Is Greek Life hurting your university? A look into the pros and cons of fraternities at UConn: Voices from Storrs Ep. 1

This week, we go into the ins and outs of fra­ter­ni­ties at UConn. After an arti­cle writ­ten in the Dai­ly Cam­pus dis­cussing why fra­ter­ni­ties are dam­ag­ing to the school it rais­es the ques­tion, should Greek life be abol­ished at UConn? We have a con­ver­sa­tion with fra­ter­ni­ty pres­i­dent CJ Ryan today look­ing at his respon­si­bil­i­ties, his thoughts and expe­ri­ences with fra­ter­ni­ties, and the future of UConn Greek life.

Resources:
The Dai­ly Cam­pus arti­cle ref­er­enced in the episode.
Sta­tis­tics of sex­u­al assault in Greek life.

Social Media Posts:
Insta­gram Post
Audio Post

Episode Tran­script:

Rob­bie: Wel­come to Voic­es from Storrs, bring­ing for­ward sto­ries and dis­cus­sions that
impact the UConn com­mu­ni­ty. I am your host, Rob­bie Het­zer. And this week we go into
the ins and outs of fra­ter­ni­ties at UConn. After an arti­cle writ­ten in the Dai­ly cam­pus
dis­cussing why fra­ter­ni­ties are dam­ag­ing to the school, it rais­es the ques­tion, should
Greek life be abol­ished here at UConn? We have a con­ver­sa­tion with fra­ter­ni­ty
pres­i­dent C.J. Ryan today look­ing at his respon­si­bil­i­ties, his thoughts and expe­ri­ences,
and the future of Greek life at UConn.

Rob­bie: What fra­ter­ni­ty are you in? What posi­tion do you hold, and what does that
posi­tion entail?

CJ: So, I’m a mem­ber of Tau Kap­pa Epsilon, which is usu­al­ly abbre­vi­at­ed as TKE. I’m
cur­rent­ly the pres­i­dent. in the past, I was also the sec­re­tary. being pres­i­dent entails
kind of man­ag­ing the whole orga­ni­za­tion, being the point of con­tact for both the school,
for IFC and for nation­als with our nation­al grand chap­ter. and that just requires, mak­ing
sure that we’re kind of up to date on all of our require­ments for, stan­dard of excel­lence
for the school, which is just mak­ing sure that we hit, and com­plete all of the pro­grams
and edu­ca­tion­al aspects that the school sets forth for us, as well as phil­an­thropy and
ser­vice hours. and we want to make sure we’re in good stand­ing with the school. And,
then Nation­als has a sim­i­lar set of guide­lines. And just being pres­i­dent means that I just
kind of man­age and over­see that our chap­ter is again meet­ing those guide­lines and
remain­ing in good stand­ing with our nation­al chap­ter.

Rob­bie: Okay, and then, so there was an arti­cle writ­ten in the UConn Dai­ly cam­pus
about, in Sep­tem­ber regard­ing fra­ter­ni­ties, at UConn. The title was, Dear UConn, Do
Not Join a Frat. It basi­cal­ly goes over, why Greek life should be abol­ished at UConn and
how the school would be bet­ter with­out it. some exam­ples for why it should be banned
include haz­ing, par­ties and sex­u­al, assault with women. I, was just won­der­ing your
thoughts on that. Have you per­son­al­ly expe­ri­enced any­thing like that, at UConn?

CJ Ryan: I think, just over­all, that a lot of peo­ple think that fra­ter­ni­ties are bad, and
they kind of gen­er­al­ize all fra­ter­ni­ties based on, instances that occur, across the nation.
and I guess there’s no deny­ing that there have been, inci­dents involv­ing, haz­ing and
sex­u­al assault at fra­ter­ni­ties all over, at col­leges all over the U.S. but I don’t think that it
is nec­es­sar­i­ly ben­e­fi­cial to kind of gen­er­al­ize it to every­one, espe­cial­ly here. At UConn,
I think that sex­u­al assault is a very seri­ous issue, and is not some­thing that fra­ter­ni­ties
kind of just take light­ly and blow aside. I know that if we had an instance of sex­u­al
assault at our par­ties, not say­ing that we did, but if it did occur, that mem­ber would be
removed from the orga­ni­za­tion, and would have to face the legal reper­cus­sions of,
par­tak­ing in that. as for the par­ty­ing, I know, like stu­dents at UConn are in col­lege,
they’re look­ing to go to the bars, go to par­ties. I don’t think it’s nec­es­sar­i­ly a bad thing to
host par­ties as long as they’re in con­trol and com­pli­ant with local guide­lines. I know
some­times par­ties will get shut down for noise com­plaints or peo­ple walk­ing in the
road, and often­times fra­ter­ni­ties, will coop­er­ate with the author­i­ties, in those instances,
like, they’re not look­ing to kind of defy the rules, and just kind of cause more of a
prob­lem. but again, par­ties will hap­pen with or with­out fra­ter­ni­ties. I don’t think that that
is real­ly some­thing that by. By get­ting rid of fra­ter­ni­ties, you’re not going to avoid, all
instances of par­ty­ing or even social gath­er­ings that involve alco­hol.

