Once again The Lafayette published several articles touching on the topic of Greek Life at Lafayette College.
Brett Billings ’12 reports in the article DU avoids probation that the College is walking back its punishment of DU for unattended alcohol inside of a refrigerator and in a student room.
In the early morning hours of February 4, Officer Carl Faulkner and Patrolman Craig Marshall entered a room considered a common area in search of “unattended alcohol.” The door to the room was left open. A bottle of alcohol was found inside a fridge, according to incident reports. In the common area, another door leading to a student room was left open as well. There, they discovered another bottle of alcohol on a student desk.
Read the full article for more complete reporting and a description of Delta Upsilon’s appeal.
Another article Greeks: to give or not to give by Anda Totoreanu ’15 poses the question if Greek alumni will continue to give to Lafayette College if the Board of Trustees eliminates fraternities and sororities. Referencing VP of Development and College Relations Jim Dicker ’85, the article states,
Greek participation in giving has dropped only slightly (from 35 to 33 percent) since the recent removal of some fraternities
A related piece, Alumni giving remains steady by Jon Dumais ’13 addresses alumni giving in general. What is surprising is the giving percentages offered by the newspaper appear to conflict with the percentages cited by Dr. Limas in the IAGGL town hall. From The Lafayette:
According to Lafayette’s Office of Development, 40 percent of Lafayette’s alumni donated money to the school from 2008 to 2009, but that number was reduced by 15 percent for 2009 to 2010. In 2011, however, the number of alumni who donated rose to 37 percent.
This is in contrast with Dr. Limas’ statements that in 2011, the percentage of alumni giving to the college was 33%, and 34% for Greek and non-Greek, respectively, both of which are lower than the 37% quoted in The Lafayette article.
From the IAGGL town hall transcript,
Dr. Celestino Limas: Yeah. We do have some data. This is from the Office of Development obviously of course. Some initial Greek giving rates in terms of participation, I can tell you. 2011, the Greek giving rate was 33%. The non-Greek giving rate was 34%. 2010, the Greek giving rate was 30%. The non-Greek giving rate was 31%. So I think we see strong parallels between Greek and non-Greek giving rate.
This conclusion of strong parallels ignores the historical data that the WGGL analyzed over 15 years from 1994-2009, which showed that Greeks consistently gave at much higher rates 37% Greek versus 25% non-Greek (p. 16-17 of the WGGL full report, which is available in hard copy to all members of the Lafayette College community by calling (610) 330-5200).
This difference between IAGGL’s and The Lafayette‘s reporting of alumni giving rates emphasizes the importance of comparing apples to apples, especially when discussing the percent change of percentages. Come on guys and gals, it doesn’t have to be this hard, does it?
Only time will tell if students paying over $200,000 to attend Lafayette College will donate money to the College after graduation despite their experiences as a student having Public Safety search their private refrigerators looking for “unattended alcohol.”
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