Friday, December 23, 2022

Stanford hates fun

Source: Stanford Daily

Stanford hates fun is the title of the second Stanford article in the Wall Street Journal this week. (On the first, Stanford's guide to acceptable words, enough said already.) 

This has been bubbling up for a while. Last June, Ginevra Davis wrote a powerful article in Palladium, "Stanford's war on social life." She recounted how the slightly transgressive Stanford atmosphere in the 90s, which seeded the slightly transgressive get it done attitude of tech in the early 2000s, is being smothered by the Administration. For example, back in the early 90s, 

...The brothers were winding down from Kappa Alpha’s annual Cabo-themed party on the house lawn.... a day-to-night extravaganza that would start sometime in the morning and continue long after midnight. The girls wore bikini tops and plastic flower leis, and the boys wore their best Hawaiian shirts.

Uh-oh, I can already smell trouble if you tried that today. But the point,  

That year, the brothers had filled the entire main level of Kappa Alpha’s house with a layer of sand six inches deep. The night was almost over; the guests were leaving and the local surf rock band had been paid their customary hundred dollars in beer. The only question was what to do with all the sand.

No one remembers who had the idea to build the island. A group of five or six brothers managed the project. One rented a bulldozer...

Later that year, the brothers installed a zipline from the roof of their house to the center of the island. They also built a barge, which they would paddle around the lake on weekends and between classes.

More generally 

Through the late 1990s, Stanford ... featured a wacky campus culture that combined collegiate prep with West Coast laissez-faire. Stanford was home to a rich patchwork of wild and experimental campus life. Communal living houses (“co-ops”) encouraged casual nudity, while fraternities threw a raucous annual “Greek Week” and lit their houses on fire. Until 2013, Stanford hosted a fully student-run anarchist house, where residents covered the walls with eccentric murals. 

Today, 

The Kappa Alpha boys have been kicked out of their old house. Lake Lagunita was closed to student activities in 2001,...

...In less than a decade, Stanford’s administration eviscerated a hundred years of undergraduate culture and social groups. They ended decades-old traditions. They drove student groups out of their houses. They scraped names off buildings. They went after long-established hubs of student life, like fraternities and cultural theme houses...

A powerful observation: This spirit of self-organization, slightly transgressive but organized fun taught students how to organize things like the 2000s tech revolution.  

Stanford’s support for the unconventional pioneered a new breed of elite student: the charismatic builder who excelled at “breaking things” in nearby Silicon Valley.

... unlike most elite schools, ...Stanford ... was also fun. Stanford had created a global talent hub combined with explicit permission for rule-breaking. As a result, students learned a valuable lesson: they had agency; they could create their own norms and culture instead of relying on higher authorities.

Young kids need to be out in the playground negotiating the rules themselves, without lots of parents and coaches around. College students need self-organized parties and pranks to learn to be tech entrepreneurs. I had always disparaged "party schools" as places with too much drinking and not enough studying, and most parties seem to me like a pointless drunken bacchanalia. But the importance of self-organized activity is something I had missed. 

The article explains nicely the advantages of fraternities and sororities to young people.

In the middle of my freshman year, I started noticing that students, particularly older ones not in a housed Greek organization, seemed quite aimless and very lonely.... 

When students live together, united by a shared identity, they tend to look after each other. The boys in one fraternity sleep together in a pile on the floor. Girls in housed sororities leave their doors open and treat their clothes like a communal wardrobe.

The process

In 2013, the administration took over the student-run anarchist house and painted over the old murals. The next year, Stanford drained the remnants of Lake Lagunita, where students used to gather to host bonfires, and ended the annual anything-but-clothes party known as Exotic Erotic. And the year after that, in 2015, the administration put the notoriously anti-establishment Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band on “super-probation,” the culmination of years of increasing restrictions on their antics.

over the ensuing years, the Band mostly lost its raucous, fraternity-esque culture, and stopped doing anything particularly controversial. Once, the Band mocked Stanford’s rivals with crass marching formations; today, the Band designs all their pranks based on pre-approved themes from the university and clears the final plans with a panel of administrators.

Then they came for the fraternities

One night, I was biking home late from the Caltrain. I made it halfway back to my dorm before I realized that something was missing. Music. It was a Friday night, but the campus was completely silent.

