Sometimes good things come to those who wait. Case in point: the results of the fall 2007 Fraternity and Sorority Perception survey at Lehigh University, which was only just released for the first time this week. According to the survey, most people consider Greek life at Lehigh a positive thing, though they find it worrisome that it seems a bit saturated with booze, drugs, abusive initiation rights, ethnocentricity, and decreased safety for women. Um, yeah, that seems like Greek life is associated with lots of positive stuff.

The Brown and White reports:

Results of the fall 2007 Fraternity and Sorority Perception survey released this week suggest 63.5 percent of respondents have an overall "positive" perception of Greek life at Lehigh, but highlight concerns with alcohol, drug use, hazing, women's safety and a lack of diversity within the Greek community.

 

Respondents chose "partying," "social," "fun" and "involved on campus" as the top adjectives to describe Greek organizations at Lehigh, with "highly respected" and "diverse" chosen least.

 

Only 17.2 percent of Lehigh's population responded to the survey, making it difficult to generalize results to the entire community, according to the results summary. The recommended response rate for an online survey is 40 percent or greater.

 

…Tim Wilkinson, director of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs, said low response rates, analysis and necessary approval from the Institutional Review Board caused the delay in releasing the results. The findings were not surprising, he said, but will be used to assess the Greek community's next steps.

 

"I think we are very involved and I think we are leaders on campus and I think that comes through," Wilkinson said. "I don't want to say Greeks should be concerned about one thing over another. I think all the things on there, positive or negative, are things that we thought would be on there."

Okay, who is this Wilkinson guy and how old was he when his mother dropped him on his head? Just because results are expected doesn’t really mean that that makes them any less problematic. Consider, for example, teenage pregnancy. Sure, it might be expected if you don’t use any birth control, but it’s still not exactly a good thing. Or take the New England Patriots. Of course it’s expected that they wouldn’t do as well this year without quarterback Tom Brady, but that doesn’t mean that Patriots fans are pleased that their team didn’t make it to the Super Bowl this year.

Either way though, Wilkinson is correct in his assumption that the results aren’t that mind-blowing. It’s just too bad he wouldn’t rather dispel concerns about many issues raised in the survey.