colleges across the country. And many books written about it as well. And the national organization, and it is a bit extreme, why are we listening to john today on this. Two time winner of the book award, the only reporter granted the cooperation, president , and a finalist for the pulitzer a few years ago, quite a few honors there, and he is joined by the top editor of the chronicle for Higher Education and author of the book there is life after college and with that i will leave it to them, thanks for coming up. [applause] it is great to be here, welcome to washington. We are going to talk for 25 minutes or so and open up for questions from the audience but i want a sense of who is in the audience. How many of you were in fraternities . A couple. How many of you, parents or children in fraternities. Maybe a third in fraternities our parents. First question for you is where you in a fraternity . I was not. I had to learn a lot to get this to work. If you were not in a fraternity, how did you come to write a book about fraternities . I wrote a series at Bloomberg News about hazing and alcoholrelated deaths. When i was finished i found myself with all these questions. Why did young men so desperately want to join these organizations when they were putting their lives at risk essentially . Why is it many of the young men i met seemed to get a lot from fraternities and the headlines were so awful . I just thought this is a mystery to me and i wanted to explore it further. Did it hurt you were not in a fraternity in terms of your reporting or you were not in the fraternity, how do you understand this . Actually, one of the extraordinary things about the reporting is after doing this series which focused heavily on sigma alpha epsilon. Im going to give you my microphone. I am going to scream my question. The fraternity itself was very open to my exploration. And and and very open. And and the undergraduate experience. The book looks through history, fraternity and secret societies, was integrated, they were segregated themselves and a lot longer to integrate, not integrated today, very white, not necessarily friendly to gays. What about their history, and women, minorities, they did not open their doors and they kept themselves, as white male organizations, and they created a system we had today, where newcomers founded their own organizations, africanamerican fraternities, jewish fraternities open to catholics and womens fraternities or sororities and people we had today was a direct reflection of that. There is an extraordinary amount of segregation. Given where society is going, College Students today and tomorrow are more diverse than ever before and women make up a large majority on most campuses, 60 , does that mean fraternities will be on a decline because fewer men on campus come more diverse men when there are men, are on the decline . As a result . That was one of the most interesting contradictions to me, you would think they would be in decline but they are more popular than they have ever been. 400,000 members, 50 more than a decade ago. They are at their high watermark. As much as there may be a challenge in terms of men having less presence and not achieving at the same level as women on College Campuses, there are central to college life, very successful as leaders, very successful in student government, they often control social life, access to alcohol and the network is just unbelievable. It can catapult a young man into a career in business or politics, there was a study that came out this year, your grade point average tends to go down, but earnings go up more than one third. There are a lot of advantages to joining so they are going to remain a strong presence. I was really surprised how big fraternities are as a business. A sense of the business of fraternities, they own a lot of properties, schools have them, and campus. A quarter of 1 million students, basically the largest landlords, at colleges. They are very much a presence, national organizations, 200 million in revenue. Or million alumni, living alumni, a disproportionate rol what led to their rise was the changing drinking age. Drinking age 18 to 21, with alcohol. Solidified the role of drinking in fraternities, drinking has been a strong culture going back 100 years and even in the case of sce, their founder might might have died because of alcohol. The culture of drink. In 1856, the founder was a valedictorian going to princetons theological seminary, a confederate chaplain, he died and was the first alabamians to die in the civil war, falling off a peer into the waters, swept away, found him days earlier. There is no evidence he had been drinking at all, suggest that kind of double personalities that i have seen. And famous and important leaders. A temperance advocate. Wrote the history, 1500 page history that helps me write the book, he we gave speeches is a teenager against drinking and was against fraternities and won over by the fellowship so if you go to the fraternity headquarters, cathedral like building in the campus of northwest from the beginning, rioting, that way from the beginning. Condemned by College President , by most campuses today have an office even though despite all the problems fraternities have they seem to have embraced them, why would they embrace them, and this in the book, when you look on these websites, great thing your children should join, Higher Education has a lovehate relationship for fraternities until something goes wrong. Definitely fair. And Indiana University where i spent a lot of time, social life and fraternities, and attorneys afterwards, Indiana University, they make up 19 of alumni, 60 of donors, a great deal of power attract students. And and really responsible. Do parents understand some type of responsibility