Unlike Harvard, which abruptly tried to ban “single-gender social organizations” and was immediately sued by alumni, Stanford picked off the Greek life organizations one by one to avoid student or alumni pushback. The playbook was always the same. Some incident would spark an investigation, and the administration would insist that the offending organization had lost its right to remain on campus. The group would be promptly removed.

...When Stanford could not remove a student organization for bad behavior, they found other justifications. One such case was the end of Outdoor House, an innocuous haven on the far side of campus for students who liked hiking. The official explanation from Stanford for eliminating the house was that the Outdoor theme “fell short of diversity, equity and inclusion expectations.” ...

Next year, Outdoor House will be reinstated, but only because house members promised to refocus their theme on “racial and environmental justice in the outdoors.” Upholding diversity, equity, and inclusion is the first of four “ResX principles” that now govern undergraduate housing. Stanford reserves the right to unhouse any organization that does not, in their opinion, uphold these principles. 

Covid provided the excuse to really clamp down. The new system sounds awfully bleak.  

The first thing Stanford announced was the introduction of a new housing system, designed to promote “fairness” and “community” on campus. Under the system, new freshmen would be assigned to one of eight artificially-created housing groups called “neighborhoods,” each containing a representative sample of campus housing. 

The reality of the neighborhood system is that it strips students of their ability to form distinct personalities or formal friend groups. I am in Neighborhood S. Some of my friends are in Neighborhood N. It doesn’t actually matter. The neighborhoods are not based on geography—many houses in the same “neighborhood” are on opposite sides of campus—and have no personalities outside of their letter name. They are distinctions without meaning. 

... students in “bad housing”—the labyrinth of themeless, meaningless dorms awaiting most Stanford students—rarely bother to learn their neighbor’s names. Hallways are quiet and doors are locked. Without a strong existing support network, these students can easily bounce from anonymous dorms, to lecture halls, to cavernous dining halls without anyone acknowledging their presence for days.

..Stanford students live in brand new buildings with white walls. We have a $20 million dollar meditation center that nobody uses. But students didn’t ask for any of that. We just wanted a dirty house with friends.

When I tell current Stanford students the story about JP and his island, I swear their eyes pop out of their heads. Everything was so different then. It sounds like a story from another school—the house, the lake, and the groundskeeper who let the boys pass. But mostly, what feels foreign is the spirit expressed by the six brothers, the wild unfettered joy. 

A bottom line 

Stanford’s new social order offers a peek into the bureaucrat’s vision for America. It is a world without risk, genuine difference, or the kind of group connection that makes teenage boys want to rent bulldozers and build islands.. 

*** 

Izzy Meyerson followed up in the Stanford Daily. Izzy transferred from the University of Chicago,  

...the place where “fun goes to die.” Yet, in my first quarter at Stanford, I found myself missing the unique community hubs that so easily brought people together at the University of Chicago: the student run coffee shops, each with its own personality (the one for indie kids, the one for econ bros and their adjacents, the one for more edgy, subversive “alt” students, etc…), the student center, even the silent Harper Library, which was a place for me to hang with friends and meet new people...

When I was at UChicago, there was an active effort underway to make the school more appealing to the general high achieving high school student... This involved embracing looser restrictions ... and a new community-driven student life strategy. It seems to me that Stanford is heading in the opposite direction, embracing the “where fun goes to die” mantra that UChicago is trying so hard to shed.

...when I arrived at Stanford in the fall of 2021, I saw a dull and tired campus, one that had forgotten it was supposed to be the fun California school... I spent much of my time working in my room, and I am someone that hates working in my room. But there were few social places to work on campus where you could meet new people. I felt awkward and unwelcome when I walked into the first floor of Green to absolute silence and stares from people as the squeak of my shoes seemed to fill the emptiness of the space.

Izzy has a deep point. The lack of campus social life is about a lot more than big alcohol-fueled parties.  

...Stanford has been eroding away traditions (such as Full Moon on the Quad) and historical community hubs through the Neighborhood System. This was easy for them to do — there was an entire year of remote schooling in which traditions were not passed down to the incoming class, and so their demise was imminent. Though such traditions may seem frivolous, it is exactly these small, uniquely Stanford events that bring people together...

..what makes college so valuable is the relationships you make with others across wide and varying backgrounds.... But we must have access to abundant social interactions and involvements for such meaningful growth to take place. So, I implore you, Stanford, to embrace “fun” again, revitalize our unique campus culture, not simply for the enjoyment of the student body but to allow your students to build themselves into complex and diverse beings. 

