Students and the administration: examining the relationship between university policy and students' views on alcohol

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STUDENTS AND THE ADMINISTRATION:
EXAMINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN UNIVERSITY POLICY AND
STUDENTS’ VIEWS ON ALCOHOL

by

Ross Maxwell

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF EDUCATION

May 2010

Copyright 2010 Ross Maxwell
ii

Dedication

This study is dedicated to all of the people who patiently helped me complete this thesis
despite all of the obstacles. I could not have finished this without the help of my parents
and grandparents who sent me medicine when sick, a new computer after my second hard
drive crash, and support while I wrote and searched for a job. I also have to give a shout
out to my colleagues who sent me papers, books and ideas to help guide me along, and
my committee that stuck with me even a year over due.
iii

Table of Contents

Dedication

ii
Abstract iv
Chapter 1: Introduction 1
Importance of the Study 1
Research Questions 3
Background of the Research Question 4
Theoretical Framework 7
Definitions and Terms 7

Chapter 2: Literature review 9
General Literature on Alcohol 10
Social Norms Perspective 12
Developmental Perspective 14
Masculine Gender Roles 17
Undergraduate Fraternities 18
Literature on Current Alcohol Usage 24

Chapter 3: Methods 28
Participant 28
Design 30
Procedures 33
Data Collection 34
Data Analysis 34
Validity and Reliability 35

Chapter 4: Results 38
Communicating Internally and with the Administration 38
The Relationship with the Administration 45
Influences on Decision Making 50
Dealing with Alcohol 55

Chapter 5: Discussion 58
Recommendations 60
Limitations 66
Future Research 68
Conclusions

70
References 72
iv

Abstract

Research on effective preventative methods of curbing underage and/or dangerous
drinking on college campuses have met with mixed results. Creating effective
interventions and policy on college campuses that addresses alcohol issues are often most
effective when multiple influencing factors are taken into consideration. Research based
in social, psychological, developmental and cultural perspectives has explored
contributory factors leading to and preventing incidents of alcohol abuse. Often missing
from this research is an analysis of student perceptions regarding these perspectives and
alcohol abuse. This study will qualitatively explore the opinions and beliefs of student
leaders in the fraternity community at a large, prestigious research university in order to
examine how different perspectives can be used to more collaboratively work with
fraternity leaders. Qualitative interviews will examine current student perceptions
regarding both alcohol usage and how college administrators can better work with
students to create more effective interventions. Masculine development and Social Norm
theories will be used to analyze the results. Participants’ statements will also be analyzed
for common themes and opinions pertaining to prevention techniques and current
literature hypothesis. The findings from this study will be used to offer suggestions on
future alcohol prevention strategies.
1

Chapter 1: Introduction

A recent analysis of federal records reveals that 157 college age individuals died
solely of alcohol poisoning between 1999 and 2005 (Pope, 2008). This high number
however does not account for the 1,400-1,700 college students who die each year in
alcohol related deaths (NIAAA, 2002; Porter & Pryor, 2007). It is therefore not surprising
that over 70% of college presidents and 50% of students rate alcohol as a serious problem
on their college campus (Wechsler, Nelson & Weitzman, 2000). This data shows that
there are more factors to consider than students merely drinking too much alcohol.

Importance of the Study
When looking at high risk student groups, fraternities are often at the forefront of
both the media's attention and the attention of advocates for more regulation of alcohol
(Kuh, Pascarella, & Wechsler, 1996). This is due to a variety of characteristics found
within Greek-lettered organizations and specifically the fraternity community. Incidents
involving fraternity members and their guests have resulted in high profile cases and
contribute to increased alcohol use as portrayed in the media (Parker-Pope, 2008).
Fraternities however, exhibit some autonomy and power to make changes within the
community with the power of self-governance often practiced in the form of Greek-
lettered councils and boards that create policies for the larger Greek affiliated student
body. This unique position makes fraternities a prime group on which to begin focusing
collaboration research. Universities also have high stakes in working with fraternity
2

organizations because of the increasing amount of lawsuits against fraternity members,
their chapters, and their host university over the past 30 years (Elikins, Helms & Pierson,
2003). Increased voluntary regulation could be a win/win situation for both parties in
terms of safety and liability.
According to several studies (Wechsler, Kuh, Davenport, 2009; McCabe,
Schulenberg, Johnston, O'Malley, Bachman & Kloska, 2005; Kuh, Pascarella &
Wechsler, 1996) members of fraternities have some of the highest rates of alcohol abuse.
While some researchers have called for the disbanding of Greek-letter organizations
(Wechsler, 1996), several studies have also found some positive results in relation to
participation in Greek-lettered organizations (Hayek, Carini, O’Day, Kuh, 2002). There
are many conflicting opinions contained within the literature on alcohol use in college
requiring a close examination to pull out the best research.
Using alternative methods to the quantitative research approach commonly found
in college alcohol research may shed new understanding on the current literature.
Educational research authors Bogdan and Bilkan(2007) cite many differences in the type
of data qualitative research can uncover that quantitative research cannot. While defining
qualitative research, they state that, "In their search for understanding, qualitative
researchers do not reduce pages upon pages of narration and other data to numerical
symbols. They try to analyze the data with all of their richness as closely as possible to
the form in which they were recorded or transcribed." As further discussed in the

3

literature review there currently is a large amount of quantitative data on fraternities and
alcohol use. This research attempts to unravel some of the data condensed in empirical
form by descriptively detailing the views of several leaders in the fraternity community.

Research Questions
There are many pressing issues being addressed by colleges across the nation in
an attempt to create safer and more learning-focused environments in and outside the
classroom. Creating comprehensive alcohol intervention strategies to move toward a
more optimum learning environment can be difficult, creating the need for multiple
layers of data for the basis of interventions. Research has shown that an overlooked
component of crafting alcohol interventions is the effectiveness of working directly with
students due to the power of peer values on student behavior (Perkins, 2002; Turner,
Perkins, Baurle 2008). From this prior research the author hypothesized that the views of
student leaders in the Greek-lettered community could provide valuable data important in
gathering more student support for local alcohol interventions. The main research
question considered in this study is: what aspect(s) do male students perceive as most
important in the student/administrator relationship when formulating an alcohol policy?
Three specific sub-questions supported and guided the qualitative research in the study.
The first sub- question is: do male student leaders in the Greek lettered
community perceive the communication between the administration and students to be
effective or ineffective and why? The main rationales behind the students' reasoning for
their views are discussed in the results section. The second sub-question is: how did the
4

different types of relationships male students stated they had with university officials
influence their decision making when collaborating on alcohol policies? The third sub-
question asked: what influenced male student leaders' decision- making in relation to
alcohol policies? The results from these questions will be compared with current
literature and on alcohol use, abuse, polices and interventions in the conclusion section.
The qualitative results were measured based on methodology by Miles & Huberman
(1994) with responses being grouped into themes which were then reviewed for trends
and implications in the results section.
As an additional benefit to getting answers to these questions, the researcher
hopes this information could be used to further refine collaborative efforts aimed at
addressing alcohol use in the student community.

Background of the Research Question
Several studies cite comprehensive alcohol policies which address the different
contributing aspects to college drinking culture as a strong deterrent of binge drinking
(NIAAA, 2002; Weitzman, & Nelson, 2004; Nelson, Naimi, Brewer & Wechsler, 2005;
Williams, Chaloupka, & Wechsler, 2005). This literature further states that organizations
addressing the underlying cause of alcohol abuse are better able to create an atmosphere
where responsible drinking habits and healthy attitudes regarding alcohol consumption
are prevalent. Therefore, assessing and comparing policy effectiveness on an institutional
level is important.
5

While interviewing the primary student groups involved, it became increasing
apparent that the alcohol policies themselves were less important to current student
leaders than the ways the policies were created and communicated by administrators.
Student leaders expressed that a collaborative involvement between both students and
administrators during the crafting and implementation of such policies should be
considered. As the study was designed to have dynamic questioning, exploring how the
two groups could work together more effectively increased in scope as the study
progressed. Conversely, examining reactions to individual positions on issues like the
Amethyst initiative decreased due to lack of feedback. The Amethyst initiative, a
document calling for a larger discussion on the drinking age, is a center piece of the
current larger debate between colleges and the US legislature on lowering the drinking
age to 18. However, this initiative played a much less significant role in the discussions
with participants than the author initially presumed.
Another reason to focus on this issue is the lack of consensus in existing research.
Some studies have shown decreased alcohol use in the college age population (16-20)
(Brown, McGue, Maggs, Schulenberg, Hingson, Swartzwelder, Martin, Chung, Tapert,
Sher, Winters, Lowman, & Murphy, 2008; Parker, 2008) while drinking rates for college
students has increased according to other studies (e.g. Wechsler, 1996; Hoover, 2005).
Studies looking at alcohol use by geographic region have found college location to be a
slightly better predictor of alcohol use due to state laws and population level policies

6

(Nelson, Naimi, Brewer, & Wechsler, 2005). Social norming studies however, place a
high emphasis on both population level interventions as well as peer group norms.
Adding qualitative data at the local level can provide a greater foundation upon which to
create effective interventions.
Leaders in the student community often play a pivotal role as a middle person
between their student constituency and the university administration. Due to this role,
student leaders such as the ones interviewed for this study, often have a fairly good grasp
of the pressures and opinions coming from both the student and college administrative
perspective. Based upon this important role student leaders play on campus, they are an
important link in furthering wide spread campus support for intervention initiatives
dependent on student participation. Student leaders were chosen as the focal point in the
study for this reason. Additionally, there is a large body of data on both alcohol trends
and Greek-lettered communities; however studies that qualitatively address the
underlying methods of working with students around important issues such as alcohol are
rare. While many conclusions can be drawn from the national trend studies, one of the
most important stakeholder groups is often left from these discussions – specifically,
students. By the very nature of college, students are heavily influenced by the perception
of their peers (Korcuska & Thombs, 2003). A pressing question is why the views of
students are not taken more heavily into account in much of college related alcohol
research.

7

Theoretical Framework
The framework behind the analysis in the study will rely on the principles of
masculine development and social norm theories in analysis of the results. Research as
praxis with a focus on the participant as the expert will guide the research questions and
data collection. Building off of the general literature on alcohol, masculine development
and social norms theories will be explored at the intersection with alcohol use in college
in the literature review and used to analyze the study results. In addition to the usefulness
of the results for administrators, and as an ancillary benefit, participants should leave the
study feeling more informed and that they have more autonomy in the workings of the
university. Research as praxis was used a goal during the interviews and sought to
empower participants by bringing personal insight from the interview experience (Lather,
1986). Feedback was given to participants in order to assure they left the study as healthy
if not healthier than when they began. Research as praxis was worked in with the
reflective nature of the questions and the institutional knowledge the researcher provided
at the end of the interviews to participants with questions. Open dialogue created a more
conversational atmosphere during the study and was likely a more relaxed and beneficial
experience for all involved.

Definitions and Terms
The fraternity community interviewed for this thesis is part of a much larger
student fraternity and sorority community with about 3000 students. Several terms will be
used throughout the thesis that need to be more clearly defined. For the sake of simplicity
8

the author will use the term ―Greek‖ or ―Greek lettered‖ to refer to students affiliated
with the Inter-Fraternity Council (IFC) or the Order of Omega which are both
undergraduate organizations. IFC is one of the largest student councils in the Greek
community and made of selected leaders from a majority of the fraternity houses
affiliated with the institution. The Order of Omega is an honors society that inducts the
highest three percent of Greek students at the institution, based on GPA.
This thesis will compare research on the impact of alcohol on the general student
population as well as in Greek communities. It will also tie in qualitative responses to
look at effective ways of overcoming gaps in transmitting ideas surrounding alcohol
policies. Additionally, several themes that became apparent during data collection,
triangulation, and problems in the research will be reviewed. The thesis will conclude
with recommendations for better communication strategies, further areas of study, and
limitations.