to come back to them. One of the issues i looked at a lot in the book is insurance, that is how we started looking at fraternities. Since the 80s fraternities held a lot of trouble getting insurance and their risk is just above toxic waste dumps in terms of their fraternity struggled with this, and to craft insurance policies that excluded drinking and hazing and Sexual Assault which on a lot of levels makes sense because you dont want to subsidize that. What tends to happen is when something terrible happens someone dies in a hazing incident and there is a lawsuit, Fraternity Members themselves for Liability Insurance doesnt cover them but covers the national organization. They are on their own, these lawsuits can drag years. Parents tap into their Homeowners Policies to hire lawyers and pay settlements. Most parents dont know that. Host the title of the book true gentlemen comes from the creed for sae. At the beginning a true gentleman is a man whose conduct proceeds from goodwill and a sense of propriety. You think these are supposed to be gentlemen who are supposed to act well, but you knows in the book all the incidents of alcohol death, other incidentss that stem from alcohol, Sexual Assaults. Just how bad is it and how does it compare . Most people say it is no worse than Everything Else on campus, alcohol and special assaults on College Campuses and no worse. And high profile organizations. The social Science Research is clear Fraternity Men drink more than anyone else on campus, they binge drink at twice the level of other members on campus, study after study showed this. If you are worried about the drinking problem is the place you want to look. In terms of Sexual Assault. Fraternity parties themselves, women who frequent fraternity parties are at 11 2 times Sexual Assaults. What i am not clear about is whether that has to do with Sexual Assaults involving alcohol environment and what fraternity parties are like or something about the culture themselves and also some research about attitudes, men in fraternities, consent, and disturbing emails have become public about that kind of thing. Houses with many rooms tends to drive them so it is hard to get home to these places. Part of this is part of the culture and planning of these events. It is invite only. For women, all women are welcome. Very high ratio of women to men which is another part of the appealing reasons to join a fraternity, you have access to these parties but you do that. If you have liquor served by underage bartenders, a lot of people, freshman women who are away from home for the first time, that is what a sociologist described, predictable outcome. That means there is a serious problem. Host the stories you talk about in the book, you have an amazing amount of reporting about specific incidences at different institutions and one case in cornell, they basically leave the guy on the couch overnight and he is dead by the next morning. We have seen more recent incidences including one at penn state where cameras capture the entire night of a student who died there and makes you wonder, you talk about students at cornell, very selective school, many are athletes, varying backgrounds, the smartest kids in the country by going to cornell. What happens when they are in this environment that logic does not kick in. There was a moment in reading these reports that somebody says maybe we should go to the hospital or do something, this groupthink takes over and they go on. What happens, as a pattern. Students ended up dying. Did anybody ever say we should stop . A lot of students in february were saying you got to take this guy to the hospital, there was a problem, if you report that you have been drinking, perhaps the university will you have a situation where there is a lot of underage drinking and chapters lie to the university about underage drinking and someone gets really drunk and dangerous, a decision made, he is going to be okay, sleep it off, all passed out and it will be fine. It is not a recognition how dangerous this is. So many cases where the most dangerous hazing, you take a freshman, doesnt know his alcohol tolerance and give him a bag of liquor and he called Something Like the men challenge and prey on peoples insecurities. One of the chapters in maryland involved i spoke with for hours and hours and got a sense why he stuck with it. Why would he do this . He wanted the social life, he thought it was a way to succeed in life, work on wall street and once he suffered the early indignities, he was trapped in a basement for nine i was listening to a horrible metal music. He was a prisoner down there forced to drink, been with the paddle. Why would you continue . I have already done this part way through. It is not going to get worse, it keeps getting worse. That is the other thing, it is hard to stop, you lost free will almost. Host the story fascinated me because you grew up in montgomery county, maryland, salisbury university, transferred to the university of maryland, his whole life changed because of these few weeks in terms of pledging the fraternity. Talk about how it took him into a different direction that you didnt expect . Guest he wanted to join and he didnt just drop out, he reported to the police and dropped that. He didnt pursue that as far. The school to their credit found out about this and started disciplinary proceeding where they documented the hazing he was telling us about. His name got out, he was harassed by Fraternity Members, he was basically lying and to this day, there are members who feel it didnt happen and i looked at this for a long time. I found another witness in the basement with him for nine hours and saw a lot of the stuff he said and the school said it happened but it is really hard and by the end he felt he didnt