The WSJ notes  

Stanford began mandating students file an application two weeks ahead of a party including a list of attendees, along with sober monitors, students said.

The number of registered parties dwindled to 45 during the first four weeks of school this fall, down from 158 over the same period in 2019, according to the Stanford Daily.

My jaw dropped.  Filing an application for a party two weeks ahead of time? Deciding what party you're going to go to two weeks ahead of time? You must be kidding. I went to MIT, lived in a dorm, and even there parties were organized about 5 minutes ahead of time! "List of attendees?" Is this China? The university keeps track of who is invited to what party? 

What's going on? It's right there -- "Upholding diversity, equity, and inclusion is the first of four “ResX principles” that now govern undergraduate housing.." " Stanford announced was the introduction of a new housing system, designed to promote “fairness”.."  The bureaucrat's vision of "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion" cannot stand any self-organization by students. Voluntary association might not be sufficiently "diverse" and "inclusive" (except, of course, the "affinity" groups which are deliberately not diverse and inclusive.) The only way to be "equitably" "included," apparently, is to be equally, intensely, lonely and miserable. So even the most minor social organization, like having a party, must be policed by bureaucrats. And smothered in the process. 

No wonder there is a mental health crisis! Living all alone in a faceless dorm with closed doors would drive any 18 year old nuts. I found my first years in a college dorm intensely difficult, and only the fellowship of the irreverent Burton Third Bombers got me through. (Thank you all!) I can't imagine living all alone in a motel-like silent dorm a thousand miles from home. I would have cracked too. 

***

Stanford's response, per WSJ, could be written by The Onion, 

Samuel Santos Jr., associate vice provost of inclusion, community and integrative learning within the Division of Student Affairs, says the school is working to address students’ concerns about Stanford’s social atmosphere.

The party-planning process will be streamlined and more administrators will be hired to help facilitate student social life.

“We want events to be fun, inclusive and safe and those things can happen,” Mr. Santos says. “They just require collaboration and honesty.”

Maybe the problem is reflected in the fact that Stanford has an "associate vice provost of inclusion, community and integrative learning" in the first place! Streamlining the paperwork to ask mommy for permission to have a party is not the answer. And  "more administrators will be hired !" Jaw drops again. Isn't it breathtakingly obvious that the problem is too many administrators in the first place? 

***

This may seem minor. Who cares if undergraduates have fun? Well, maybe some people care if undergraduates mature into confident people, capable of organizing a party without guidance and permission from the Ministry of Parties, before they head out into the world to start the next generation of tech companies. Or, more likely take jobs as deputy directors of "inclusion, community and integrative learning" at the newly sclerotic old tech companies. 

I hope, however, that Stanford's alumni will wake up and take notice. They are a key constituency for an institution that lives off their generous donations. The loss of academic freedom and free speech doesn't seem to bother them much, even when taken to the ridiculous such as the guide to acceptable words. The imposition of far-left politics under the "IDEAL" banner hasn't woken them up. 

But they give money in memory of the great time they had as undergraduates -- and the experiences that made their lifelong friends, molded their personalities, and were core foundations of their current success and personal happiness. Perhaps news that these core fond memories have gone up in smoke will catalyze them. 

Or, perhaps, universities are now more searching for a few billion dollar donors rather than regular checks from loyal alumni. $1.6 billion = 16,000,000 $100 checks. Inescapable math. But such donors want more public and political causes. 

***

Update:

Thanks for many comments and emails. 

I feel for the administrators, really. What do you do if you are provost and a big frat party has gotten out of hand? Well, the big university disciplinary machinery steps in and  write rules of engagement for the drunken bacchanalia. In the face of the title 9 and DEI bureaucrats, and their kangaroo-court procedures, this ends inevitably exactly where we are. 

I think the answer lies crucially here: Nothing. The price of self-organization is responsibility. Call the cops. If the frat gets sued, the frat gets sued. Rewrite the ground lease so that the frat is an independent organization. By having rules and disciplinary procedures, the university also protects the frat from its full responsibility. Maybe not, but somehow, the university has to separate itself from detailed frat management.  


