Author: grosen

My name is Ashley, and I’m a senior here at Wesleyan. I’m very involved in peer health education on campus, and I’ve been noticing that while Wesleyan students are typically excited to participate in discussions surrounding health-topics such as sex, nutrition, and mindfulness, students seem much less willing to engage in open discussions about alcohol. There is a stigma surrounding alcohol use which makes it difficult to have open and honest discussions, yet alcohol-related issues continue to be prevalent on our campus. Why are we not talking about drinking? Why is there this stigma?

I think that discussions about alcohol can be realistic, honest, and encourage healthy behavior. I would encourage all of us, as a campus, to start talking to each other. Ask your friends about their experiences drinking on campus, both good and bad. If you see a friend struggling with their usage, reach out to them.

I’d like to remind all of you that Wesleyan offers a variety of resources to all students on campus including nondrinkers, low-risk drinkers, and high-risk drinkers. Please take advantage of them as you see fit and feel free to refer them to a friend if you think it might be helpful. Wesleyan offers events through the Usdan Center Activities Board as an alternative to going out and drinking during the evenings and on weekends. Check out http://www.wesleyan.edu/sald/ucab/index.html for more information! Also, wesleying and orgsync post information about events on campus which are all alcohol-free. Check for posts at http://www.wesleying.org and at https://orgsync.com/672/community/calendar. If you would like more information about safer drinking or general information about alcohol and drugs, please visit www.wesleyan.edu/weswell/online/alcoholbooklet.pdf. There is also a resource room at WesWell (in the back of Davison Health Center) where you can find additional brochures and more information about alcohol and/or drugs.

For students who need more support regarding more high-risk usage of drugs or alcohol, Wesleyan also has Recovery@ for students, faculty, or staff members in recovery who want a network for support. Email recovery@wesleyan.edu for more information. For confidential resources or support, please contact Wesleyan’s Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) at 860-685-2910 or www.wesleyan.edu/caps or the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life at 860-685-2278 or www.wesleyan.edu/orsl. The 8-to-8 student listening service is also available, and you can either call at (860) 685-7789 or visit http://8-to-8.group.wesleyan.edu/chat-online/ for an online-chat service.

Additionally, Wesleyan has weekly Narcotics anonymous meetings on campus at 7pm. Please visit www.ctna.org for more information. For access to information regarding alcoholics anonymous, please visit http://www.ct-aa.org to find local meetings or access the helpline information.

Ashley Fine is a member of the class of 2015. 

When I started my freshman year at Wesleyan University, I immediately noticed that despite the ample discussions on gender and social institutions, equality was not the reality. It is clear that men are in power here at Wesleyan; they own beautiful, historic mansions and are thus able to control a large portion of the social scene because of their allocation of physical spaces and resources from the affluent organizations to which they belong. However, women have no formally established social space created for and overseen by women on campus. I automatically recognized my diminished place as a woman in the social hierarchy at Wesleyan and my complete inability to control it, or feel like I have a right to be where I am: in an institution historically inhabited and still dominated by only men. The lack of female energy, community, and support at Wesleyan shocked me after going to a similarly progressive co-educational high school where women were highly respected and valued. Beginning my freshman year at Wesleyan, I felt like I did not have a place to speak as a woman, much less as an active and potentially influential female member of our community. I had few other women to look up to or ask advice about my classes, going abroad, residential life, and other critical areas that bolster a Wesleyan student’s success inside and outside the classroom. In my search to meet more female friends and have social opportunities with women, I chose to attend a rush event for the only sorority, and the only social organization by women and for women of all backgrounds at Wesleyan.

When I joined Rho Epsilon Pi, I immediately felt like I had a place to belong, a sisterhood, where I was appreciated and my intellectual contributions were valued. Moreover, I met a diverse range of women–across grades, sports, races, socio-economic classes, academic and personal interests–who have created a unique community of love, support, and encouragement for the betterment of myself and my community. Above all, I learned that I could have a voice as a woman at Wesleyan and that, through the opportunities Rho Epsilon Pi presented to me–the individuals in it, and also the institution–I could make my ideas a reality and effect change.