want to stay there anymore. Host he moved to the university of Maryland Living at home. Guest it was tough for him, he told me nightmares about it. It can be pretty traumatic. Host im a typical reporter, i focus on the negative of fraternities from most of the time. We talked about a lot of bad things. I heard some of what people will always call for fraternities and say you are focused on all the negative, how about all the great things fraternities do for people. Talk about the Positive Side. Guest the Positive Side is really important, the historically Positive Side, when we of college today week of the residential experience, liberal arts, studying topics that will be useful for our careers, networking. Fraternities help create that environment. When fraternity started, social fraternities started in the early 19th century, college was a dreary place. There werent places to live. People were studying greek and latin, they were literary societies, american poetry. Wanting to modernize and create a College Experience and that continues today if you are going to a big impersonal college with tens of thousands of people. It is not easy. There were a lot of guys who felt their experience gave them a group of friends and gave them almost a family. There is Good Research from gallup that shows members of fraternities report a higher sense of wellbeing and feel they are better prepared for life, more loyal to their universities. Host a figure from indiana about the percentage of students. Guest there were 19 alumni but 60 donors. It is pretty common. Host that brings up an interesting point. My 20 years covering Higher Education, one of the things that is against reform our alums many of whom are pretty powerful, many of whom end of being on board and when you say we want to change athletics or fraternities or whatever, you cant do that because that was my College Experience. Do you sense that some of the love hate relationship is the issue many of these people are pretty powerful and big donors in some cases, at colleges and universities, hard to reform these places when people are in powerful positions. Guest that is true. The founder of that chapter drew a 2 million donation. To the University Talk about alumni, there is a split. There are also alumni who are upset about fraternities losing track of their founding value and working hard to try to go forward. The recent president s, and different ways to move forward. After all these deaths, they had more deaths than any other fraternity, decided to ban pledging which is where most of the deaths happened a few years ago. And focusing on insurance, they have good data. And their losses Something Like 90 drop. One of the messages of the book i wanted to send is not like it is inevitable. It has gone on a long time but there are strands people can look at. They can ban pledging or focus on alcohol and there are reformers in fraternities who agree and want to work with colleges. The Fraternity Council, Fraternity Council agreed campuswide they would move to a ban on parties with alcohol. Fraternity alumni can be a positive influence. Host if you have a question, there is a microphone right here. If you want to ask john any questions please do, right here and i will take them. Reform. You mentioned reforming around banning pledging. What other reforms can put fraternities back on straight and narrow . The banning of pledging, some promise in saying freshmen first semester freshman year is not a good time to join a fraternal. Might want to wait until a second year. Some colleges trying that. That is the most dangerous time for a young man. So thats another possibility. I was also amazed how little data there was how Little Information you could find about what was actually happening, so i propose that the colleges would have public listings of where Sexual Assaults have occurred or at least reports of Sexual Assaults or alcoholrelated hospitalizations by fraternities. Fraternities are now they disclose theyre grade point averages, and thats actually been pretty effective in terms of they compete with each other to have highest grade point averages, and also compete for having the safest fraternities and thats true about demographics. Its not widely known there are Fraternity Chapters that dont have any black members. When i went to the university of alabama there were a number that had never had a black member. Its not like thats Public Information and thats something that should be made public. I think that would push fraternities to change. Question. I know this isnt the folk cut of your presearch but to the expect sororities do they have a separate universe . One that that sororities is interesting in the 60s when fraternals basically decided not to have inhouse advisers and not to have that much adult supervision, sororities kept an inhouse adult living in every chapter, and they also almost all sororities ban alcohol in the chapter. So there are no parties with alcohol in the chapters. Thats actually the chapters are lot nicer, not all trashed and that. You just dont see that many alcoholrelated deaths at sororities so theyre a lot safer. When the go to practice concern parties there are high risk, theyre tree if you live in a sorority you might be at three times the risk for rape. So thats a mixed bag. So, i think if both fraternities and sororities have the same approach, i think fraternities would be safer. To what extent are fraternities religiously segregated . In my day i did not belong to a fraternity but there were jewish fraternities and gentile fraternities. Has that changed . Guest yes, one of the main figures in the book, brad cohen was the first jewish president of sae. Definitely progress on that front. Especially since one chapter looks into the 1950s when before 1951 there