9

Chapter 2: Literature Review
Since the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) released
its first study on alcohol use in college in 1976 there has been an increasing body of
literature on national drinking trends for students in college (NIAAA, 2002). Despite this
research many colleges still are working to create effective approaches to limiting the
amount of alcohol related problems college students encounter every school year. Only
by evaluating the many dimensions to the problem can the suggestions and findings from
the current research be effectively evaluated and put in to context in terms of possible
improvements. While improved communication and working relationships between
university administrators and student leaders can be used to address many differing
concerns, the problem of alcohol abuse is too large in scope to be solved by improving
communication alone.
The literature will begin by explaining why alcohol use in college is an important
topic to address and why students should be a part of the discussion. Further areas of
research will be discussed including literature on alcohol trends, cultural and social
norming, young adult development, masculine gender role theories, the effect of
fraternities and current communication strategies. These perspectives will narrow from
general literature to the specific literature on men in fraternities and alcohol. The
perspectives are fairly interrelated and overlap is several areas demonstrating the need to
view problems from many differing angles.
One key factor important in studying alcohol use in college is the social and
developmental state of traditional aged college students. The structure of masculine
10

gender role theories will be used to evaluate how masculinity interacts with drinking and
can impact collaboration efforts. Student leadership theories will also be evaluated in
relation to students in general and those in fraternities. The review will continue with
studies focused on working and communicating with Greek lettered organizations and
will conclude with research on interventions used at some colleges.

General Literature on Alcohol
Research on the impact alcohol has on college students in terms of statistics is the
most consistent, frequent, and easiest studies to find. Mass mailings of questionnaires to
multiple universities using both longitudinal and cross sectional methods researchers
have captured a fairly representative snapshot of current usage trends across the United
States. Used as longitudinal data, several researchers have found rising trends of binge
drinking in college over the past 30 years (Wechsler, 1996; Hoover, 2005; McCabe et al,
2005). Other studies have found lowered trends of drinking on average for the young
adult age group of 16-20 years old (Brown, McGue, Maggs, Schulenberg, Hingson,
Swartzwelder, Martin, Chung, Tapert, Sher, Winters, Lowman, & Murphy, 2008).
Studies focusing on college campuses have found that less than half of students on any
given campus binge drink, usually between 30-48% depending on the source (Nelson,
Naimi, Brewer & Wechsler, 2005, 2005; Brown et al, 2008; Williams et al, 2005). Part of
the discrepancy in percentage of binge drinkers can be traced to the ongoing debate over
a consistent definition of the term binge drinking.
11

Heavy or binge drinkers, for the purpose of this study, will be defined as
individuals who consume five or more alcoholic beverages within a single sitting for
men, and four beverages for women. This definition is based on the research of Harvard
alcohol and college researcher Henry Wechsler (Wechsler, Nelson, Weitzman, 2000). Dr.
Wechsler has been one of the most prolific writers and ardent supporters of having
schools take a tough stance against drinking with strict policies and low tolerance. From
his definition 44% of the students who responded to his questionnaire in 2000 qualified
as having engaged in binge drinking within the past two weeks. Additionally, he found
that 67% of students support crack downs on underage drinking (Wechsler, Nelson,
Weitzman, 2000). This is a stance he feels is heavily supported by students based on a
quantitative study showing that over half of students nationally would like stricter
enforcement of alcohol policies on and around their college campus. If these two findings
are true, then a larger dialogue is needed in transforming these student desires in to
policies that students actively support and self-enforce. From these trends however, a
note of caution should be exercised to compare Dr. Wechsler's studies to studies by other
authors that have found conflicting results. With significantly more qualitative data
building on this study, credence could be added to Dr. Wechsler's results or expose an
area in need of greater study.

12

Social Norms Perspective
While alcohol abuse research takes roots in many different fields of study, three
major lines of research have addressed alcohol tendencies in young adults of college age.
The first, based on cultural normative assumptions, was originally proposed in a paper by
Perkins and Berkowitz (1986) and has grown into a wide body of literature aimed at
reducing drinking through positive changes in the cultural norms on campus (Berkowitz,
2004). Research in this line of study is often collected through convenience sampling
within a research university and may be more specific to the local level than the national.
Research has found three common types of norms on college campuses across the US
that influence decisions such as drinking (Berkowitz, 2004).
Pluralistic ignorance, the most common misconception, is the belief that a
person's views and opinions are in the minority such as trying to abstain from drinking
when in fact they are in the majority (Berkowitz, 2004). The reverse of this is false
consensus when people in the minority such as heavy binge drinkers, falsely think their
beliefs and habits are in the majority. This social norm is often used by individuals at the
extreme ends to justify their behavior as normal to themselves and others. Large
measures of pluralistic ignorance and false consensus contribute to a campus culture
where the majority may feel silenced in their views and pressured to conform to a
nonexistent dominant culture of heavy drinking (Berkowitz, 2004).
Again, listening to student leaders and working with students in an open way can
help mitigate some of the pressure given by a minority of students who advocate heavy
drinking and may allow for the opportunity to dispel some myths. The final, well-
13

documented norm is false uniqueness and is apparent when students who abstain from
drinking feel like they are very different from everyone else; this leads to lower feelings
of connection with the surrounding community (Berkowitz, 2004). These norms can
come into play while communicating alcohol policies and reasoning with a large body of
students.
In a meta-analysis of the research on social norms, Berkowitz (2004) listed the
studies that have supported his conclusions about the underlying problems created by
social norms. A large focus of his meta-analysis was devoted toward alcohol due to it
being the most heavily studied norm. All of the studies Berkowitz reviewed were
conducted using quantitative means, leaving a niche for qualitative studies to confirm the
results from prior studies. Only one study was found not to support social norms research.
Wechsler & Kuo (2000) came to the opposite conclusion of Berkowitz (2004) although
several subsequent studies cited by Berkowitz criticized Wechsler & Kuo's methods and
results.
Several subsequent studies have shown several social groups to be more
susceptible to social norms including, fraternities and sororities (Bruce & Keller, 2007).
Perceived social normative views from friends of the same sex have been found to
explain up to 48% of the variance in drinking trends in male undergraduates (Korcuska &
Thombs, 2003). The authors of the prior study did not find any other factor as strong a
predictor to explaining actual drinking trends. In addition to social groups differences
between how heavily men and women are influenced by social norms has also been
found by a number of studies cited by Berkowitz (2004).
14

Relating these findings to the present study, peer values in a fraternity are very
important in shaping the views of new members. This places student leaders in the
fraternity in an important role where the way in which they describe policies from the
university can have a large impact. Interventions that use social norm theories will be
discussed later.

Developmental Perspective
Developmental based research on substance abuse within the college age
population tends to focus on developing patterns of behavior and clinically measurable
results. As a field of research, medically grounded substance studies are numerous and
provide an alternate perspective on why college students maybe individually predisposed
to binge drinking. The studies are often less specific to college students as a category yet
they can provide valuable comparisons between students in college and young adults who
went straight into the work force. Developmentally, drinking patterns that become
problematic and include binge drinking often start before students arrive at college at
ages as young as 14 (Maggs & Schulenberg, 2004; O'Malley, Johnston, Bachman &
Schulenberg, 2000). In a review of literature by Maggs and Schulenberg (2004), the
authors followed the trajectories of alcohol use over the course of adolescents and early
adulthood looking for commonalities in patterns of use and abuse. Maggs and
Schulenberg found that the age adolescents start drinking is a key predictor of later trends
of alcohol abuse. From combining multiple studies, the authors created a predictive
model which sorts drinkers into three main categories: early heavy drinkers who peak
15

their usage around age 18, late moderate drinkers who begin drinking at the beginning of
college and taper off after turning 21, and infrequent drinkers who rarely become heavily
intoxicated (Maggs & Schulenberg, 2004). People who began drinking earlier also
tended to be heavier drinkers than those who started after beginning college. These early
drinkers binged up to 4 times a week throughout early adulthood.
Another comparison arises with more psychologically based studies such as
Murphy, Hoyme, Colby and Borsari’s (2006) on the individual impact students may
experience. Some negative outcomes common to student who drink more often include
increased levels of stress and depression, social anxiety, and low self-esteem. Beyond
these negative outcomes however, the study also explored several positive outcomes such
as increased positive social interactions for moderate and increased interpersonal personal
intimacy for students who report drinking on a regular basis. In contrast, none of the
social norming studies of alcohol use examined if there were positive outcomes for
alcohol related social norms. Taking this into account, this study allowed a high level of
autonomy for the participants to describe positives and negatives in their working
relationship in regards to alcohol and communication.
A study by O’Malley et al (2000) using questionnaires given to 18,000 8
th
graders
and 15,000 10
th
graders to determine the reliability of anonymous verse confidential
reporting on alcohol use came to similar conclusions as Maggs and Schulenberg (2004).
They again found that the younger students start drinking, the more serious the problem
is likely to become once the student reaches college age. Several factors including socio-
economic status, histories of familial alcoholism and unstable peer relationships
16

contribute to the likelihood of binge drinking at a younger age. Both sets of research
agree that the majority of students do not binge drink more than twice a week scale back
after college.
In a multi-perspective study pulling together data on the cognitive, neurological
and social changes that happen in late adolescents (16-20) Brown, McGue, Maggs,
Schulenberg, Hingson, Swartzwelder, Martin, Chung, Tapert, Sher, Winters, Lowman,
and Murphy (2008) pointed out several developmental problems brought about by
alcohol use. The study found several developmental reasons for increased alcohol use in
some college age students including accumulated lack of sleep, lack of impulse control,
and reading social cues differently than older adults. When several of these influencing
factors merge, the likelihood of risky behavior increases. The researchers also cited
several social factors beginning in the young adult age group to have an increasing effect
individualization and alcohol use, a great emphasis on the peer group and gaining
acceptance. These social factors are the basis for creating situations with powerful social
expectations and norms that could positively or negatively influence drinking habits.
Other studies have described this trend in comparison to non-college going
students. College bound high school seniors have been found to drink less than non-
college bound students (O’Malley and Johnston 2002) separating the college going
population as a unique subset of young adults in the United States. As students enter
college however, their rate of drinking increases at a greater rate and actually surpasses
their non-college going peers. The differences in social expectations can partially explain
the transformation of the college going population of low to moderate drinkers to a
17

population that drinks more on average than their non college peers. Masculine gender
roles are another frame of research that explores the effects of socialization on men’s
choices to consume alcohol (Harper, Harris III & Mmeje, 2005).

