Greek System would Rigidity Social System
James Martin
Guest Writer
I don't understand the arguments about
whether or not we should go Greek at
Guilford. We already have fraternities. If
we remove the gender requirement from
the word fraternity, then every circle of
friends becomes exactly that, a fraternity
without the gender requirement.
Every circle of friends is dynamic.
Circles change and grow or fall apart as the
people in them change, grow or fall apart.
To say that one group is exclusive and my
From the Editorial Boa
Energy Misdirected but not Lost
The new apartments are going up.
Senate has passed a revised drug policy.
No, this isn't the latest Guilford prog
ress report (with updates on construc
tion soon to come) —just a reflection on
the way two first-semester controver
sies have turned out
There were petitions and there were
forums and there were loud cries of
criticism and protest. "Save the trees,"
"Preserve students rights," "Listen to
me." At times, a visitor to campus
might have wondered if he/she had
stumbled upon some new sort of invis
ible dictatorship, given the rhetoric that
was flying around. Unhappiness seemed
to be the order of the day.
But ensuing events showed that all is
not lost in this community; the very fact
that forums and discussions were held is
encouraging. Despite the increasing
(perhaps inevitable) tendency to pick
THE GUILFORDIAN
Editor-in-Chief Jacob Stohler
Managing Editor Peter Smith
News Editor Justin Cohen
Features Editor Lara Ramsey
Editorials Editor Lisa Pope
Sports Editor Butch Maier
Layout Editor Bruce James
Assistant Layout Editor Jennifer Watts
Photo Editor George Brand
Copy Editor Suzanne Moore
Business Manager Lesley Funk
Advertising Manager David Putzel
Faculty Advisor Jeff Jeske
The Guilfordian is the student newspaper of Guilford College, Greensboro, N.C.
Submitted articles are welcome. Opinions expressed in editorials and letters to the
editor do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff and editorial board. The
editors reserve the editorial licence to The Guilfordian staff. Please address all
mail to: The Guilfordian, Box 17717, Greensboro, NC 27410.
2
THE GUILFORDIAN April 1, 1991
own is not would be a misrepresentation of
facts. There are people on this campus that
I would prefer not to spend my free time
with. We all have the right to social
freedom. But we do not have the right to
carry our freedom so far that we, despite
our best intentions, offend by the institu
tion.
There are two aspects to life at Guilford.
I have learned many things from the scho
lastic aspect, but the social education that
I have received is as important to me as my
major. Structure and organization are
essential to the type of learning that comes
sides and characterize disputes as The
Administration vs. The Students (are we
reverting back to the "seize the Dean's
office" attitude of the 60s?), it's reassur
ing to know that there can still be open
dialogue.
Even more reassuring is the fact that
the dialogue can produce results, from
discarding "One Strike You're Out" to
limiting the number of trees cut down in
the Guilford woods. And while those
results may not satisfy everyone, they
do at least show a willingness at Guilford
to listen, to modify and to change direc
tion, if necessary. Fortunately, student
voices still count for something.
Let's just hope that the experiences of
1990-91 won't have to be repeated next
year and that student voices will have
time for things other than protest (just
think of what all that energy could do for
the yearbook...).
from the classrooms and professions, but
can be detrimental to social learning. In a
school where the social life centers around
the Greek system, the Greek system be
comes the social life.
Because the practice of expelling people
for failure to perform up to acceptable
academic levels is necessary for the health
of our school, we must formally tell the
individual when we have done so. But it is
not necessary to formally inform someone
when they do not conform to accepted
social standards, nor is it necessary to
remove them from the environment We
deserve a better, less offensive, more flex
ible method.
In an institutionalized social environ
ment that the Greek system can provide,
everything is cut and dry. "He is a Sigma
Chi, she is a Delta Mu. He is cool, they are
not cool, look at the cool insignia on my
jacket." Why do we need these labels?
Why do we need to conform? "He tried to
be a Sigma Chi but we wouldn't let him so
he had to join those losers over at Alpha
Beta." "We have the best-looking women
come to our parties at Sigma Chi."
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
In Response
To the Editor;
I am responding to the letter in last week's
Guilfordian which calls for "educated dis
course." The letter claims to be a defense of
"issues women have been raising," and al
though the authors probably meant to say
"women's issues that have been raised," their
word order seems to reflect a propensity to
discountmen's opinions on women's issues.
Curiously, this seems to happen most when
these opinions are dissenting.
The letter also says that "concerns and ar
guments... have been responded to with ac
cusations." Why is it that one position on
women's issues is the levelheaded and intel
lectual sounding "concerns and arguments"
and other positions are irrational "accusa
tions"? Why can't all positions be described
in something at least resembling equal terms?
The accusations, we are told, "do not re
flect any serious understanding of them,"
which, translated, means that "had you seri
ously understood our opinions, you would
not disagree with them, so you must not have
understood them." To this statement I reply
that it is not that some people do not under
stand your opinions, it is just that they don't
agree with them.
It also seems odd that the authors of the
letter have felt that previous criticisms of
their opinions contained a "Shut up" mes
sage. Anyone who expresses their opinions
in a public forum, it seems to me, should
expect and maybe even welcome criticism of
their opinions. And while I agree that femi
nist issues do have a rich academic founda-
However true these statements are
(which are representations of comments
that I have actually heard) they are telling
signs of an institutionalized social system
that has the power to point out specific
individuals and deem them unacceptable.
The power to put up a neon sign that says
"We are the social life and all who pass
here are cool and all those who we do not
let pass here are definitely not."
In our free social system there are labels
that we put on each other. We yell "jock"
or "lizard" at each other and avoid each
other often on the basis of appearance
only. But these social lines are not distinct,
and grey areas are enormous. I feel com
fortable at Guilford resting somewhere
inside the grey, vaguely separated, social
circles that provide a middle ground be
tween extremities.
The fraternity system would provide the
framework that eventually could split that
grey area into fortified opposing sides,
with less to offer as a whole. This might
attract a less diversified group of students
and completely change the face of Guilford.
tion and a solid empirical base, it doesn't nec
essarily follow, like the authors suggest, that
everyone with a feminist opinion is engaging
in "educated discourse."
Marc Feuerberg
Complete Consensus
not Reached
To the Editor:
I want to clear up a misconception of your
writers concerning the decision of the new
drug policy.
Though it appeared as though consensus
was reached, many students in Senate know
that, in reality, a faction which represented a
majority of the student body won. When
President Vance Ricks and others say that
consensus was reached, they speak to the fact
that no one openly opposed the policy deci
sion after Ricks asked for approval.
After six weeks of debate, stalemate and
indecision, those who opposed radically
changing the current policy simply remained
mute. Among that group, of whom I am one,
was the understood notion that the policy
would inevitably be changed, with or without
their input, and the battle was no longer worth
fighting. Instead, we worked to make the
new policy as stringent as possible.
Admittedly, we accepted the policy
changes when Ricks asked for approval by
saying nothing, but we did not approve of the
new policy. On such a delicate and demand
ing issue, complete consensus cannot be
reached. Students hold fundamental divisive
ideologies which in no way can combine into
see LETTERS on page 3