 

30 comments:

  1. Why are you still there?

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    1. Because I'm not an undergrad. My idea of a party is an interesting dinner guest, but go home by 9 pm. And Hoover + Stanford economics, GSB, SIEPR, remains a fantastic place to do research and work on policy questions. And there is a great group of friends and colleagues who see these problems, and think they can be fixed.

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    2. It's pretty clear that you think the rest of us who don't occupy your elite spaces (especially clear given your Hoover affiliation) are subhuman because we didn't get into MIT or Stanford or whatever. Let me play the world's tiniest violin for you and hope for a class war.

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    3. ^ Anon clearly woke up on the wrong side of the discussion

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    4. the unimaginative violin trope won't win any arguments .. better to put that one back in the case

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  2. America is getting extremely irony. Teenagers are encouraged to make their decision on gender transformation while adult college students are not trusted to manage their fun parties. Even in authoritarian China, college students do not need apply for having a party. It is a joke the university administrator forbids 1000 words. Is the Xi Jingping the actual president of Stanford?

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  3. I can tell you, stanford (back in the day) was fun. Alot of fun. Sometimes, too much fun. My freshman/sophomore gpas can attest to that. Spring concerts at Lake Lag, dorm parties in the cinderblock dorms of Wilbur, life in the moldy, old semi-communal trailerpark that was Manzanita Park ( “nothing is as permanent as temporary housing”) amongst some of the smartest and most interesting people I have/had ever met, made four years at stanford one of the most important periods of my life. It is sad to watch all of that change, and not for the better.

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    1. I didn't have any fun in my undergrad. I was there to study. Clearly fun is a privilege for these elites - I want nothing more than for them to suffer.

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    2. Why, precisely, is there anything “elitist” about like minded folks wanting to aggregate? Is the anthropologically surprising or evil. In 1975 Theta Delta Chi was DIVERSE in fundamental ways but we chose to establish bonds and pursue scholarly, social and athletic goals in a self governing residence. Why would anybody label this as “elitist” and wish harm on those who do not arrive at college with a mindset of conformity or pure academics or obedience to “administrators?” We were not racists or elitist snobs. Snobbery cuts both ways. The woke need to wake up.

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  4. Well, at least no one will care when we shut the universities down as an economy move.

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  5. Please John be the faculty sponsor the great annual beer fund and if I can't convince my Stanford friends to fund freedom I'll do it to spite them.

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  6. Oddly, I can truly relate to this even though I am 70 and college is a long way in the rearview mirror. I was a commuter student and laser-focused on my studies to get into medical school, so no fraternity membership and only one campus party in four years of undergraduate. I was mistified at the attraction of drinking until you puke. My youthful joie de vivre was expressed in different ways. Some of the excesses of the frat culture remain distasteful and my son was a victim of this, causing him to switch schools, but I also have many friends for whom fraternity membership was the source of wonderful memories and life-long friendships. I agree that college should be a time of growing independence and stretching oneself in many ways. Many of colleges' lessons are learned outside the classroom. There must be a balance between truly anarchic, potentially harmful freedom and oppressive administrative control. I fear we have swung so far in the direction of the latter that, when the inevitable pushback begins, it will be more radical and even violent that anything that preceded it. The indefensible continued masking of college students and mandated vaccinations is just one example of this.

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  7. The dumbest thing the University of Chicago has ever done is to promote and dote on the "where fun goes to die" expression. Sold merchandise but repelled numerous kids and their tuition-paying parents. UC used to be a "good" school to which Cochrane may attest since he grew up in Hyde Park where his father taught Italian Renaissance history. Chicago crime as well as a series of mediocre presidents, to say nothing of Obummer's erection of his selfie tower meant to destroy historic Jackson Park on Olmsted's bicentennial, has worked to diminish the school. Alas.
    From an - eek! - legacy grad.

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  8. Hi John Peter here in Brisbane (Australia not SF). We live in a world of growing surveillance (Google won't let me ID myself as I have a VPN on ). There is a growing realisation here that a degree is not absolutely essential to a high paying job (excluding doctors, et al) and no student loan. $200K to $250K is quite possible being a "tradie" (electrician, plumber etc). I suppose they are "fleecing" those Stanford types (which exist here) with exorbitant charges. Tradies are often seen to be able to buy into wealthy suburbs so go figure which is the best route to a comfortable lifestyle. I will add that any Uni (like Stanford) will fade away as students "vote" with their feet (and money). That is something Diversity people cannot control. :) Never under estimate the next generation.