Because I joined Rho Epsilon Pi, I became involved in organizing philanthropic events like fundraising for Relay for Life, attending alcohol and sexual assault bystander intervention training, Take Back the Night, the Wesleyan Women’s Conference, and the vigil for the Board of Trustees in honor of the 100 freshmen sexually assaulted in their first two months at Wesleyan, to mention a few of the opportunities Rho Epsilon Pi has presented to me. Now, I am the Scholarship Chair with a seat on our General Board. The overwhelming majority of what I am proud to have accomplished over the last two years happened because of my involvement in Rho Epsilon Pi and how the organization and women in it influenced me and raised my awareness. Because of my sorority, I know how to reserve spaces, plan and organize events, and more importantly, to seek out resources, information, and support from this incredible community of care. The opportunities provided by this organization are indispensable and undervalued in a school where male-dominated organizations and spaces–from the new turf football field to fraternity houses–permeate the campus and only one, marginalized sorority exists.

From my first rush event, and many times since then, I regarded becoming a member of Rho Epsilon Pi as the best decision I made at Wesleyan University. I also maintain that joining at the beginning of my freshmen year was integral to my success as a student because I entered a social scene that aligned with my values of friendship, community service, and social justice. I cannot express how much I value and appreciate Rho Epsilon Pi and our founding mothers for fighting to create this organization so that I could reap the same unending benefits my male counterparts and peer athletes are entitled to; to name a few examples: an alumni network that I can actually reach, friends across class years, and help balancing my academics, personal life, and extracurricular engagements. I feel profoundly grateful for having the privilege of community that my female counterparts just five years ago were deprived of while men at Wesleyan benefitted from the empowering opportunities Greek organizations create. I revel in having a safe, friendly institution controlled by women that has made me a better person and introduced me to incredible women while providing me with an environment I can positively engage in and thrive.

While I was initially shocked by the negative views of Rho Epsilon Pi as a sorority, I soon realized these sentiments came from a lack of understanding and judgment based solely on insidiously sexist stereotypes. I find the backlash against Rho Epsilon Pi, both from the student body and administration during our organization’s founding and continuing to this day, problematic because of how “sorority girl” comments, even at Wesleyan, imply a dismissive and condescending perception of social groups of women. Rho Epsilon Pi has never been exclusive, never discriminated along racial or socioeconomic boundaries (we have relatively low fees compared to other Greek organizations along with financial aid options), has never been charged with sexual misconduct or for hosting dangerous, uncontrolled parties, and has never forced any member to drink or partake in humiliating or harmful behavior. In fact, despite being a new organization with no financial or networking support fro m a nationally affiliated sisterhood, we consistently raise the most money for the American Cancer Society every year at Relay for Life, work to plan and promote Take Back the Night, and co-organize alcohol and sexual assault bystander intervention training along with film screenings such as The Invisible War and After Tiller, to name just a few of our sponsored events. Through our actions and community, we aim to “redefine sorority.” Furthermore, “the mission of Rho Epsilon Pi is to cultivate the creativity, knowledge, and spiritual illumination of its members through a perpetual bond of friendship and sisterly affection to develop strong, passionate women with a commitment to leadership, moral integrity, and community service for the betterment of the individual and the world.” I simply do not understand how anyone could view this as having a negative impact on our campus.

Rho Epsilon Pi’s role as both a Greek organization and a women’s support network, which helps to advocate for and provide safe spaces for our members and other female survivors of sexual assault, is an incredibly unique situation that is often unrecognized and certainly underutilized by the administration and student body. Considering our involvement in both sides of the campus climate discussion, I find it exceedingly frustrating and belittling that the only all-encompassing female organization, and also the only all-female Greek institution, on campus has been disregarded in discussions that affect us as both Greek members and as people who have been personally affected by sexual violence.

As an individual empowered by my sorority to speak up for what I believe is right, and not as a voice representing Rho Ep collectively, I perceive forcing men to accept women into their homes as a mere continuation of the responsibility placed on women to change rape culture. We need more social spaces for and controlled by women–a sorority house, for instance–and a gender resource center to balance out the gendered-property power dynamic at Wesleyan. Let us create more safe spaces where all genders feel comfortable, unintimidated, and as if they have a right to be there and stand up for themselves. Changes like these would enable equal amounts of gendered spaces that empower women without encroaching on men’s equal right to a brotherhood, and would additionally balance a male-dominated social scene and hook-up culture that is evidently unsafe and oppressive for everyone.