Rob­bie: And then as for the haz­ing part, what would you say about your expe­ri­ence at
UConn? Is it some­thing that goes on often or is it some­thing that is not real­ly as
promi­nent and an issue?
Cj Ryan: There have been instances in the past with oth­er fra­ter­ni­ties involv­ing
haz­ing. I can’t per­son­al­ly say that I have been expe­ri­enced or that I have expe­ri­enced
that. I do know that. I mean, again, across the US it is an issue with some fra­ter­ni­ties.
and I think, again, this, it’s more of a fra­ter­ni­ty-by-fra­ter­ni­ty basis. being a mem­ber of
TKE, I have not expe­ri­enced that.

00:05:00

Rob­bie: So with these issues of par­ties, haz­ing and sex­u­al assault, is there some­thing
that a new mem­ber or that you guys, as cur­rent mem­bers, do indi­vid­u­al­ly to edu­cate
your­selves on this? And maybe with IFC or Nation­als, like you said? Is there any, like,
class­es or, like, meet­ings that you have regard­ing this?

CJ Ryan: So our nation­al orga­ni­za­tion requires all mem­bers to com­plete E
com­pli­ance every year. and that is a mod­ule, that goes over, safe alco­hol con­sump­tion,
sex­u­al assault, vio­lence and haz­ing as well. and again, all mem­bers, all new mem­bers
are required to com­plete that every year. so we do have, a Nation­als pro­vid­ed
edu­ca­tion­al pro­gram, on those instances. addi­tion­al­ly, the school does require, all new
mem­bers upon join­ing a fra­ter­ni­ty to com­plete mod­ules on haz­ing, inclu­sion, and then
there’s a few more on again, sex­u­al assault and just kind of respon­si­bil­i­ty being in a
fra­ter­ni­ty.

Rob­bie: Okay, so the arti­cle also says, this fra­ter­ni­ty cul­ture pro­motes hyper
mas­culin­i­ty, nar­cis­sism, and a group men­tal­i­ty that makes more broth­ers like­ly to
accept sex­u­al vio­lence. And A study from 2007 found incom­ing fresh­men who join a
fra­ter­ni­ty are three times more like­ly to, sex­u­al­ly assault some­one. And there was a
major protest in 2022 at UConn, regard­ing a sex­u­al assault that hap­pened, with­in a
fra­ter­ni­ty. What do you think about that? And like, what do you think fra­ter­ni­ties, not just
at UConn, but in gen­er­al, can do to lim­it this and just solve this issue?

CJ Ryan: I think that based on my own expe­ri­ence with join­ing a fra­ter­ni­ty, I did­n’t feel
that I was, like forced into any sort of role. I felt like I was giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty to kind
of be myself and express myself. and I think that’s been just a defin­ing fac­tor of our
fra­ter­ni­ty and what draws peo­ple in. I don’t think that it’s kind of like this cul­ty
envi­ron­ment where, peo­ple are kind of con­formed into this one, I guess, hyper
mas­cu­line per­son. I, can see, I guess, how peo­ple could think that fra­ter­ni­ty mem­bers
are nar­cis­sists and kind of more maybe stuck up. but I think it’s more just, that they’re
being proud of being in a fra­ter­ni­ty. I haven’t real­ly expe­ri­enced any sort of out­ward,
like, I’m bet­ter than you because I’m in a fra­ter­ni­ty mind­set. and I think that join­ing a
fra­ter­ni­ty, you become clos­er with the peo­ple in the fra­ter­ni­ty. So then by default you’re
kind of just going to asso­ciate with them more so than oth­er peo­ple, which could cre­ate,
a sense of maybe think­ing that fra­ter­ni­ties cre­ate this cult envi­ron­ment when in real­i­ty,
they’re just like a large friend group of peo­ple who are real­ly close to each oth­er.

Rob­bie: So when did you join your fra­ter­ni­ty? And like, what were the rea­sons that
made you want to join if it was­n’t because of the, I guess, cult, like, group men­tal­i­ty?
Like, what was the rea­son that pos­i­tive rea­sons that made you want to join?

