Dana Cursi
Professor Young
Essay 3 Draft
Gateway to a Fresh Start
Have you ever heard some say, “One leap
forward and two steps back”? A lot of people would agree that is how they feel
regarding the Rutgers New Brunswick ban on fraternity and sorority parties.
This ban applies to all 86 of Rutgers Greek life organizations. The ban is
taking place due to different alcohol related incidents. Putting the ban out
was a smart decision. Banning fraternity and sorority parties at Rutgers was a
good idea because it keeps the campus safer, fewer death related incidents due
to alcohol, and keeps the kids more focused on school work.
School campuses try their best to keep their schools
safe. Rutgers has a fully staffed police department on each one of their
campuses. Trying to ensure safety and make everyone feel comfortable on campus.
They have emergency services, which are made up of different retired cops,
firefighters. There is also the blue light system around campus. The blue light
system is in case of an emergency and no phone students are able to press the
button to let authorities know where that person is. With everything that goes
on it makes it difficult for
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| Campus safety evaluated upon assault report (Larkin 1). |
them to maintain that sense of safety.
“Maintaining a safe and healthy campus environment for all of our students is a
priority, and in light of a number of recent incidents over the past several
months involving Greek organizations and alcohol, the Office of Fraternity and
Sorority Affairs (OFSA) took this action out of caution and concern” (Gauba 1).
As the incidents started to increase with the parties they had to decide on a
plan to do something. Which is why the ban was important because they couldn’t
sit back and let the problems persist and not maintain the safety and health of
the campus.
With keeping the safety of the campus it will decrease
the number of alcohol related deaths. “Last year, the number of alcohol-
related incidents at the University went up” (Gingras 1). Trying to deal with this problem is very
difficult because it is extremely hard to get college kids to stop partying and
drinking as much. With the ban it enables them to decrease and manage it just a
little better. Some of the incidents that led up to the ban was, “In September,
19-year-old sophomore Caitlyn Kovacs died of alcohol poisoning after she was
found in “distress” at a Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity party. In a separate
incident, a 20-year-old Sigma Phi Epsilon member was hospitalized after he was
severely
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intoxicated” (Gingras 1). Any number of deaths on a campus even if it
was just one death at a campus that is too much and both of those incidents
dealt with kids drinking too much. There should be more ways of preventing
deaths from occurring and the ban is just one of those ways.
Besides just preventing deaths, the ban also helps
students focus more on school work and less on drinking. To help the problem
with focusing on school, “Greek life should consider enforcing some degree of
control” (Gingras 2). Greek life
organizations should have a focus on school work and not just parties and
drinking. For my Greek life organization that I am in, Zeta Tau Alpha, is
strict about getting good grades and making sure we get library hours to do
well in school. Normally kids would save all their homework for Sunday nights
and would go out on Fridays and Saturdays. But now with the ban it allows kids
to not go out as much and party and stay in and focus on their work before
waiting till the last minute to do it.
Although some argue that kids are still going to go out
and party even with the ban, it still helps decrease the amount. The ban cannot
hold back every student on campus, but most understand the ban and are, “on
board with the ban because they wanted to avoid risking further negative
publicity that's surrounded Greek organizations on campus and across the
country this year” (Gingras 2). They haven’t handled parties as well as they
could have at Rutgers. This year the publicity the school hasn’t been that
great and they are trying to fix that. Having bad publicity at a University can
really hurt the high reputation schools try to keep. Thus hurting the amount of
incoming freshman that want to go to that school.
In conclusion, the ban is a smart decision because of the
many reason it will help out the campus. There will be better safety, less
death related incidents, bigger focus on school, and better publicity. College
isn’t just about partying and going out, students should focus more on the
academics. Focusing on that will help save lives so students don’t over drink
and go to crazy at parties. This ban could save a lot more lives.
Works
Cited
Gauba, Vaishali.
"Some Rutgers Students Frustrated over Greek Life Party Ban." USA
TODAY
College. USA Today, 12 Apr. 2015. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.
Gingras, Brynn.
"Rutgers Bans Fraternity, Sorority Parties." NBC New York.
NBCUniversal
Media, n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.
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