Masculine Gender Roles
Masculine gender role development has a significant impact on how students
perceive and respond to rules and policies (Harper, Harris III & Mmeje, 2005). Studies
have also shown that cultural norms which form throughout childhood and adolescence
have a large influence on the behaviors of students in regards to their decisions to engage
in potentially illegal or dangerous activities such as binge drinking (Harper et al 2005;
Dannells, 1997). Most men have already formed their opinions on alcohol before they
arrive in college, from what society, peers and the media have told them is appropriate
ways for men to use alcohol. Masculine gender role conflict often occurs when men enter
a new location such as college and struggle to figure out and fit the often overly
stereotyped masculine role as a way to fit in (Harper et al, 2005). Attempts at becoming
the hyper masculine stereotype can include changes in behavior and interpersonal
interactions (Harper et al, 2005). Some men may resort to high risk behaviors such as
heavy drinking, physical violence or destructive behavior to demonstrate interpersonal
competence (Harper et al, 2005). First and second year students often demonstrate higher
levels of hyper- masculinity and destructive behavior as they are more often forming new
peer groups than older students. These high risk behaviors often detrimentally affect the
18

local community as well as their college peers (Harper et al, 2005). The impact on the
local community can often have serious legal consequences for students (Elikins, Helms
& Pierson, 2003).
Masculine gender role conflict is an important theory to take into consideration
when working with large groups of men new to an organization, such as recent pledges to
a fraternity. As a population, men are more likely to engage in behavior which violates
student conduct codes leading to higher referrals to college judicial offices as well as
legal consequences than their female counter parts (Harper et al, 2005). Many people
often take this fact for granted with the thought ―boys will be boys‖ without studying and
engaging college men’s attitudes from a positive perspective such as encouraging student
leadership to role model. In American culture it is easy to pass off misconduct as
developmentally inherent (Harper et al, 2005). By working with student leaders, who
serve as role models to new students, the pressures of going to greater lengths to fit in can
be alleviated. Addressing new member behavior often carries high stakes for both student
leaders and university administrators since new students generally have a high rate of
conduct and community issues (Dannells, 1997). When looking review the literature on
fraternities and their leaders both positive and negative research should be contrasted.

Undergraduate Fraternities
There are benefits as well as risks that researchers have found connected to being
in a Greek lettered organization. While talking with fraternity students about the
perception those outside the Greek system have of them, a common topic is the feeling of
19

being overly criticized for negative highly visible events. This may in turn transfer into a
feeling that outsiders may tend to focus on the negatives of the Greek community while
the positives may go unnoticed. A quick scan of current articles on the Greek community
may bare support for this view. Alcohol, sexual violence and racism are by far the most
frequent topics of studies on Greek communities, as found in the literature review search.
These studies while extremely important tend to focus less on working with the Greek
community than to simply explain the statistics.
This section of the literature review seeks not to pass judgment based on the
current research, but to examine where the current field of study lies. As a caveat, there
are several marked differences between the national averages collected in the studies on
fraternities and the student leaders interviewed for this thesis. These differences will be
discussed in greater detail in the methods section of the paper. From this, generalizations
should not be made between the students interviewed and the statistics presented as
representational of the United States.
One of the most compelling reasons for administrators as well as student leaders
to address current issues in the Greek community is the increase in litigation against IFC
chapters (Elikins, Helms & Pierson, 2003). Over the years these lawsuits have
increasingly held both students and as well as administrators accountable. Over the past
30 years there has been a dramatic increase in the number of cases settled in court against
Greek lettered organizations involving alcohol related wrongful death claims. As
example there have been as many cases recorded from 2000-2001 as between 1970-79
(Elikins et al, 2003). Nineteen colleges and universities have been named in these
20

lawsuits which could not be settled out of court, increasing the legal liability for colleges
not directly addressing alcohol problems which may be getting out of hand. Elikins et al
(2003) reviewed these cases to see how universities can better work with fraternity
communities and found that more of a focus should be spent on interventions than on
liability prevention. The authors came to this conclusion in spite of the amount of
colleges indicted because local chapters were the party most consistently held
accountable. As long as institutions were making a concerted effort to address alcohol
problems, the courts often granted them deference. Based on this information,
administrators should help leaders in the Greek community come to terms with the
responsibility they have in creating a safe environment for their members (Elikins et al,
2003). In order to further intervention research, qualitative data would be helpful in
identifying effective practices.
In a longitudinal study McCabe, Schulenberg, Johnston, O'Malley, Bachman and
Kloska (2005) followed 5883 full time students, 17% of which were in a Greek lettered
organization over several years using information gathered from questionnaires. The
study revealed some staggering numbers of difference in the amount of substance use
between students in a Greek lettered organization and those not. Higher drug usage
continued to increase over the years as students stayed within the organization and
dropped once students left the organization. For example, 47% of first year students who
ended up joining a fraternity reported binge drinking within the past two weeks compared
to 27% of men who did not enter a fraternity (McCabe et al, 2005).
21

The level for women was lower with only 25% of women who joined a sorority
reporting binge drinking in the past two weeks compared to 16% of women who did not
join a sorority. After being in a fraternity for a year or two the number of students who
reported binging in the past two weeks increased to 70.2 % compared to 42% for the
average student. Drug use was also higher in fraternities than in the average student body
for every drug except amphetamines. The authors cautioned readers to not jump to
conclusions that there was a direct causation in membership and increased usage. Self-
selection of students already abusing alcohol to join Greek communities was cited as an
alternative hypothesis to the findings and the authors recommended looking at high
school data for student who ended up becoming Greek.
In an opinion paper by several well known student affairs professionals and a
leading alcohol in college researcher, the benefits of joining a fraternity were weighed
against the negatives (Kuh, Pascarella & Wechsler, 1996). Citing prior research
surveying 17,000 students, the authors point out that 86% of fraternity members qualified
as binge drinkers compared with only 45% of students not in a fraternity. The authors
also cited lower levels of critical thinking development and less acceptance of cultural
differences after one year in a fraternity between fraternity members and their peers.
Based on this research the authors advocated for fraternity reforms, however they also
cited the difficulty behind reform as many interventions such as alcohol free
programming often fail. In order for reforms to be successful they must have buy in from
all the major parties including the administration, trustees, alumni and fraternity members
(Kuh et al, 1996).
22

In one of the most recent meta-analysis of the current literature, Hayek, Carini,
O’Day and Kuh, (2002) illustrated the large amount of empirical studies with findings
that come down hard on the Greek community. Some of the cited findings against Greeks
include Greek students having less exposure to people from diverse backgrounds and
openness to diversity, lower average grades, less intellectual growth for student rushing
their first year (except men of color), and more incidents of academic dishonesty (Pike,
2000; Pascarella et al., 1996; Astin, 1993; Pascarella et al., 2001; McCabe & Bowers,
1996 as cited in Hayek, Carini, O’Day, Kuh, 2002). Balancing this against positive
studies, Hayek, Carini, O’Day and Kuh, (2002) listed several benefits that researchers
have attributed to the Greek community including greater levels of persistence, leadership
development, volunteerism, higher levels of alumni activity and support, and in
multicultural fraternities high cognitive gains (Astin, 1993; Kuh, 1982, Nelson, 1984,
Pascarella et al., 1996 as cited in Hayek, Carini, O’Day, Kuh, 2002). The most
consistent finding over all of these studies was a negative impact on GPA after joining a
Greek organization. After reviewing NSSE data for the year 2000, Hayek, Carini, O’Day
and Kuh found Greek students to perform just as well if not better than the rest of the
student body. These findings run counter to the previous literature before this study.
Based on the findings of the study several of the authors redacted previous
recommendations for blanket policies for the Greek community across the United States
and instead recommended that each institution take a close look at its own unique
population to come up with a strategy to improve Greek engagement.
23

Leaders in the Greek community often find themselves representing two divergent
points of view from that of their constituency and that from the university administration.
Comparatively, student leadership in the Greek community is an understudied topic, with
only a few studies that take the amount of involvement into account. A study by Cashin,
Presley, and Meilman, (1998) on the alcohol usage patterns of different levels of active
leadership in fraternities found higher levels of alcohol use the more time student spent
with the fraternity. Leaders of the fraternity were found to have the highest levels of
usage and negative consequences. A note of caution should be taken into account
however; the authors did note that leaders may experience more negative effects due to
being naturally present at more events, not necessarily due to their personal beliefs or
usage habits.
While the previous studies found increased levels of alcohol use in the Greek
community while in college, few studies look at alumni who have graduated after
participating in the Greek community. A study using similar methods to Wechsler's found
in follow up questionnaires that the level of drinking of Greek letter students lowered to a
similar level of other college graduates shortly after graduating college (Sher, Bartholow,
and Nanda (2001). Responding to criticism that levels may spike in years after college,
another longitudinal study with stringent methodology followed Greek alumni into their
early 30s. The authors came to a similar conclusion that post collegiate drinking levels
dramatically drop for students who were once in the Greek community (Bartholow, Sher,
Krull, 2003). Similar to the results of Korcuska & Thombs (2003) peer norms were able
to better explain the majority of drinking patterns beyond level of Greek affiliation.
24

Bartholow, Sher, Krull (2003) also called for a broader look at the Greek community
taking into account that there are many students who closely associate with the
community by attending parties and drink heavily but who are not actually members of
Greek organizations.
Pulling together both developmental and masculine social norms, Dabbs,
Hargrove and Heusel(1996) looked at the influence testosterone has on fraternity
behavior. The study tested the amount of testosterone found in salivary cotton swab
samples taken from 240 fraternity members. The researchers found that fraternity houses
with higher levels of testosterone frequently got in more trouble (two high testosterone
houses were banned from campus by the end of the study), had lower GPAs (2.5 vs 2.9),
were less polite, had less well kept houses and at one of the two universities studied did
significantly less community service (.3 vs 3) (Dabbs et al, 1996). The results of the study
were not generalizable in the author's opinion due to convenience sampling along with
low sample numbers. The study was unique in its mix of qualitative and quantitative data.
Given more robust methodology however, similar studies could support masculine
gender role theory in regards to fraternities and hyper masculinity. With more research
this could provide a physiological grounding for some of the outcomes seen in men
experiencing masculine gender role conflict.

Literature on Current Alcohol Usage
Strategies for working with students around sensitive topics such as alcohol use
have changed dramatically over the years. Historically higher education has had a direct
25

role to play in helping college students make more ethical and religious decisions
(Rudolf, 1990). Educating ethics and morality with strict standards and punishment has
been widely replaced with allowing students to guide their educational goals since the
1960s and the decline of in loco parentis (Dannells, 1997; Dannells, 1997). Most
activities in which students choose to become engaged often do not contain elements
important in developing decision making abilities (Dannells, 1997). With mounting
evidence that a more direct approach to educating students on ethics and decision making
has to be taken (Astin, 1995), many campus administrators communicate alcohol
standards through many outlets such as summer orientations, norming campaigns, alcohol
counseling, advisors, peer educators and codes of conduct (Berkowitz, 2004; Hoover,
2007; Williams et al, 2005; Dailo, 2008; Bruce & Keller, 2007).
For administrators trying to affect change on their campus, one of the most
important factors is targeting the message to a specific group of students (Bruce & Keller,
2007; Agostinelli & Grube, 2002). One of the most important decisions in creating
effective interventions is choosing the specific target population on whom the
intervention will attempt to influence behavior. In a study focusing on the different
implications of targeting the larger moderate drinking population in contrast to the heavy
drinkers who were at the highest risk Weitzman and Nelson (2004) found that statistically
less negative alcohol related events occurred. This effect called the Prevention Paradox
shows that resources may be better spent on addressing change in an entire population
environmentally rather that those at the highest risk (Weitzman & Nelson, 2004). Higher
risk populations such as fraternities can benefit more from direct interventions which
26

focus on the needs of that community. Some interventions take the form as educational
conduct sanctioning, peer group discussions and targeted alcohol policies.
A specific example of direct interventions targeted against those at the highest
risk of alcohol related harm has been studied as a disciplinary model with specific
judicial officers trained in student development theory (Bostic & Gonalez, 1999). This
model often seeks to address the root issues that cause students to become overly
intoxicated and to use a combination of educational and punitive sanctions to encourage
students to limit their amount of drinking. The judicial model uses findings from both the
developmental theorists and normative culture studies to create effective educational
sanctions. The problem with large increases in regulation and direct enforcement comes
with a cost financially to taxpayers (or students) and the cost in limiting student
autonomy and decision making (chooseresponsibility.org, 2008). Environmental
sanctions tend to be more cost effective and still allow students to develop personally
while exercising their own judgment.
The other side of alcohol intervention is the effective banning of all alcohol on
campus creating a ―dry campus‖. At colleges with few local drinking alternatives,
banning alcohol has been shown to limit the number of student who become problem
drinkers (Williams et al, 2005). Campuses with nearby liquor stores or bars have less
effect with a liquor ban and may actually increase the rate of drunk driving. States with a
lower tolerance for underage drinking that have increased the punishments tend to have
lower binge drinking rates among college students and the general population (Nelson et
al, 2005). On average states with higher enforcement had a 15% lower rate of binge
27

drinking when compared to states with more lax enforcement (Nelson et al, 2005). Binge
drinking decreases on an individual basis even further when students or someone they
know are caught for alcohol violations by police or campus officials (Leedy, 2007).
When compared to other methods of generally lowering binge drinking, increasing state
regulations statistically is one of the more effective large scale population interventions.
Similarly, increased regulation used in conjunction with educational programming, has
been shown to be highly effective on college campuses (Brown et al, 2008).

