Attending a College Without Fraternities

I just read an interesting article in Haaretz on Facebook dated April 3, 2016, about a swastika being drawn in condensation on a window of a Jewish fraternity house off campus at Brandeis University, my alma mater. I was saddened to read of this loathsome behavior. But I admit that what really caught my eye was the reference to a fraternity at Brandeis. In fact, because of that, at first I thought the swastika story was an April Fools joke. It wasn't.

And, apparently, fraternities (and, to a lesser extent, sororities) have come to Brandeis as well. Not officially, it seems, but in reality. The University apparently continues to ban fraternities from campus but apparently they exist off campus and recruit students. 

When I attended Brandeis in the early 1960s, Greek organizations were not permitted and, to my knowledge, none existed off campus for Brandeis students. But apparently times have changed.

I always found the ban on fraternities and sororities a good thing but, then, given my propensities, I probably wasn't fraternity material so that not having them around meant that one other set of social institutions that would likely reject me wasn't around to cause me grief! 

Instead, I was able to thrive in student government and in other milieus at Brandeis to which access for me might have been more difficult had the school had active Greek organizations.