CJ Ryan: I joined in the spring semes­ter of 2022. I had just trans­ferred, from
Boston Col­lege, and I did­n’t real­ly know any­one on cam­pus. and I thought that join­ing a
fra­ter­ni­ty would be a good way to kind of meet peo­ple and social­ize and get out there.
So I went to all the rush events, for Mul­ti­ple fra­ter­ni­ties. I met a lot of great peo­ple. I,
end­ed up decid­ing on join­ing Teak because I felt like I con­nect­ed with those broth­ers
the most. I had a lot of com­mon inter­ests through the gym, and was tak­ing sim­i­lar
class­es to some of them. So I kind of saw them in my aca­d­e­mics as well as my out­side
of class hob­bies. I, think that the main rea­son for me join­ing a fra­ter­ni­ty was just to,
meet a large group of peo­ple, and be able to kind of find friends that I could con­nect
with, and be friends with through­out my col­lege career and beyond. I think also anoth­er
impor­tant part of fra­ter­ni­ties that is kind of looked over is the con­nec­tions that you have,
with alum­ni and just peo­ple through­out the whole net­work, and it can kind of real­ly set
you up, espe­cial­ly after col­lege, if you’re look­ing for a job. Reach­ing out to alum­ni who
are in a sim­i­lar field could, be help­ful and kind of just talk­ing to them and going through
the job process with them. and I think most­ly for me, again, join­ing a fra­ter­ni­ty, I want­ed
to kind of find a group of peo­ple that I could see myself being friends with, beyond
col­lege.

00:10:00

Rob­bie: While we can, like, accept that some of these things hap­pen with­in fra­ter­ni­ties,
it’s not nec­es­sar­i­ly all fra­ter­ni­ties and fra­ter­ni­ties as a whole. So would you say, like, you
think fra­ter­ni­ties at UConn should stay, and if some­one was com­ing into UConn as a
fresh­man, would you rec­om­mend them join­ing a fra­ter­ni­ty? And why do you think that
the pos­i­tives out­weigh the neg­a­tives regard­ing fra­ter­ni­ties at UConn?

CJ Ryan: Yeah. I would say that I def­i­nite­ly would rec­om­mend peo­ple to at least, like,
go to the Rush events and kind of get to know peo­ple in a fra­ter­ni­ty. Even if you decide
lat­er on that it’s not for you and that you don’t want to go through with join­ing, because
it is kind of a com­mit­ment. I mean, there’s a finan­cial por­tion as well. So, even if you’re
not look­ing to com­mit to it, I would still say to kind of go out and get to know peo­ple. It
is, again, pri­mar­i­ly, as I’ve had, in my expe­ri­ence, like, a social kind of net­work­ing
oppor­tu­ni­ty. I know kids who have come to our Rush events and haven’t joined and are
still friends with peo­ple in the fra­ter­ni­ty. there’s no bad blood if you decide not to join. I
think, over­all, they do pro­vide a good kind of social expe­ri­ence for stu­dents at UConn. I
know the social scene around UConn is not as large as it is at some oth­er schools. so it
allows kids to kind of form a large group of like mind­ed indi­vid­u­als who, even if it’s not
going to the bar, hav­ing a par­ty every week­end, maybe it’s watch­ing sports or play­ing
Wii or some video games with your friends, even like non, large social event, activ­i­ties,
it just pro­vides a good kind of back­ground for, incom­ing kids who may not know as
many peo­ple at UConn. and then to address the kind of sex­u­al assault and the haz­ing
aspect, I would say that it is kind of iso­lat­ed instances with­in cer­tain fra­ter­ni­ties. not
every fra­ter­ni­ty par­tic­i­pates in haz­ing and not every fra­ter­ni­ty sex­u­al­ly assaults women.
that’s not some­thing that is like ever the goal of fra­ter­ni­ties. and usu­al­ly when those
things do hap­pen, it is the actions of one or maybe two indi­vid­ual mem­bers and is
rarely ever an instance of the whole fra­ter­ni­ty act­ing in a cer­tain way.

Rob­bie: And then last­ly, do you think UConn as your pres­i­dent have to go all to these
meet­ings? Do you think UCon­n’s attempt­ing to lim­it this and teach peo­ple about it? and
do you think fra­ter­ni­ties have a good future, lim­it­ing these instances?

CJ Ryan: Yeah, I would say the school does a real­ly good job of kind of stay­ing on top
of us in terms of mis­con­duct, from even the small­est things to, like large scale, like legal
issues. I know that if there’s even like word of some­thing hap­pen­ing with a mem­ber of
your fra­ter­ni­ty, the school will con­tact you and kind of just talk you through it and kind of
explain what hap­pened, and how we can go for­ward and edu­cate our mem­bers to not,
have these instances recur. so yeah, they do. They’re pret­ty quick about hear­ing about
things. they’re in tune every­where. and they’re real­ly good at stay­ing on top of the
fra­ter­ni­ties and mak­ing sure that every­one kind of stays in line and fol­lows the rules.

Rob­bie: All right, thank you for your time.

00:13:36