28

Chapter 3: Methods
Nationally, institutions of higher education are at a turning point regarding how
schools will ultimately choose to work with their Greek communities. Disbanding Greek
communities due to increasing lawsuits or because they pose a challenge to institutional
goals would be extreme in many cases. Greek lettered communities do provide
opportunities for student leadership as well as increased student retention (Hayek, Carini,
O’Day & Kuh, 2002). Yet, with national rates of up to 94.5% (McCabe et al, 2005) of
fraternity members reporting heavy drinking within a given year, a stronger collaboration
does need to be built to address the issues around student drinking. Both the Greek
community and university administrators have much to gain from working together to
solve this large scale problem. Closing the current research gap between quantitative
findings and qualitative analysis will create a more consistent guide to effective
interventions and can help form a basis for student and administrator collaboration.

Participants
Two groups of student leaders for a total of eleven students and three university
administrators were participants in this study. Eight of the eleven students interviewed
were from the Interfraternity Council executive board. The other three students
interviewed were from the Order of Omega which contains the top three percent of
fraternity and sorority juniors and seniors in academics based on GPA. Nine of the
students were men and two were women. The students were all volunteers, and agreed to
participate without any remuneration. The student groups were chosen for this study due
29

to their active engagement with the administration on the issue of alcohol use, and
therefore were well positioned to answer the main research question: What aspect(s) do
students perceive as most important in the student/administrator relationship when
formulating an alcohol policy?
This study focused on these two groups of students because of the high level of
student leadership at the university being researched. Student leadership was beginning
the process of instituting policy changes from within regarding alcohol usage at Greek
recruiting events. Due to the long history of large amounts of alcohol usage during Rush
and Pre-Rush periods the change would take a large amount of collaboration and trust for
all parties involved. From this high level of student leader initiative, both groups of
students made ideal candidates to interview regarding how to most effectively create
collaboration between administrators and student leaders.
Administrators who worked in various capacities with the student leaders in the
study were chosen to provide their perspectives on how effective communication is
perceived by students. These administrators voluntarily participated and provided in
depth information on the struggles and success students had in effectively working with
the university on alcohol or other polices. The administrators also added a broader
perspective as they had worked with several Interfraternity councils at the institution and
could speak more specifically about the historical information on which the current
council was basing its perceptions. Unfortunately, the information from these interviews
was lost during data review and consequently these interviews will be excluded from
analysis.
30

Several groups of students were purposefully not included in the sample. Students
under 18 were not interviewed for legal and practical reasons. Most students in leadership
positions were at least in their sophomore if not in their junior or senior year. Not
interviewing younger students eliminated students who were new to Greek life and who
likely had less experience witnessing issues around alcohol. Interviews were also
conducted at the end of the semester so all students had a minimum of one semester of
experience as a student leader. All students were in good academic standing as required
to be a part of Order of Omega or to serve on the Interfraternity Council. Students who
the researcher knew prior to the study were not included in the study.
Several university administrators were also interviewed for this study to
triangulate the data and to judge whether students had an accurate view of what
administrators were basing their decisions on. These administrators were selected based
on their knowledge of the Greek community and recommendations from the leaders of
the two Greek organizations. Emails were sent to these administrators asking them to
participate because they had been listed as working collaboratively with fraternities.
Three out of the four administrators contacted were able to fit an interview into their
schedule.

Design
According to Bogden and Biklen (2007), "unlike quantitative researchers,
qualitative researchers do not see themselves as collecting "the facts" of human behavior,
which when accumulated will provided verification and elaboration on a theory that will
31

allow scientists to state causes and predict human behavior. Qualitative researchers
understand human behavior as too complex to do that and see the search for cause and
prediction as undermining their ability to grasp the basic interpretive nature of human
behavior and the human experience.‖
This study employed a qualitative design to purposefully explore the complex
interpersonal interactions that take place within groups of individuals striving for a
common goal, but who may be from different backgrounds as mentioned by Bogden and
Biklen (2007). The researcher was interested in the answers to the research questions but
was also interested in why and how those answers developed, which can be difficult to
discern from quantitative data alone. The researcher used thick description based on
Geertz (1973) recommendations to convey not only the data but the context behind the
data.
The study was conducted at a large, prestigious private university on the west
coast. To recruit participants, the researcher met with the leader from both student groups
and explained the project and goal of the study being initiated. After these initial
conversations the student leaders went back to their groups with participant info sheets
and told volunteers to contact the researcher if interested. In the Interfraternity Council,
all 13 board members agreed to participate in the study schedule permitting, however
only nine interviews were able to be scheduled before the end of the school year. The
student president of the Order of Omega agreed to forward the study invitation out on the
researcher's behalf to the student member listserv. This allowed female members to
receive the email as well as men and several women responded despite the request for
32

male participants. Participants were interviewed individually except in two separate
situations when the participants were only available at the same time and so were
interviewed together (two participants and then three participants).
The research site was selected for several reasons. The institution is a large,
private, tier-I research institution with a tradition of sports, tailgating, and a large Greek
lettered community. Highly followed sports have also been shown to increase general
alcohol usage (Nelson &Wechsler, 2003). While familiar with the basic set up of the
community, having no previous affiliation with a Greek community, the researcher took
on the role of outsider. From the outsider's perspective the amount of detail gained from
interviewing Greek members was greater than it would have been if the researcher had
been more familiar with the community. Due to time constraints some questions were cut
from the interview protocol. Both groups of student leaders asked that the interview
length be kept to 20 minutes instead of the previously anticipated 30 minutes. To shorten
the meetings by 10 minutes, the section on the Amethyst initiative was eliminated from
the IFC interviews.
To address concerns the Institutional Review Board, as the governing body of
research on the campus, had with the initial proposal, the word "alcohol" was omitted
from most of the questions and replaced with "working with the university" to maintain
the goal of finding ways in which to better collaborate. This change gave participants
more freedom to respond to the deeper issues while decreasing the chance any potentially
damaging material would be brought up regarding personal alcohol usage. The guiding
principle in interviews was to allow freedom of response while avoiding areas of
33

potential conflicts of interest or incriminating information. The interviews were
conducted mainly in an office the IFC shared with the other Greek Councils at the school.
Other interview locations included local cafes at the university.

Procedures
Interviews were conducted mainly within the required office hours for IFC and at
the student's convenience for the Order of Omega (these students did not have set work
hours). After introducing himself and offering an extra informational sheet and
explaining the goals behind the study the participants were allowed to voice questions
and concerns. If the participant declined to read over the informational sheet because they
had read it as an email attachment the researcher went over the basics to assure they fully
understood the informed consent. After all questions were answered, participants were
asked if they wished to continue with the interview. The researcher asked participants for
permission to voice record the interview and all of the participants verbally agreed to be
voice recorded. Following confirmation of all conditions of the study participants were
asked a series of opened-ended questions by the researcher based on several pre-
designated questions (Interview Protocol Appendix A,B,C) as well as some general
follow-up questions. Questioning continued with follow-up questions until the
interviewer ran out of time or all the questions were answered.
In the interview, participants were free to guide the interview in directions that
they felt were the most important and ask questions of the interviewer. The large amount
of discretion achieved the goal of letting students decide on the most important and
34

relevant issues from the questions asked. Toward the end of the interview when the
participants had finished with the questions in the protocol, an additional set of questions
was asked pertaining to the perceived relevance of answers brought up in previous
interviews. Once the time had been reached or all the questions were asked a more
informal discussion often took place with the participants with follow up information.

Data Collection
The interviews were digitally recorded and then downloaded as audio files onto
the personal laptop of the researcher to be transcribed. The digital recorder was
unobtrusive and picked up high quality audio. To supplement the voice recordings, notes
were also taken during the interview for the researcher to refer back to during the meeting
to follow up on. These notes were written in a condensed style and referred to main
points that the interviewee made. The verbal script, email script and base questions can
be found in the appendices.

Data Analysis
Once all of the available data was collected and downloaded to the researcher's
computer everything was transcribed into a Microsoft Word document. To separate long
responses into individual themes, paragraphs were introduced during transcription to
indicate pauses in thought and topic. Self contained ideas within paragraphs were also
blocked off to create separate themes. Using methodology from Miles and Huberman
(1994) the transcriptions were first broken down by subject topic into sections that still
35

provided detail of the situation. After analyzing these sections four over arching
categories of topics were created. The topics were then sorted into these categories and
each was placed in a new Microsoft Word file. Once copied into the Word document by
category the researcher read through them to identify consistent themes and view points
between the IFC and Order of Omega participants.
These themes were refined several times to capture as much of the data as
possible while reducing the number of subthemes to about four. Data that did not fit one
of the themes was re-evaluated, and if it did not fit elsewhere it was set aside. These final
themes were sorted one last time into a Microsoft Excel sheet to quickly compare the
quantity of comments by type and theme. Comments were coded by color to indicate
affiliation and gender of the student. Themes that overlapped into several areas were
further matched to the closest theme by the surrounding content.