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  9. Ok.
    That's interestingly bypassing the topics around the fact that fraternities are internationally renowned to be places of fun but also bullying, harassment, violent hazing and rape.

    Plus, more importantly: you don't need anyone's permission to organize stuff as students.
    Build an association
    Make groups on social medias
    Spread the word

    Make your events about fun stuff: sports, music, beer, etc. etc. and there you have it.

    You know? It's the usual trick: high school principal forbids the sarcastic student journal? Just print it and sell it outside of school.

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  10. Where fun goes to die? I remember the LPF (Liquidity Preference Function) parties at cox lounge at GSB run by Dean of students, Jeff Metcalf. Himself an accomplished party guy. The Lascivious Ball was an annual event celebrating one's sexuality. Students paid no fee if they came nude, half price if they wore a lascivious costume. Those two years are among the most fun in my life. Going to Jimmy's Woodlawn Tap seeing and hearing teachers from various disciplines, students and Deans, the air fairly crackled with incredible ideas; proffered and challenged with humor and wit.

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  11. Before I went to Harvard I spent 4 years in the US Army. After that 4 years I had my fill of fraternity like behavior. My "trick" i.e. group of fellow soldiers assigned to the same working shift - drank after working the day shift until closing time and after swing shifts went to bars until closing time. After the Graveyard shift my sergeant "trick chief" celebrated breakfast every morning with a cold bottle of I.W. Harper and a shot glass. That was a bridge too far for me.

    At college I lived off campus and never looked back. Stanford waitlisted me 44 years ago and it sounds like I might have had fun there. At least back then.

    The Left only knows only how to destroy things. It creates nothing that is good. It has destroyed the vast majority of American colleges. These Lefty Educrats are not modern Puritans but rather the modern utterly empty True Believers.

    "Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life."
    Eric Hoffer in "The True Believer"

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    1. Wokeism/idpol doesn't come from the left. It comes from neoliberal ideology.

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  12. I've been travelling on business to the US for almost 30 years, usually once per quarter.

    When you visit periodically you tend to notice systematic changes more easily than residents. The opposite of the boiled frog syndrome.

    I'm increasingly convinced that the US suffers from a Systems Thinking problem. Unlike China, India, Korea and Japan, the US does not have a common civilizational ethos which binds the country together.

    Rather, there's an overdue reliance on processes laid down by the powers that be, increasingly the administration. The TSA is an glaring example which travelers notice first.

    This is probably due to the "melting pot" of immigration. As different cultures mingle, there's systemic pressure to accommodate and force conformity.

    I would go on, but I'm not trained as a sociologist.

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    1. This is a good point. The same problem appears in K-12 public schools. There is less consensus on how kids should be raised. Maybe the public school system will eventually disappear because it cannot meet the needs/expectations of an increasingly diverse society. It is a battleground now.

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  13. The administrators are not running Stanford. The martinets are.

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  14. People, such as students, make their own fun. Anyone who thinks that Stanford discourages this process is nuts and probably in need of mental health services. Yes, I am a Stanford alumna, and yes, sometimes I felt lost on the Campus. That is the experience of many if not most college students. If you can't make friends and make your own fun while living on a campus, you will have an even more difficult time out in the world of work. I have no sympathy for these rants. I believe most of them are targeting Stanford because of Stanford's liberal leanings.

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  15. My European frat life about 20 years ago was akin to the Stanford culture mentioned. My perception is that those currently most (business) successful are those that took on the organization of parties to the professional level. I think the party atmosphere was really conductive for developing the personal skills necessary to succeed in business. Building networks, getting people to help without any obligation to do so (that’s even easier in business than in student life!; some hierarchy is a blessing), getting things done safe and legally (we threw parties for 1500 people, nights in a row, with alcohol, in a swimming pool, at night with zero major incidents over a decade …). And we still all met up for lunch and studied in the afternoon. No professor track material, I agree, but business material sure so.

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  16. As an undergrad that’s just dropped out (mostly due to the social life), here’s my perspective:

    It’s just straight up boring (yes, I’m mostly referring to the weekends). Many people actually want to party in their college years.

    Most weekends go like this: nobody is out on one evening as it’s a “grind night”, and the next night you go to a party and it’s shut down early, or not many people are there etc.

