The Brown & White

Results of the fall 2007 Fraternity and Sorority Perception survey released this week suggest 63.5 percent of respondents have an overall "positive" perception of Greek life at Lehigh, but highlight concerns with alcohol, drug use, hazing, women's safety and a lack of diversity within the Greek community.

Respondents chose "partying," "social," "fun" and "involved on campus" as the top adjectives to describe Greek organizations at Lehigh, with "highly respected" and "diverse" chosen least.

Only 17.2 percent of Lehigh's population responded to the survey, making it difficult to generalize results to the entire community, according to the results summary. The recommended response rate for an online survey is 40 percent or greater.

"I think it's unfortunate that the survey didn't reach the level it needed to be considered statistically significant, but it's a positive step to release the results and learn as much as possible from them," said Bobby Buckheit, '09, Interfraternal Council president.

Tim Wilkinson, director of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs, said low response rates, analysis and necessary approval from the Institutional Review Board caused the delay in releasing the results. The findings were not surprising, he said, but will be used to assess the Greek community's next steps.

"I think we are very involved and I think we are leaders on campus and I think that comes through," Wilkinson said. "I don't want to say Greeks should be concerned about one thing over another. I think all the things on there, positive or negative, are things that we thought would be on there."

Amongst the survey's other findings, a majority of respondents said they believe "hazing," "alcohol abuse" and "drug abuse" are issues within Greek chapter houses. These problems face not only the Greek community, but all of Lehigh, Buckheit said, though Greek members need to work to overcome deeply rooted, negative perceptions.

"The Greek system needs to work against the stereotypes that have been ingrained since our parents' time," Buckheit said. "There's this 'Animal House' stereotype of Greek life as exclusive, sexist and biased and we're working against those."

Women's safety, discrimination based on sexual orientation and discrimination based on race and ethnicity were other Greek community problems reported in the results, especially by non-Greek students and faculty.

"I think issues of homophobia and racism or just diversity and inclusion in general, that's something we need to continue to work on," Wilkinson said. "But I also think that it's important that the non-Greek community understands that's something we've been working on."

Differences in responses between Greek members and non-Greeks may suggest false perceptions, but negative perceptions and realities both need to be addressed, Buckheit said.

"The difference between a perception and a reality doesn't change how we should respond to it," Buckheit said. "It's that one percent that makes a negative perception a reality."

Julie Wise, '09, a non-Greek student, said other non-Greek students she knows generally perceive Greek life negatively, but often don't care enough to try to change the campus environment. Making sure both sides have a voice is the most important first step, she said.

"There's always going to be those students who think being Greek is the be-all, end-all and there are always those who are going to look critically at the system," Wise said. "There's no perfect solution. [The survey] is a good start."

Despite generally positive perceptions of Greek members' academics, the Greeks will continue to work against the survey's particularly negative perceptions from faculty, Wilkinson said.

"As far as we've come, the Greek community here has definitely displayed some of the more negative issues for many, many years here," Wilkinson said. "When you have guys in Greek letters who are asleep or obviously hung-over in your class, then that's where your perception comes from. We're now trying to figure out how to reach out to faculty to get more of their thoughts, to help them understand where we're at now and to engage them."

The ultimate goal in conducting this kind of survey, Wilkinson said, is for the Greek community to access themselves and reach out to the campus community to figure out where to go from here.

"Making sure both the Greek community and the non-Greek community feel heard is important. Having the rest of the community know that we care what they're thinking and if there's things out there that we're not seeing, it's important they let us know that," Wilkinson said. "We don't have all the answers yet, but we didn't think we would, and that's why we're asking the questions."