Validity and Reliability
For this study, a smaller, non-representative sample of the Greek population was
used from one educational institution. Several factors including the distribution of the
sample, the time of the year, method of questioning and amount of triangulation all affect
the validity and reliability of the study. This sample was mainly comprised of members
of the North American Interfraternity Council which comprises the largest portion of the
Greek population at the research site along with being one of the largest nationally. The
relatively homogeneous population found in many fraternities also limits the breadth of
any conclusions to those of the same gender, ethnicity and economic class in the
36

fraternities studied – white middle class males (Kuh, Pascarella & Wechsler, 1996). The
amount of homogeneity of fraternities does allow this study to serve as a basis for
conducting research in similar fraternities. Further quantitative studies with larger sample
sizes will be needed to make any broader reaching claims.
Several other fraternity and sorority organizations exist at the university with
different demographics from the IFC. In an effort to provide some alternative viewpoints,
two women in the Order of Omega who were familiar with the subject being researched
were also interviewed. Having the additional perspectives from the female point of view
was useful as a small comparison of the data for gender.
When considering reliability, the time of the year should also be taken into
consideration, as this study took place late in the school year after the majority of the
major sports were over. As mentioned in the literature review researchers have found
strong differences at schools with high profile sports teams and the amount of alcohol
consumption, especially when sports are in season (Nelson &Wechsler, 2003).
Reliability of the data was strengthened through confidentiality, thereby giving
slightly more weight to individual interviews which can be assured confidentiality. When
participants are interviewed in confidential circumstances research has shown that similar
levels of honesty are reached as in completely anonymous in alcohol or drug research
studies (O’Malley et al, 2000).
Several steps to improve validity were taken based on Wolcott’s (1992)
recommendations on improving internal validity. These steps include both the
37

handwritten notes and voice recordings to accurately record non-verbal cues. To make
sure the research correctly interpreted responses, clarification and paraphrase questions
were asked for any responses with ambiguous answers to confirm accurate
interpretations.

38

Chapter 4: Results

From the interviews four general categories of data were created to categorize the
results including communication, relationships with the administration, influences on
decision making and dealing with alcohol. These categories were broken down further
into four separate subcategories that encompassed an idea students were communicating.
Subcategories then worked down into the varying opinions on the subjects for or against
a point of view. In this section the categories will be discussed along with general
implication from results followed by a more in-depth analysis in Chapter 5. The
discussion in Chapter 5 will also review implications and recommendations based on the
findings.
Results from the interviews with administrators were not able to be presented in
this section. During the transcription phase of the data analysis, the researcher's computer
hard drive crashed. The administrator interviews as the first and longest interviews
conducted had been downloaded to the researcher's computer first and erased from the
digital recorder to create more space for the student interviews. The student interviews all
remained on the digital recorder and were able to be transferred to the researcher's new
computer and thereby recovered.

Communicating Internally and with the Administration
Most interviews started with a question on the current effectiveness of
communication with the university administration. From this initial prompt there were
many more ideas and comments involving communication issues. Sorting out comments
39

that purely referred to issues in communication became the easiest way to organize the
data. Out of the 133 separate comments that were identified 77 were coded into the
communication category, making it the largest section. While all of the participants
contributed to this theme, one student who was highly interested in the topic (and
talkative) accounted for 33 or just under half of the comments. Based on Geertz's (1973)
method of thick description it was noticed that students' expressions and demeanor while
making remarks about pure communication were fairly similar across all the interviews.
Except for discussing communication breakdowns, students were positive in nature and
enthusiastically offered many suggestions for improvement. Responses in this theme took
little time or thought to explain and often seemed to already be at the forefront of the
students' minds.
The first subthemes in communication encompassed the comments students made
about their preferences in how administrators communicated to them and how they
communicated internally with the Greek community. Three students commented on
frustrations with unclear messages and the importance for straightforward
communication when dealing with changes or serious topics like alcohol. One student
who had a lot to say about communication summed up several fellow Greek members'
idea of effective communication with the following comment on how the university
should approach communicating messages about alcohol:
Even if it is just more of a face to face type thing where they can say hey
guys we know you guys are going to be put in this situation where you're
probably going to be drinking or will probably have the opportunity to
drink I mean just safety recommendations, I always think the best
approach is the down to Earth cut the bullshit kind of stuff.

40

The same student added onto to this idea and showed some frustration when he described
how he thought most students on the row interpreted the university changing Pre-Rush
policies and suggesting the university was not straight forward in its communication:
...what is the real problem, what is the problem, what it always comes off
as is just the school's once again once again is trying to shut down our
parties, but what is the real reason, is it the freshmen is it the people in the
street you know, what is it, just tell us one thing and we can target that and
improve it rather than just take it all away which was kind of pretty much
on the board, they just said we are going to do away with it and that, that
would just be sad because when everyone wants to come back from the
summer they want to have a party and they don't care really, they aren't
worried about a bunch of stuff. [Emphasis in original]

This idea surfaced in other themes as well, however the two previous comments seemed
to captured the idea in the most direct fashion. When asked if more administrative
transparency around decision making seemed like it would help this, the student quickly
agreed. The idea of transparency also seemed to coincide with the amount of access
students reported having with university administration. The students with the most
access did not have as many concerns over transparency. The idea of transparency also
extended all the way to the interactions IFC had with its own community:
...even this last semester when all we said was no hard alcohol and guys
were like what? Come on, uh, so it was already not easy to tell them that
so you know and what we are looking at for this next semester probably
the guys are not going to be too excited about it, they are probably going
to be pretty upset and I think the only way you can really break it to them
is you have to explain why, we can’t just say these are the rules and the
school said it and that comes down to I think IFC doing a good job of
explaining, not only explaining but making sure the whole community
knows why, um and the chapter presidents, they too have to explain to
their members why they came to their decision.

41

Within the Greek community some IFC board members expressed some hesitation at the
way the chapter presidents delivered messages to the chapter houses where there was not
much transparency. The hesitancy stemmed from the last segment of the dissemination of
information to the larger community. When speaking to their chapters some board
members said the presidents sometimes tried to explain the decision making process in a
way to deflect criticism for unpopular alcohol policies. While lightening the personal
load this took away from the transparency of how IFC actually operates.
In instances where students saw the university as being transparent (as many
students did in an open forum on Pre-Rush policies), students reported the most positive
results they encountered while working with the administration. One Order of Omega
member described the results in the following manner:
It[the meeting] also made the administrators seem accessible to the
students.... it made it seem more like they understand what is going on.
They are not like completely swamped down in the red tape of
bureaucracy of it. Um and they could answer specific questions right then
and there. And it was just a conversation at this point. So it was nice that
there was no specific agenda behind it we weren't trying to further any
certain point, just that here is an issue and something needs to be done
about it eventually and let’s just discuss this issue.

Of all the comments about this particular meeting, all but one student only had positive
things to say about it. The student who had a difficulty with the meeting expressed
concerns with transparency however, he admitted to being further removed from the
administration. This distance lead to some suspicions that the meeting maybe for show
and was really designed to make student falsely believe they had some say. This
comment was a stark contrast to the multitude of positive comments about the impact of
the meeting such as the comment above. While most students seemed to appreciate the
42

administration talking frankly at the Pre-Rush meeting the largest subcategory for
communication was difficulties in communication. There were many differing reasons
for these difficulties.
In the next common sub-theme, twenty seven comments from ten different
students voiced some kind of frustration or obstacle to efficiently communicating with
each other or the university. Of the 27 comments, 14 focused mainly on dealing with the
university while the other 13 were interspersed between four other areas. The most
representative comments in communication resulted from these difficulties with
effectiveness or with the narrow communicative structure at the university. One student
summarized his thoughts on the narrow communication like this:
The Greek system is lucky to have someone like (Greek Advisor) who is
our liaison who helps us out a lot, but you know every society should have
something, multiple people they can relate to, um yeah. So it’s a pyramid
system, 3000 Greek students, IFC and one person. It seems like several
people would help out a lot more.

Another student in a different interview related to the perception of a small window of
communication in the following way.
I feel like there is a lot of information on this side and a lot of information
on that side and it is almost like an hour glass and it is being squeezed
through such small mediums that it is somewhere in there but it could
open up and there could be a much great flow of information, much higher
quality of information much quicker being sent through and just the lack
of the channels whether they are technical or interpersonal...

Two other students were being interviewed at the same time as the former student and
both readily agreed with his analysis. A final student described the difficulty in
communication both in terms of the structure and the actual messages being
communicated:
43

Everyone has, you know wants to change the community for the better and
there is never really opposition to the idea of it. A lot of it happens
because any opposition that were to occur, occurs because of a lack of
communication when expressing these ideas. Going back to originally, if
there was an open means... there is really no straight direct line of
communication to those who are making those suggestions and those who
are receiving them and that's kind of what we are dealing with on a daily
basis so it creates an illusion, of there being, it creates the illusion of there
being issues with how we deal with the situation.

The idea of "the lack open means of communication" as one of the causes of
communication difficulties was prevalent enough to garner its own sub category with 14
comments from seven students. Four students with IFC commented on wanting a forum
to be able to discuss issues without fear of reprisals. The law enforcement department
was cited the most often as the department students would like to meet with in this forum.
At no point was the idea of a forum brought up by the researcher leading this to be a very
organic issue. A member of IFC said the following elaborated on his frustration with the
lack of a forum and a means to respond with administrators as such:
As far as the school, I mean, I don’t know, I don’t feel the communication
is really that great, I mean I talk to (Greek Advisor), but even then it is just
like, it doesn't seem like an open forum, where it is they will straight up
tell us schools not happy with this or happy with that and it’s like ok, they
said that but we don’t have a chance to discuss it with them, it’s more like
orders coming from above, you don’t really know who it is coming from.

A female from the order of Omega and student government gave a similar account in a
different interview. Although she has close contact with the university administration she
held a similar view to the members of IFC of the availability to talk openly with
administrators that student have:
44

Problem is, there isn’t um maybe a forum for students to have their voices
heard. Um, what we have tried to do through this student government is
every month we host—er—my committee hosts a [Public Safety]student
advisory committee meeting which uh [Several [Public Safety]members]...
they just show up and it’s a forum where people can speak directly to the
leadership of [Public Safety], um, the problem is we usually get like 12
students, most of which are usually representing a larger group, we have a
representative from Panhelenic and IFC, but it’s very small. And it’s not
really, the students aren’t really going to go to a meeting if they have a
problem.

The lack of students showing up at the current means of communicating with the
Department of Public Safety and the student body signifies another obstacle to effective
communication between school leadership and student leadership. So even between
student groups, communication also seemed to need some improvement. While following
up with students on what shape they would prefer an open forum to take, there was also
little consistency in response. One IFC and one Order of Omega member suggested that
administrators communicate at the house level. Two IFC members brought up using town
hall meetings, while four talked about using different technology. Three IFC members
said the current communication system was set up in the appropriate manner to
effectively handle communication. The students who thought the communication already
was handled well, explained it in a similar manner to this comment:
I think it is necessary for IFC to receive that information first, just because
we are kind of, we are the ones balancing being students and being leaders
and working with the administration so if that was just a direct line of
communication between the administration and the student body I think a
lot of the things, the beneficial things that we can get done wouldn't get
done because there are two different approaches, so that is one of the
things we do as a board is we take these policies and we work with both
the administration and the students to come up with a compromise on it,
um so these beneficial things can get passed and implemented for all.

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It is interesting to note that some of the students who were for opening up communication
between student leaders like IFC and the university administration thought that student
leadership played an integral intermediary role between the two groups. The idea of
balancing the two sides for a compromise seems to be in contrast with the other students
wanting the direct communication. This intermediary role was present in other themes as
well. Often it took the form of mediator, especially between [Public Safety]and the
general student body. For most students the mediator role became was most important
when dealing with parties and helping [Public Safety]to mitigate factors that may have
caused parties to be shut down. All IFC members who talked about the mediator role
expressed this as highly beneficial to the row. On a final note, there was no blame cast to
any particular person or group on where the difficulties in communication originated
from. The student leaders took a very logical and thought out method to identifying
communication problems.