I believe we need more realistic alcohol education, training about bystander intervention and consent–how to express it, recognize it, and eliminate nonconsensual behavior, and discussions on the dynamics of a hook-up culture so closely intertwined with drinking and anonymity. These should be done in-person during orientation with mandatory attendance verified by registering names or WesIds for all freshmen classes. Students who choose not to attend should not be able to enroll online in the university, preventing them from negatively impacting our community. My involvement with Rho Epsilon Pi has encouraged me to attend these seminars, and I strongly believe they should be made mandatory to all students, not just Greek members. In instances of sexual assault, Wesleyan should move to an investigator model where evidence is reviewed within two weeks without a hearing, limiting time to prevent perpetrators from committing another assault. This policy is one that our Title IX student representatives are working towards implicating that I fully support. Rather than encouraging women into historically male spaces where the burden of change lies with an already marginalized group to amend fraternity attitudes and behavior, the changes outlined above directly address a culture that exists throughout and beyond our campus (not just in fraternities), where victim-blaming and rape culture are the norm, not the exception, and therefore rarely challenged in many of the social spaces on campus.

Rho Ep has made me conscientious, involved, and above all passionate, while supporting me with the tools I need to get involved and succeed at Wesleyan. To take this incredible opportunity away from incoming freshmen fills me with despair. I know I would have had a much less positive experience socially, intellectually, and extra-curricularly during my first year if I had not met the amazing members of Rho Epsilon Pi, learned and lived our mission, and participated in such a uniquely empowering and accepting community of love that all genders should be able to have access to on a campus that values equality and progress to the degree Wesleyan claims.

The recent decision to require residential fraternities to admit women as full members, which is strenuously opposed by generations of supportive alumni, active volunteers, donors and committed trustees, is based on numerous false premises.  Here’s the truth:
FACT: This action will kill frats at Wesleyan. This is a backdoor way to eliminate fraternities altogether. The national charters of Deke and Beta forbid co-education.  If they lose their national affiliations and insurance coverage, they will have to close.

FACT: A fraternity is at least as safe as a dorm.  According to the University’s own data, 13 of 15 reported sexual assaults in 2013 occurred in University-owned residential facilities.

FACT: Forcing the closure of fraternities will not end the problem of sexual assault.  Amherst College, which banned fraternities nearly 30 years ago, is on the Education Department’s list of 55 colleges and universities under investigation for improper handling of sexual assault claims. Wesleyan is not.

FACT: The University will lose social space if the frats have to close. The fraternity houses and land are privately owned and will never become University property.

FACT: Fraternities lead the way on education. DKE voluntarily initiated two nationally acclaimed programs: The “One in Four” sexual assault training program by Dr. John Foubert and the Safe and Sober Campus Initiative program by Dr. Steven Taylor, Medical Director, NBA Player Assistance/Anti-Drug program. These programs were highly successful and very well received by the students who participated.

FACT: Fraternities support equal access for sororities. Wesleyan’s fraternities have offered assistance to and support for Rho Epsilon Pi and its establishment in its own residential space.

FACT: Fraternity members are active members of the community. Although they only represent a small minority of the student body, fraternity members are fully involved in university life as scholars, classmates and alumni.  They make important contributions to University life during and after their school years.

FACT: Eliminating fraternities would diminish diversity on campus, deepening the University’s reputation as an anti-male institution and a center of political correctness run amok.

For more Information contact:
Gary Breitbord ’79
Email – gbreitbo@aol.com
Jeff Gray ’77
Email – cardinal73@comcast.net

Dear Michael,

The Great Emancipator’s point man, Frederick Douglass, is quoted in your April 24 blog as well as in your latest trek “Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters.”  But the spellbinding orator’s own Emancipation Proclamation, “What the Black Man Wants,” is given not even an honorable mention.  A telling paragraph:

“In regard to the colored people, there is always more that is benevolent, I perceive, than just, manifested towards us.  What I ask for the negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice.  The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us…I have had but one answer from the beginning.  Do nothing with us!  Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us.  Do nothing with us!  If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are worm-eaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall!…And if the negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also.”

