Lit Review 2

This picture is of the author of the article "An examination of alcohol expectations and social desirability in fraternity members on American college campuses."  His name is Pietro Sasso.

Sasso, Pietro A. "An Examination of Alcohol Expectations and Social Desirability in Fraternity Members on American

            College Campuses." ProQuest LLC (2012). ERIC. Web. 28 Feb. 2016.

I have requested this journal to be sent to Alexander Library, but like the book I did for my last Literature Review, I am lucky enough to have been given a preview of the journal itself.  This journal is about the alcohol problems around college campus's in America, specifically with fraternities.  In the intro, he says how fraternities are the main contributors to the alcohol problem because most students are under the age of 21, yet they go to fraternity parties and receive alcohol.

The author is Pietro Sasso.  He attended Old Dominion University and is currently an assistant professor of student affairs and involved with Educational Counseling and Leadership at Monmouth University.  He actually won the award for Outstanding Research Article of the Year in 2012, which is the year that this article was published.  His research interests include alcohol misuse in higher education, the impact of the college fraternity experience, and masculinity in higher education.  All of his research interests can relate to my research topic in different ways.  

Social Desirability- a set of behaviors associated with those who demonstrate a need for social approval 

Alcohol Expectations- the expectations you have to meet within a group of people while consuming alcohol

"Previous research indicates that many related problems associated with alcohol exist within the cultures of fraternities on American college campuses including violence, hazing, and sex," (Page 16).  

"Greek men and women reported more alcohol use than their non-Greek counterparts, and the Greek men reported more use and more negative secondary effects of alcohol than Greek women," (Page 17).

"Due to this phenomenon, fraternal organizations and campus practitioners have devoted a considerable amount of time and human capital educating new members regarding issues related to alcohol misuse," (Page 20).

I believe that this article/journal will be able to help me because the article itself is about how fraternity involvement with alcohol is bad for the campus.  I also think it will be able to help me find out how and why fraternities get kicked off campus.  This author may also help me because of his research interests.  I think I will be able to find more scholarly articles by him, allowing me to further explore the problems between the campuses and fraternities.

Lit Blog 1

Putney, Clifford. "The Company He Keeps: A History Of White College Fraternities."Biography 4 (2011): 908. Literature 

Resource Center. Web. 21 Feb. 2016.

This book is about the roles fraternities have on their respective campuses.  It focuses on how men in fraternities like to show their masculinity.  Another important topic is how these men rely on their economic status in society.  This aspect can be circled around to also go with Armstrong and Hamilton.  

The author of this book is Nicholas Syrett.  He obtained the information and statistics from analyses of 12 colleges/universities.  He also used information on over 20 different fraternities across the country.

I have not been able to get the book yet, so I have been using the first couple of chapters for the quotes and key terms

Fraternity- a group of people that share a common profession or interests

Masculinity- possession of qualities traditionally associated with men

"Perhaps from the beginning of college itself, freshman have arrived on campus to make friends and be accepted by their peers" (Page 9). - I like this quote because it helps lead into the idea that fraternities give these young men a chance to make new friends easily.

"The need of the boy or girl for the recognition, respect, and acceptance of others means that such others hold a potentially powerful instrument of reward and punishment over him.  This is not to say that those in fraternities are not responsible for their actions, but rather to recognize that one of the reasons that fraternities are such powerful agents of conformity is the youthfulness of the population they enroll" (Page 9). - This quote is a good quote to relate to my topic because it highlights the big picture that fraternities have such an influence on men without even knowing it.  They stem off each other to drink more and more that sometimes, bad things happen and give these fraternities a bad rap even though it was the individuals that did this to themselves.

"Fraternities help to illuminate the contested function of college during a time when faculties continued to train students as if they might all become ministers_colleges' traditional function-while some students began to insist upon an education that would better prepare them for other careers" (Page 14). - This quote shows how the influence of fraternities started.  It shows how strongly influential fraternities were and still are today.

This material will help me with my topic because it starts with the beginning of fraternities as a whole.  This will be helpful because it means that I basically have most of the information I need from when fraternities started.  Any other information I need should be easier to find because there will be easier access to the more recent aspects of fraternities.

research blog 3

Privatization could connect in a few ways to my research topic.  My topic is about the history of fraternities and how drinking on campus has effected their relationship with the college it is in.  Armstrong and Hamilton's Paying for the Party comes to mind when I was thinking about what readings would be a good connection to this topic.  In this reading, they discuss how the "party pathway" has grown in college and how students must chose between this path or the scholarly path.  I think this is a good connection because Fraternities and Sororities are basically a bridge to the party pathway.  The perception of Greek Life is basically how people think all members just drink and party, meanwhile this is not the case.  I have first hand experience in seeing members of fraternities give back to the community and succeed in academics.

Blog 2

Since the first blog post, my ideas have not changed much.  I liked the ideas you have given me and will definitely look into both the article and maybe even purchase the book.  I googled "the history of fraternities" and a lot of good articles came up.  They align with the one article about Animal House you gave me.  I also googled "how the media destroys fraternities" and the first website that came up was the article you showed me.  That is pretty neat.  Again, articles and books that come to mind are the ones you gave to me.  I am especially intrigued because I am in a fraternity as well.

http://thefraternityadvisor.com/the-impact-of-technology-on-fraternity-37-opinions/
this link is cool because it gives opinions of 37 different people.  This can help me find more articles.

http://theodysseyonline.com/wku/media-outlets-destroying-greek-life/168169
this link will be helpful as well because it was written by a girl in a sorority.  This will give the other perspective other than just males and older people bashing on fraternities.

There are definitely multiple sides to this debate.  One side being the men in the fraternities and all of the good that they do for the community.  Another side is that adults that only see the negative things in the media that get persuaded to be biased towards the situation.

Final Paper Ideas

I have a few ideas for the final paper.  One idea is about how fraternities have changed throughout the years.  I like this idea because I feel like throughout my 4 years here, I have noticed a big change in culture.  Another idea I have is how fraternity nationals suck money out of all of the chapters they have throughout the country.  I like this idea because again throughout my 4 years here, dues (payments to the fraternity) have gone way up.