The Relationship with the Administration
There were 35 comments grouped into the Relationships with the administration
and peers category. This category was for all of the comments that related to both the
actual and desired personal relationships IFC and Order of Omega have with each other
and the administration. Comments in this category tended to be a little more passionate
and less analytical than in the communication category with students often adding
emphasis or showing more emotion when describing the following themes.
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One thing many students commented on over the course of the interviews was a
desire to get to know the administration better. This often took the form of wanting to
have relationships similar to how Greek leaders knew and worked with each other. A
reason for this may reside in how much value student leaders placed on knowing their
peers on a personal level when it came to making compromises and working together.
When talking about what worked well internally in helping new leaders transition into
their roles, eight of the eleven students interviewed mentioned the activities they did to
get to know each other on a personal level. An IFC member described the transition with
IFC:
The best things we do throughout the year are really our um uh our retreats. We
went on the IFC retreat with all the presidents uh and got to know the presidents
really well. We’ve gone on dinners and retreats with ourselves to get to know
each other really well. Um, I think it’s really just if you know someone really
well you feel more comfortable working with them and you feel more
comfortable being honest with them.

Another member of IFC described how the personal relationship was important in
facilitating the professional relationship:
And ([Public Safety] officer), um and it is really cool to just meet them in
person and be able to uh get to know them and uh you know that really
helps transitions because they feel more comfortable with them.

The same sentiment was true for getting to meet the university administration that set
policies in place:
So as far as good practices for communicating with administration I think
the number one key thing is to really kind of establish a large net work
with members of the university, um because it is one of those things where
a lot of the things you are going to be asking about and working with them
on, you have to know them on at least somewhat of a personal level in
order for things to work out.

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In addition to the above student, another student also highly advocated expanding the
number of administrators that students on the IFC board knew well. The type of
relationships often seemed to resemble the friendships established with peers as students
mentioned wanting to just chat, have lunch with or even play golf with administrators
they wished to meet.
A couple of students even went farther into talking about some of the things they
would recommend or not recommend to future boards trying to establish ties with the
administration. Several students said they would have liked the relationships that they did
end up building to be in place when they started due to the difficulty they often faced
after transition. In relation to [Public Safety] one student said:
What would really help us would be if you were gonna sort of maybe
institute some sort of seminar where um all the [Public Safety] officers uh
who are assigned to the row um were responsible for meeting all of um the
presidents in person because or at least the security, somebody who is in
charge of the security for the house for you know the entire semester. The
Vice President and he is in charge of security um he has built a
relationship with [Public Safety] over the semester but it was difficult at
first and so he is been building it all semester but if that relationship had
been, had been in place right away then it would have been a lot better off
where as you know now, it’s only now that we feel comfortable talking to
them and dealing with them.

Two other students felt that inviting the administration to events to get to know each
other better would be helpful. In contrast to this an order of Omega member felt inviting
administrators to events would be counterproductive because he was not sure how it
would influence their decision making. Again this student was farther from the decision
making process. While most of the comments were positive several students brought up
feeling the need for respect. The need for respect, equal treatment and the desire for more
self governance surfaced from nine of the students interviewed.
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The need for respect from other students did lead to some proactive efforts to
change the image of the Greek row to earn more respect from the outside communities.
One student shared how the perceptions of people outside the row like parents and others
in the university with the following comment:
We are trying to get out there and uh, and there is a somewhat a... uh…
sort of inherently negative view the university and parents I guess take
toward the Greek system and we are actively trying to get rid of that, uh
that position and reasoning by any ways we can. We are trying to be more
open and less confrontational and more let’s work with you, let’s see how
we can develop things better. I honestly believe we work better when we
have (Greek advisor) and everyone's opinions are well met and observed.

Many students however commented on the desire to be treated with more respect in their
dealings with the university administration. Respect was also closely tied in with
comments about self-governance and being able to mutually bargain on the same level as
the university. One student tied together the comments from three other students well
when he said:
The lack in dialogue kind of suggests that there is this ambiguity that since
we are a bunch of effectively college kids, there is a reason there is a term
is college kids, and the university and the relationship between the two
that even though we are an independent organization and community there
is this idea that we are still subject to the host which is the university and
that relationship is kind of, I believe that some people may perceive it as a
parental child relationship and its not genuinely beneficial in that sense
that it can be perceived by Greeks as not in dialogue at all... when
something comes down from the top that is expressed through our
advisors you know it might come across they are not letting us be self
governing or they are not letting us express our self governance and its
there is that sociological thing in the back of people's head that effectively
we are still young adults.

Six students talked about self-governance in addition to self-policing as its own issue
without bringing in ideas of respect. Self-policing was seen partially as a way to work
49

with the school along with as a way to gain legitimacy. While occasionally students cited
policing peers as a challenge, most comments were similar to this one:
It’s always good to keep the self-policing aspect of it with us because um
it gives us a little more power and uh it keeps, it keeps us uh it keeps
everyone happy because as he(other student) already said we have the
report with all of the houses. And so um if we can keep ourselves self-
policed then that’s always the better alternative to having to have [Public
Safety] come in and try and drop the hammer if you will. And so um that’s
always a good thing and that’s kind of a big development that we’ve had
this semester is [Public Safety] has kind of given us a little more uh
sovereignty over our own row.

Another student who did comment on the challenge of self policing related the problem
to that of restricting the freedom of others:
so when there is like you were addressing this middle man aspect where
we have to take on the role of potentially being restrictive say in
moratorium during Rush there is no alcohol allowed on the row and
having to enforce that a lot of times the member show are just member of
the community who just want to have fun might consider that you are
restricting my ability to be free and so when you put that in opposition to
the communication and the desire to actually improve the community
which of course everybody wants and everybody is obviously well
intentioned it just it is a little bit not necessarily conflict of interest but it
doesn’t necessarily always line up because one of the things does has to
give on occasion.

Overall, students seemed to be mainly concerned with preserving or expanding their
ability to take the Greek community in the direction they saw as the most advantageous
for students. Student leaders often acknowledged directly or indirectly that working with
the university administration and keeping administrators happy was a key method of
maintaining a large amount of autonomy and control. In the interviews, students often
50

stated how they wanted to be safe and how they even instituted harsher penalties on their
community than the university may have otherwise. Part of the reasoning cited was to
show that they were capable of governing their own community.

Influences on Decision Making
The category on influences on decision making was a well talked about category
with 47 responses and every student, except one, represented. These comments tended to
focus a little more on group positions, trust, position roles and feelings about success. In a
lot of ways, many of the comments in this section seemed very upfront and earnest,
especially when students talked about issues that had to deal with trust.
One of two main categories dealing with trust centered on the difficulty of
trusting university policies and decision when the reasoning behind the decisions was not
well understood. The wider Greek community and sometimes the student leaders
themselves disagreed with the policies and rules the most when they did not feel like they
had much agency in making change or did not understand the dynamics behind unfolding
events. Changes to the status quo were often used as examples of when student trust in
the good intentions of university actions were the most strained. The topic of trust was
heavily intertwined with the type of communication used by both sides. In the opinions of
student leaders, feelings of being uninformed and consequently marginalized brought up
the most comments about wider feelings of anger and frustration in the average fraternity
member after an event like having a party shut down for unknown reasons. Some
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students felt personally targeted by actions outside of their understanding. One example
involving a chapter went like this:
You know if a party was shut down or just we are trying to do an event
and the chapter president is like oh you know guys we can’t do this all of a
sudden everybody, all of the members in my fraternity, 120, yeah, a 120
guys like I mean, the president might kind of have an idea but all the guys
are like what, why?! Why?! And as long as they have that question
unanswered in their head of why, it will lead straight to resentment and
they are mad, they are going to be mad at the school, the school is doing
all of these rules for no reason and trying to stop our fun.

Another student was having problems trusting when he did not understand how the
process fully worked. Even more expressions of distrust came from five students who put
significant emphasis in their interviews in their uneasiness or distrust of [Public Safety]
in their role of policy enforcers. Three students additionally discussed a lack of
understanding about how responsive [Public Safety] may be to inquiries or vocal dissent
to [Public Safety] actions. Several students brought up a fear of being arrested if they said
something [Public Safety]did not approve of while talking to them. One student voiced
his fear this way:
I might incriminate myself or I might raise my voice and next thing I
know I am arrested or something, I don’t know what could happen, that is
always an issue, it is probably the same way with the school, it’s always a
little intimidating if you want to talk to the person above you, because
anything you say, you could be held responsible for or get in trouble for so
that is probably the fear most people have

Another student felt that a lot of this fear centered on the university president as the
ultimate authority on campus and a belief he wanted to disband the Greek system. It was
unclear what caused the following student to feel this way, but the underlying trust issues
should be addressed:
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The worst thing I think that most students have is they just feel the
university president is against everything and is trying to squash out the
Greek system, which I don't agree with at all. I mean I totally understand
the side of the administrators as well, but that is just from where I have
been involved.

When another student with the Order of Omega started talking about how to be proactive
about working with the school he had the following comment after some thought:
Like do we really want to be talking to [Public Safety] about alcohol? And
you know there's the….they come break up our parties and stuff but I
mean I know outside of the administration, [Public Safety]and students
there is kind of an understanding there um I mean they’ve spoken about
the good Samaritan policy that kind of people have.

Another aspect of working with the administration around alcohol was the concern
several students showed over being representative of their constituencies. Students often
seemed to be put in a difficult place between the role of politician and statesman as
described by a senior administrator. Often students commented on wanting to make sure
their decisions were truly for the benefit of the Greek community. One student put this
balance in the following way when referring deciding how to work with policies
suggested by administrators:
I think that is doing a disservice to the Greek community to expect us to
change when we don't know..What the repercussions would be if we
didn't. Um we should be doing it because our Greek Community will
benefit from it. Not because we need to be in fear of some unknown hand
out to get us.

The intermediary roles for student leaders also lead to a lot of compromises in an attempt
to maintain part of the desires of their constituency. Often this related back to Pre-Rush
and trying to maintain some of the fun party aspect to it while addressing the concerns of
the university. One positive for the IFC board members came from an increased ability to
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understand both sides of the issue. Students who reported understanding the university's
position also had a harder time compromising with their peers on how strict the alcohol
policies should be from trying to reach more of a middle ground. One student said:
Also this year we have been working with our chapter presidents and
balance because they obviously they still want to do it [Pre-Rush] and the
university on the other side is you know kind of trying to stray from that.
Which is fine, both sides have a point, so we as an IFC board are kind of
stuck in the middle trying to you know...

Six students who expressed the importance of understanding both sides of the issues also
tended to be the most trusting and accepting of the university and worked the closest with
individual university administrators. While accepting, some of these students did wish the
university would try to understand their position a little bit more. Going back to
communication one student said the following about getting the university to understand:
I think if something like that [meeting regularly with administration at
GA meetings] with the school happened then that would be really good,
(Greek Advisor) comes which is nice but it would be good if other people
got to see how do we really work, and they might just think we are a
bunch of party animals and they aren't studying and they are just doing all
these things but if they come to our meetings they would actually see these
meetings are really you know really they're actual meetings where we talk
about issues and try to change things and if they got that insight I think it
would help them understand us better and at the same time we could, we
would have a chance to communicate

Another student who worked more closely with the university said the opposite and
believed the university administration was a lot like the students. Again leading to the
strength of the personal relationships one student said:
I think they understand it for the most part. Like generally I think the
people who work at [university] are pretty similar to the students and they
are well rounded sociable people, well like smart but like to have a good
time and I think that is reflected in the administrators here

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Both of these comments also show how varied the viewpoints encountered were
regarding creating an effective working relationship. While many of the changes on the
row coming from IFC were contentious within the community, the student leaders did
express a certain amount of pride at the increased safety. Despite all of the negotiating
and problems IFC leaders had implementing the new alcohol policies, students in three
separate interviews commented on the fact that there were not any alcohol transports
during the last Rush season. Another event the students were equally proud of was their
ability to act before the school stepped in. One student commented on both prior topics
toward the end of his interview in the following way:
Yeah and uh that actually worked pretty well. We had uh no transports to
the hospitals and uh I think there were only two citations and neither of
them were students so um that was actually a really productive thing that
we did and something that I feel was kind of proactive of the board. To
kind of go out and try and rectify a situation as far as alcohol policy is
concerned before the university just steps in and says well this is what's
going to happen.