Thus has the early ensign of black education dismissed your chattering class’s hustle and bustle over a race.  Last semester (Wespeak, 24 Feb., to be exact), I dubbed you a hack indoctrinator.  Of course I was kidding (the very idea!), but you could dispel all doubt by taking the stand and placing your hand on the NY Times and swearing to come clean regarding the fact that the stem-winder’s bell-ringing paragraph – seemingly laundered but smelling like a smoking gun – was found among your unmentionables.

You’d rather have me talk about Why Liberal Education Matters?  In front of all these people?  So be it.  Going beyond the extra mile, “Beyond the University” is symptomatic of a common affliction: turgiditis (often referred to as writer’s bloat).  But who am I to gainsay your vocal choir (the Mediacrities), not to mention your fellow Educationists, peer reviewing, who gave your never-arriving, ever-coming attraction a rave?

Of course they’re beyond the pale.  Within the pale, a student has peeled the tinsel off your star.  Cassie Garvin ’14 (online May 6 Wespeak):

“The Wesleyan campus should be a space in which everyone’s opinions are heard, valued, and respected.  My experiences over the past few weeks have reinforced that this is not the case. A variety of controversial conversations have been taking place on campus for the last several weeks, including those regarding sexual assault, Greek life, and divestment.  The atmosphere surrounding these conversations has become increasingly divisive and hostile.  Wesleyan prides itself on diversity – this includes people who have a variety of backgrounds as well as experiences and opinions.  While Wesleyan tends to consider itself progressive, students are increasingly unwelcoming to people whose views oppose those of the mainstream community….

“I have never felt so uncomfortable on this campus as I do right now….That I will have to share what should be a joyous and momentous occasion with people who are so disrespectful and make campus such an uncomfortable space for me is deeply upsetting.”

All’s fair in love and Liberal Education.  Cassandra prophesies:

“If this atmosphere of condemnation and disrespect continues, it will discourage the expression of opposing viewpoints….Ultimately, it may make Wesleyan such an uncomfortable space for people with differing or unpopular opinions that these individuals will stop coming here.  This loss of diverse perspectives will have a detrimental impact on our institution as a whole….”

Cassandra’s prophecy echoes Yale Professor David Gelernter’s “America Lite: How Imperial Academia Dismantled our Culture”:

“There was a cultural elite, an establishment, before and after the cultural revolution.  Before, it was basically conservative, as the old-time WASP elite…had always been; after, it was left-liberal, as the intelligentsia had always been….WASPS were replaced at the helm of American culture by PORGIs – post-religious, globalist intellectuals.  The PORGIs are followed in turn by the PORGI Airheads, or intellectualizers, who have passed through the schools and colleges and come out seeing the world just as they are supposed to.  For the new establishment, they are freshly minted money in the bank.  One day this nation will belong to the Airheads, who will carry out PORGI theories as faithfully and thoughtfully as a bucket carries water.”

Michael, at breakneck speed your army of Airheads is driving your Agenda.  It’s fully loaded, except for… “Look, Ma, no brakes!”  The Junkman Cometh.  And, your pumped-up Airheads notwithstanding, YOU’RE the Man in the driver’s seat.  “My legacy-padding…I mean, my legacy-building…all for nought!”

Not if you ask yourself a softball question: “The Impeachable Offense, what would HE do?”  Then, just before you worm out of the wreckage, you won’t forget to wipe your fingerprints off the wheel.

Martin Benjamin is a member of the class of 1957. 

Whenever I read or hear about a new student group or project that promotes the discussion of sexual assault and harassment, consent, and male privilege, I feel proud of my generation, my alma mater, and my fellow human beings; I become excited about the new and innovative ways students are looking to change society and change our world’s perceptions of gender, the deservedness of sex, and the value of women and their bodies; I become eager to learn about what I can do to not only disperse these positive messages in the modern world, but also to look back upon myself and question my own conditioning and socialization.

Projects that make individuals dedicate even one extra second to thinking about consent and issues of gender and power in modern day society are projects that indeed do some good for our world. However, I have recently come across one group that, while well intentioned, appears to have a rather distorted understanding of the reality of consent and male privilege.