    There’s a general sentiment now that Stanford is just a really boring school, and you should get your degree and get out. If you wanted to have fun in your college years you’d go to another school, but you will have Stanford on your resume for the rest of your life, and that’s worth it. Most people have lost steam on the social life, and it’s become a bit of a joke how bad it is (especially for the freshman, I’d imagine).

    I’ve spoken to 3-5 freshman this quarter, and 3 have explicitly said that they want to drop out. One has started applying to transfer to another school (a very good school, but also fun). The other two are just shocked that there can (almost hilariously) be a college with basically no parties on the weekend.

    There’s also nothing really around Stanford - you can go to SF, but that’s far away. San Jose isn’t great. Palo Alto is…

    As everyone has lost steam, the older years don’t really go out anymore (or try to go to SF, which is too expensive for most students). The freshman have the energy and aren’t jaded by the social life yet, so they try to go out, but parties are increasingly restricted, so they have a hard time on the weekends. I expect they’ll become jaded over the course of the year, and by the time they become juniors won’t be too passionate about uplifting the social life.

    Again, you’re stuck - you want to get the stanford degree, but it’s really boring and you basically have years of grinding to do. You can’t really go off campus to party. Campus is beautiful and people worked so hard to get here (and idolise it so much when they’re applying - I know I did), so there’s a conflicting “we’re so lucky to be here” and “realistically it’s so boring” conflict going on.

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    1. At the tech school I went to (described below) the freshman dropout rate was nearly 50%. Too much partying, and many people not prepared for the major jump in academic rigor from HS to Uni.

      I was in my early 20s when I started my undergrad and serious about education. I felt bad for the kids who were smart enough but not ready - many pushed there by their parents. Seems like a better plan in life for a lot of people might be to work at Big Burger for a few years and party your face off until you have that out of your system, then maybe go to CC and transfer when you're ready to prioritize education.

      Would be interesting to see the Stanford dropout rates over time. Have they changed at all? Maybe not.

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  17. Presumably Stanford has a board that hires the administration leadership - and unloads them if they don't approve of the administration's actions. So what has happened on the board to drive these changes? I'm not sure what to make of it. Maybe it's not as bad as its portrayed. I went to a science and engineering school with no frats or sororities and only intramural sports and no one was the worse for it. Our grads are highly successful in many technical fields and are working all over the world. The only sports team that played off campus was the rugby team and they were a problem - frequently doing disgusting things like crapping in the sinks in the communal bathrooms in the dorms and harassing people. Not exactly respected. OTOH we also had parties and festivals sponsored by the school where there was lots of drinking and general mayhem and sexuality, including a wet t-shirt contest for the ladies and a "hot tamale" contest for gentlemen - famously won several years in a row by an older faculty member. But this kind of stuff isn't very welcoming to - and in fact it's pretty risky for - young women and the school was predictably heavily male. I don't know what kind of celebrations go on there now, it's been decades, but probably the integrity of the school would survive and maybe even improve with a lot less drinking.

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    1. by any chance, is it a French one?

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  18. One might be inclined to describe Sam Bankman-Fried (M.I.T., Class of '14) as "slightly transgressive". FTX and Alameda might be classified, at some point, as "transgressive" organizations. Are the administrative officers at Stanford wrong to reel in the "Fun" activities of its undergraduate student body? Is "fun" the sole or main purpose of a university education? Should childhood be prolonged into one's early 20s? These are unserious young adults who are privileged to attend a leading university. They would greatly benefit from a few years working in industry or working for the Peace Corp before attending university. At a minimum, that experience (which they have largely avoided) would sober them up and make their subsequent years in university an undergraduate degree more productive and will provide them with a better foundation for their post-grad life.

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  19. Whatever one thinks of fraternities, the obvious, and inescapable, point here is the dictatorial over-reach by university administrators worldwide. First they came for the faculty, in the guise of prioritizing students. Now they've come for the students. Sooner or later, they'll encounter the fate of all revolutions and start turning on each other for the simple reason they'll have no other enemies left.

    University administrators have succumbed to the conceit of bureaucrats everywhere — they've rejected the idea that they work for staff and students and instead believe it's the other way round.

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  20. These students' idea of "fun" was apparently to politicize the halftime show and make it all a big whine about global warning. I'd have to say that a bunch of zoomer political obsessives, and an administration that hates fun, are a match made in heaven.

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