Student leaders also felt the university did not believe they were able to understand the
severity and risk of the situation with alcohol during Pre-Rush. Contrary to this view,
several IFC leaders reflected a firm understanding of the health and safety concerns on
the row.
Part of the success of the board could also be seen in how IFC board members
commented on how they were always seeking to improve the community, taking safety
into consideration. Maintaining the status quo was never considered. The idea of the
board as agents of change was brought up by several different IFC members and
coincided with concerns for safety.
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Overall, students expressed very mature ideas and showed a good understanding
of the effect alcohol policies had on the community. They also actively sought to improve
their community and understand the issues the university had with the current policies.
Besides the issues with trust many of the comments relating to decision-making were
highly positive.

Dealing with Alcohol
Due to conversations with the Institutional Review Board and other important
figures for securing interviews alcohol was de-emphasized as the main topic of the
interviews. Questions directly regarding views on alcohol often came at the end of the
conversation if there was enough time and only related to implementing policy. Eight
students commented on alcohol for a total of 16 comments, making alcohol the smallest
topic across the four sub-themes. The comments were also varied in the views they
represented. Overall, the students said that underage drinking was inevitable, however
their opinions on the specifics were different. Some students felt the rules were too
restrictive and no longer made sense in our current society. These views did not
necessarily represent support for underage drinking, but more that completely trying to
control it is ineffective. Students also seemed to understand the often difficult position the
school was in by having to enforce Federal and State laws, while not being able to
completely control the student population. One student with an uncontrollable view of
alcohol enforcement saw the schools position as such:

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Well I mean, I think any time you are dealing with something like alcohol
where, especially where especially kind of the where rules we can’t even
write, the real rules are kind of like obviously no one even cares most
people who are drinking are under 21 and most people don’t even turn 21
until their junior some don't even until senior year, but obviously all
freshmen and sophomores and most juniors are drinking and stuff so it
seems like pretty much anything the school is going to put down on paper
has be in accordance with federal and state laws.

The social aspect from wide acceptance also played a part in student's views of alcohol.
A female student from the order of omega held a similar view of how the current
situation does not seem to fit with the social reality of students:
I mean I feel like a lot of students’ excuse I guess for underage drinking is:
were in college, every college does it, why can’t we? You know, we’re a
wet campus students know that. Um, there are particular rules for certain
areas and obviously we aren’t supposed to drink—its California law if you
are under 21 but I mean I guess since it’s been so widely accepted it’s just,
it’s just kind of happening. And it’s not something people talk about
because its... it just happens. You know and if people start talking about it
and recognizing that they probably break the law once or twice a week it
becomes a little bit more of a sensitive issue.

Some students went even farther stating that a lot of the cultural norms around drinking
alcohol were present before most students started college. This was something for which
several student leaders believed their community should not be blamed. One student put
it this way:
Um, I mean when difficult questions arise and a student binge drinks and
ends up in the hospital you can’t help but want to blame someone, often
times the person to blame is the student themselves, didn't know what they
were getting into, there's peer pressure but they should have been in
control, and that uh, they didn't think it would happen. Now if it came to a
fraternity hazing thing, that is a whole 'nother matter, the fraternity you
know, should be brought down to size and dealt with, but a lot of these
cases where alcohol is an issue where parents are calling up they should
look back and think about how they raised their child.

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Students also felt they were taking a lot of the blame from outsiders to their community
who got in trouble on the row. Five students commented in some way on the problems
that people from off of the row caused and a desire to block the row off to outsiders to
prevent this from happening again. One comment explained the frustration with outsides
as such:
You know we’re pretty reasonable people because we understand what’s
at stake. You know we’re pretty fortunate to be at this university I think.
And you know most people understand that so why would they want to
risk uh that opportunity? Um you know but when you have somebody who
isn’t at all affiliated with the university—the school or what’s going on
here they, there is no risk for them because there is no ownership.
The last two concepts were smaller in length and in the amount of comments.
Student's opinion of what was fair to be held accountable for was one of these smaller
themes. Students only wanted to be responsible for the Greek community and not guests
whether invited or not. Students seemed a little defensive in general when it came to
issues over alcohol.
As a topic alcohol only came up once without the researcher bringing it up. Even
with this prompting, from the quotes it can be seen that the topic of alcohol was one with
a lot of strong feelings. These feelings ranged from questions around responsibility for
the actions of others, the role of college culture and acceptance of alcohol and in the
difference of opinion in how to address alcohol problems. The range of responses and the
frustration expressed by student leaders over having to take responsibility the actions of
students who made unwise decisions show how emotionally fueled this topic could be.

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Chapter 5: Discussion
Numerous articles extol the dangers of heavy drinking in college (Bartholow et al,
2003; Brown et al 2008; Cashin et al 1998; Porter & Pryor 2007; Wechsler, 1996). There
is a large amount of statistical data on trends, frequencies, probability and the
effectiveness of college alcohol interventions. While searching for base research articles
for this thesis however, comparable qualitative data exploring the social components
behind the data was much more difficult to find. This research gap leaves questions on
whether results more discernable from a qualitative approach are missing in the general
literature. In looking at data for college administrators, most of the current research on
alcohol use in college available to administrators for initiating and improving
intervention strategies is also quantitative in nature. Absent in this body of research is the
qualitative data to support the quantitative findings. As noted in the literature review, it is
important to take social factors into consideration when using quantitative data to support
new intervention efforts (Bruce & Keller, 2007; Korcuska & Thombs 2003).
The main goal of the study was to answer the question: what aspect(s) do male
students perceive as most important in the student/administrator relationship when
formulating an alcohol policy? As shown by talking with student leaders at the university
in this study, the goals of creating a safe atmosphere on campus around alcohol are more
similar between administrators and students than many uninvolved bystanders would
often presume. The act of simply sitting down with students and talking with them can,
itself, create a lot of goodwill and trust between the two parties. As noted in the results
section, students with less access to talking with university officials also tend to be less
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trusting of things put forth by the university, like alcohol policies. After most of the
interviews the student(s) thanked the researcher for being interested in this topic and
asking their opinion. The openness of the student with a complete stranger was also
surprising and could easily have lead to further collaboration on this topic. The findings
in relation to the sub-questions became an important part of the overall results as these
data had enough information to encompass an entire theme in the results section.
The first sub-question on perceptions on the effectiveness of communication
varied depending on the student. Perhaps the most descriptive view was that of the hour
glass analogy a student brought up, with the Greek advisor in the middle. More research
with a larger participant pool would be required to determine the extent that views on
effectiveness do not correlate with any other factors.
In regards to the second sub-question of how the different types of relationships
students have with university officials influenced their decision making, students had a
clear answer. Students who knew or worked with administrators were more likely to want
to closely collaborate on alcohol and other polices. As one of the more consistent
findings, this may also be one of the most helpful to administrators as a reason to
encourage student contact.
The third sub-question on what influenced the male student leaders' decision-
making in relation to alcohol policies was a varied theme. Gaining student trust, as a
large factor in creating collaborative relationships, ties-in closely with building the
working relationship and also has several implications for practitioners, as outlined in the
recommendation section of this study.
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These themes were extracted with the goal of helping future practitioners who
may not have a background working with the Greek community understand some of the
views around alcohol. From the themes, approaches to gaining student collaboration and
support can be drawn to further inform approaches regarding alcohol policy changes.
One theme that was expected to arise was the relationship between masculine
identity and decision making. This theme however, was overshadowed by the four
themes outlined below. These themes suggest that the male student leaders either had a
well adjusted, positive masculine identity preventing identity conflict when working with
the administration or more in-depth research is needed in the future. The section on future
research will discuss these implications.

Recommendations
From the themes, one implication that stood out was the importance of contact
and communication between the people who institute policy and those who represent the
Greek community and have to convey the policy. The farther students were from working
with the actual administrators on the policy, the more suspect they were of the reasons the
policy was being instituted. With every additional layer communication passed through,
the more negative the views seemed to become. This difficulty became evident from both
the views of students further from the IFC board and the university administration. In
addition to the IFC board, the university as a large ambiguous organization was also a
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target for taking the blame for unpopular changes even when the policy had been reached
in compromise. In these situations the frustrations felt by the Greek students was targeted
toward the university because of the control it was asserting on Pre-Rush.

Using technology to communicate with the student body.
One way to address this concern with communication is to explore more direct
means of reaching the larger student body. Students cited several ways of doing this
including new uses of technology, town halls meetings, mixer events and evening hosting
wine or beer tasting for students over 21 to ease into the subject. The multitude of
responses also demonstrates the need for multiple avenues for communication for
maximum effectiveness. After the first few interviews brought up technology like
Facebook and Twitter from both students and administrators, the researcher often would
follow up on this with other students. Three of the students who were interviewed
together all agreed technology was not yet ripe for the needs of the IFC board. Future
research would do well to expand on the most effective means for communicating
alcohol or other new policies and the reasoning behind them with students. Several
private companies currently market digital means of transmitting general alcohol
information. Students, however, mainly spoke of more personal sources such as
Facebook and Twitter where content is highly user generated. Utilizing these
technologies for peer oriented messages may be a key communication method to
examine. Personal preferences also likely account for a large amount of the variations in
how what students consider effective communication.
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Increasing representation during student/administrator discussions.
Another way to improve communication would be to draw a broader range of
students into the conversation. At this specific institution a quick way to do this would be
to include the house presidents in more of the upper level conversations. Extrapolated to
Greek communities in general, the fewer students between the Greek advisor delivering
the message and those who broadcast this message the more accurate the message may
be. Several IFC board members cited feelings about an occasional divide between the
board and the presidents on how to implement policy. Part of this divide seemed to stem
from how restrictive the alcohol policies being implemented should be. To help with this
divide some board members suggested either choosing one or two presidents or rotating
presidents to accompany the IFC president when he had top level conversations. This
would serve two purposes, it would help support the president by providing witnesses to
hear and convey the messages from the meeting. It would also give the presidents
someone to confirm that there was no room for negotiation with the university.

Adding personal connections to the wider alcohol conversation.
On the personal side of communicating more efficiently, simple changes may go a
long way to increasing the amount of trust students put in the administration. Several
students stated that they felt like there was an unknown hand trying to influence the
Greek community. Students who felt this way also tended to exhibit higher levels of
distrust of the reasoning behind changes in policy and practice. One way to help Greek
students to visualize the structure of the Student Affairs department and give it a personal
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touch would be to show an organization chart and introduce the different members who
may have an impact on the community during open forum events. By providing a face to
the university's leadership structure, students may be more willing to reach out to
administrators and accept requests. This would also help to start building some of the
personal ties students were interested in building early in their official terms.
Other ideas included mixers or open sessions that allowed students to freely ask
questions in a setting where they felt comfortable. Several students also expressed
interest in getting to know more administrators in an almost business like fashion. These
student mentioned wanting to have more contacts and an emphasis on acting
professionally around administrators. Some of the ideas brought up ranged from IFC
members asking for a complete list of the student affairs personnel they may deal with to
being able to turn to other people in the department besides the official Greek advisors to
get a second opinion. All of the students had good things to say about the Greek advisors,
however some were interested in having more contacts. Student reported enjoying
meeting all of the directors of different departments at the beginning of their term but
said they never saw most of the directors again. In the future, perhaps having other
Student Affairs staff members’ business cards readily available for Greek representatives
to pick up in the Greek affairs office and encouraging going to these staff members for
help with specific questions.