The nonprofit organization “Consent is So Frat” was founded only one short month ago. For its mission, the group boasts, “Making consent and healthy relationships part of what it means to be a fraternity brother.” The group sounds promising; an organization that specifically targets fraternities in its efforts to bring consent culture and education to college campuses – what could be better than that? Based on its mission, “Consent is So Frat” appears to help fraternities question their own opinions, perceptions, actions, and conversations about sex and women and then begin to work towards those that better promote gender equality, respect, communication, and consent.

A quick scroll through the Facebook wall, however, tells me this is not the case. Tank tops that read, “Are you DTF? Consent is So Frat” and photo campaigns that showcase different groups of fraternity brothers holding signs broadcasting “Consent is So Frat,” tell me that rather than working towards radically changing the attitudes of fraternity brothers towards consent and sex, “Consent is So Frat” merely aims to equate fraternities with consent in the eyes of its peers. Hold a sign that says “Consent is So Frat” and you become part of the solution, not the problem. Hold a sign that says “Consent is So Frat” and you tell the world you believe in consent and a world free from sexual assault.

I understand that these campaigns aim to use trends and brands to equate consent with something that is popular and cool, and I acknowledge that this group succeeds in making consent a topic actively present in the minds of fraternity brothers. But I do find something very concerning and problematic in even the very title of this group; “Consent is So Frat” neither means “I Believe in Consent,” nor “I believe in consent and therefore I try to think about consent in all of my actions, thoughts, and words.” Instead, “Consent is So Frat” means, “Consent is, in the present, part of fraternity life and all of the men who belong to it.” And that is simply not the case.

I believe that every man who holds one of these signs believes in consent. However I also know — by interacting with them in relaxed environments and hearing what they say when they think they are behind closed doors — that what they believe and how they act are not always in line with one another. I applaud these men and am proud to see so many of them acknowledge the importance of consent in relationships, but acknowledgement is not enough. In order to see a decline in the number of sexual assaults on campus we need to see action: a change in the language men use to talk about women and a change in how college-age men view drunk girls (i.e. not as an “opportunity”).

“Consent is So Frat” operates under the notion that consent culture is something that is active in fraternities in the present and, in my opinion, this is one of the largest problems with this organization. How many other non-profit organizations function in the present? Most organizations work towards change and therefore operate in the future. Whether they concern themselves with cancer, HIV, domestic violence, hunger, or animal abuse, they explain, “These conditions we have in the present are detrimental to our society and harmful to individuals who live in it; we must therefore find ways to change them and to work towards a better future.”

If an organization does not operate in the future, it cannot challenge its own values and ideas and learn to improve them. If an organization does not operate in the future, how is it anything more than a mere PR campaign, simply self-promoting its own brand? If consent is already “so frat” and already a part of fraternity life, what work do we have left to do? How can we end the trend of sexual assaults taking place in fraternity houses or at the hands of fraternity brothers? Promoting the value of fraternity life as opposed to acknowledging its grave faults and working from the ground up to solve them, one by one, exhibits the reality that members of this group may believe in the value of consent, but they are not willing to put forth the hard work necessary to constantly educate themselves and actively make consent a value of fraternity life in the future.

At their core, fraternities are spaces of gender-based segregation. At their core, fraternities are exclusive groups united around brotherhood and maleness, and in this society, being a male holds power and privilege. Consent is not power and privilege; consent is individual and personal. Consent is not exclusive and segregated; consent is a basic, universal human right. Consent is not “so frat”– it does not depend on the existence of fraternities–but should fraternities continue to exist, it is vital that they begin to participate in consent culture.

Participation however, requires breaking down societal norms, expectations of sex, and notions of gender and power. It requires reflection on and self-awareness about one’s own position in society and one’s socialization and participation in a world rooted in patriarchy and sexism. It requires not defense, but acceptance of failure, and the willingness to learn how to make consent not the focus of a tank top or a photo campaign, but every word one chooses to utter, every site one decides to visit, and every encounter one chooses to engage in. Changing a mindset is exhausting. Changing the mindset of hundreds of men across the country and the world is even more so. But looking towards change is active and it is powerful and it is the only way to truly make consent a part of what it means to be a fraternity brother in the future.

Kirby Sokolow is a member of the class of 2014.