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Furthering the transparency of university decision making.
Another common difficult point for students when dealing with the administration
was feeling a lack of reasoning behind the changes the council was asked to make.
Several students pointed this out during interviews while emphasizing the "why" when
talking about problems. One of the students with the Order of Omega additionally used
physical cues while sweeping his hands or making gestures to place more emphasis on
his frustration with not knowing why. One student who seemed to understand the
frustration of others explained how he was frustrated as well until joining the IFC council
and learning the "why" by being able to ask administrators. Going back to the issues of
feeling that there was a lack of forum, creating a space to explain the "whys" of alcohol
and other policies could help increase student respect and compliance. As noted, students
responded well to knowing administrators were concerned about their safety, the well
being of students and not being mired in bureaucracy. Being able to get this message out
into the community could be very beneficial in creating student buy-in for alcohol
policies.

Building common ground and understanding with the Greek community.
For administrators new to the community and working with Greeks, overcoming
some of the stereotypes associated with the Greek community by talking in-depth with
the leadership would be helpful. While there were still a high amount of incidents
involving alcohol within the Greek community, as pointed out by several participants,
because the incidents were occurring in the community does not necessarily mean that
65

the community was directly responsible. It could be seen that this was a sensitive topic to
be taken into account when building rapport with the community. IFC members made it
very clear they had no problem disciplining chapters that got out of control or resorted to
hazing. Yet they were very sensitive to blame being immediately placed on them just
because an incident happened on the row. The subject was strong enough that three IFC
students happily spoke about fencing off "the row" from outsiders in order to better
manage their space.
When building rapport with Greek student leadership and working on alcohol
concerns, individual safety is likely a very good place to start. Several students made
comments about how they did not want the administrators to think all they wanted to do
was drink themselves to death. Several students thought this position would also surprise
the administration when they talked about their concern for safety in the open summit on
alcohol. Hearing that the administration was also basing its policies on safety above all
seemed to be equally important for the students. While the administration may hear the
same type of comments over the years from working continuously with student leaders,
the chance for the students and student leaders to all hear this message in person would
help strengthen the resolve to address the alcohol problems collaboratively. When
building support for alcohol changes, reminding the community of the core reasons
behind enforcing the policy is essential.
Finally, a note for administrators was the lack of blame placed on any one person
in the interviews. While there was distrust and frustration expressed, most of it was
focused toward group structures and overarching problems. The lack of finger pointing
66

gave the overall interviews a more professional and caring slant while highlighting the
personal investment the students had with this topic. Politics did not enter too heavily
into the topic as may have been surmised based on the level of compromising and
debating that happens around a topic like alcohol.

Limitations
There were several limitations in this study that prevented the data from being
more robust. One of the largest limitations was the small number of participants from the
Order of Omega and the even smaller number of men from this organization who
volunteered to participate. There are several possible reasons for this discrepancy. The
organization was fairly busy leading up to a large retreat which was the last major event
for the year. Interviews were conducted after the Order's retreat at request of the
organization's president. With the school year winding down after the retreat the
organization did not have any more large meetings where the researcher or the president
could describe the study in person. Instead, only the emails sanctioned by the Institutional
Review Board were used in requesting participants. The researcher was able to meet with
the president of the IFC on the other hand who was then able to forward the Institutional
Review Board email and answer questions in one of the group's meetings. The extra
personal contact is likely what helped the researcher to garner so many more IFC
participants.

67

Additional male participation from the Order of Omega would have also helped to
balance the perspective of the two groups since the IFC executive board has more
administrator contact than regular members from the Order of Omega. The two women
who volunteered to be interviewed from the Order of Omega, despite the request for only
men, had similar comments to the male representative from the Order of Omega.
However, the women diverged from the men in the amount of trust they placed in the
university administration. While the male representative for the Order of Omega was
very interested in the topic and had the longest student interview, he was not able to refer
any additional participants. Both women were highly interested in the study and offered
to get additional sorority participants (which was turned down).
Structurally, there was also not equal representation for IFC as a whole. While a
large portion of the executive board was interviewed, none of the house presidents or
directors in the IFC were interviewed mainly due to the late timing of the interviews. As
the presidents have a slightly different role, their perspective would have been interesting
to compare to the executive board. The directors, as members with less administrator
contact, would also have been interesting to talk to, however as they were younger on
average than the presidents and board members they were not interviewed.
Another external aspect that influenced the results was the timing during which
the interviews took place. Ideally, interviews would take place over the course of the year
as students moved into their new positions and gradually became comfortable. In this
study interviews took place at relatively the same time toward the end of the school year.
While students had experienced almost a full semester by this point, there was still
68

another semester remaining in their contract. Fall semester, which was when the largest
Pre-Rush occurs, had not happened while these students were on the IFC board, thereby
limiting the answers they could provide.

Future Research
Future research should start by qualitatively looking at a broader group of
students from new pledges to the presidents of the different chapters. Just as the board
members had some varying opinions, the chapter house presidents will likely have
varying opinions about alcohol use, policy and communication as well. A wider and
larger sampling would be much more representative and give further insight into crafting
collaborative policy and creating targeted interventions for working with student leaders.
As previously stated, masculine gender roles did not play as large an influence in
decision-making process as initially hypothesized. This may be because the leadership of
the Interfraternity Council was well adjusted given their success and leadership role in
the community. Future research should use a wider sampling to test whether masculine
gender role conflict is more apparent in less involved members of the fraternity
community. This would have intervention implications for working with the fraternity
community.
In the current literature IFC affiliated chapters are the most heavily studied in
regards to alcohol use (Elikins, Helms, & Pierson, 2003). Furthering research into several
other Greek organizations such as the Pan Hellenic Council and non-IFC affiliated
chapters could help create more inclusive collaboration between Greek lettered
69

organizations and university administration. As noted, the researcher had to turn down
female students affiliated with the Order of Omega and Pan-Hellenic Council from being
included in the study while male participants in IFC were more difficult to recruit. Future
research into the views and opinions of women in sororities and their views on alcohol
use could provide helpful data.
There was also a lost opportunity in the research in regards to the data from the
administrators’ points of view. The data from the three administrator interviews was lost
when the researcher's hard drive crashed and was not able to be fully recovered. Had this
data not been lost, it could have helped triangulate the views of the student leaders and
provide an alternative perspective thereby strengthening the research.
When designing future qualitative studies, research should take place throughout
the school year. This would give a wider range of answers and allow for responses from
students at different points in the term to take into account different events that impact
student decisions, such as completing rush or preparing for finals. A full year would also
give the researcher a better opportunity to understand how the relationships develop
between campus administrators and the student leaders.
Beyond looking at the impact leaderships has on the Greek community, wide
scale interventions like social norming and peer interventions would also be interesting to
investigate qualitatively. As previously mentioned, these interventions have been shown
to be effective in large scale implementations (Turner, Wesley, & Bauerle, 2008). High
risk groups however, occasionally need more targeted sanctions. One student made an
insightful comment regarding the discomfort students feel when discussing that they are
70

actually breaking the law while drinking underage. Future research could examine the
impact of incorporating this message in to social norming campaigns. In this qualitatively
researching how to adjust the message to make it more pertinent would be a good follow
up to look at broad impacts on the community.

Conclusions
From the present literature on the impact of alcohol use and abuse at colleges in
the United States the topic is too pressing to ignore. Colleges that fail to act put their
student's lives at jeopardy and risk legal repercussions against the institution (Elikins,
Helms, & Pierson, 2003). Acting on current alcohol trends often requires fine tuning best
practices research to the local conditions needing to be addressed. Knowing what these
conditions are often requires a deeper qualitative examination into the current beliefs and
stances of the important stakeholders - including students. While designing or updating
the university policy surrounding alcohol, administrators should consider taking into
account the student culture, local surroundings and relationship between students and the
administration. Maintaining an open and collaborative atmosphere between students and
the administration is a small but important aspect of creating a comprehensive and
effective plan on limiting violence, injuries and fatalities related to alcohol use.
One of the first steps in building a healthy working relationship between all
stakeholders is to start with the representatives of these groups and hear their opinions
and suggestions. As simple as this seems, students and student leaders often resist real or
perceived reduction in their ability to represent their groups and make decisions as adults.
71

Bringing student leaders into the conversation has the added benefit of potential peer
based interventions. Peer level interventions have the potential to be even more effective
than suggestions directly from administrators (Bruce and Keller, 2007). When student
leaders take pride in the interventions they have helped create based on positive feedback
such as the lack of alcohol transports, suggesting stronger interventions becomes
possible.
Most of all this study showed that the student leaders at this school were highly
concerned with the safety of their student body while hoping to be able to find
compromises that also represented the desires of their constituencies. While the results of
discussions with the administration on Pre-Rush may not have always ended the way
students wanted, the desire for respect, autonomy and safety could lead student leaders to
impose harsher penalties on their own community than may have otherwise been the
case. Understanding the dynamics of the Greek community, preferred relational styles
and methods of communication are of primary importance in furthering collaborative
efforts between students and administrators in addressing problems with alcohol.
72

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Asset Metadata

Creator Maxwell, Ross (author)

Core Title Students and the administration: examining the relationship between university policy and students' views on alcohol

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Master of Education

Degree Program Postsecondary Administration

Publication Date 05/04/2010

Defense Date 03/04/2010

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Administration,alcohol interventions,Alcohol policy,Greek lettered,Higher education,Interfraternity council,OAI-PMH Harvest,qualitative

Place Name USA (countries)

Language English

Advisor Suite, Denzil (committee chair), Chung, Rhea (committee member), Tambascia, Tracy Poon (committee member)

Creator Email maxwell@oxy.edu,rsmaxwel@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m2998

Unique identifier UC1441305

Identifier etd-Maxwell-3665 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-308359 (legacy record id),usctheses-m2998 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Maxwell-3665.pdf

Dmrecord 308359

Document Type Thesis

Rights Maxwell, Ross

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email uscdl@usc.edu

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Research on effective preventative methods of curbing underage and/or dangerous drinking on college campuses have met with mixed results. Creating effective interventions and policy on college campuses that addresses alcohol issues are often most effective when multiple influencing factors are taken into consideration. Research based in social, psychological, developmental and cultural perspectives has explored contributory factors leading to and preventing incidents of alcohol abuse. Often missing from this research is an analysis of student perceptions regarding these perspectives and alcohol abuse. This study will qualitatively explore the opinions and beliefs of student leaders in the fraternity community at a large, prestigious research university in order to examine how different perspectives can be used to more collaboratively work with fraternity leaders. Qualitative interviews will examine current student perceptions regarding both alcohol usage and how college administrators can better work with students to create more effective interventions. Masculine development and Social Norm theories will be used to analyze the results. Participants’ statements will also be analyzed for common themes and opinions pertaining to prevention techniques and current literature hypothesis. The findings from this study will be used to offer suggestions on future alcohol prevention strategies.