“We’re looking for gentlemen, scholars, and jolly good fellows,” says Adonis Lopez, outlining the character requirements to be a “Deke” brother.

He is one—proud of it too—and that means belonging to the prestigious fraternity Delta Kappa Epsilon, which squats in a big, creaky house just north of campus. Lopez is also the frat’s co-ordinator of Rush, a neatly-dressed recruitment week (or weeks) when fraternities open up their doors and hopeful members nicknamed “rush” pledge to become brothers.

Seventeen fraternities here at U of T are recruiting new members this September and Delta Kappa Epsilon is vying for potential brothers, making sure to shun those who think frats are something they are not. But some of the hosted events here might raise a distinguished eyebrow, like “Beer Tasting Night,” where domestic beers are rated for flavour, aftertaste, and overall drinking experience.

Lopez takes us around the stately and squeaky-clean kitchen. There are stainless steel Vulcan stoves to our left, and industrial pot sinks to our right. The residence rooms are large and airy. The alumni room has comfortable couches arranged around X-Box consoles that the jolly good fellows at Microsoft have set up for the evening. Wesley Walsh, a rush who attended Western but didn’t join any fraternities there, points out an LGBTQ Positive Space sticker on a room door. “Look at that,” he says.

I sit in the lounge with a complimentary Molson Dry and watch A Beautiful Mind on satellite TV. SAC president Rocco Kusi-Achampong walks into the room.

“Hey you’re the SAC president,” I say.

“Yeah,” he says. We are all brothers in the house of Delta Kappa Epsilon.

Though the turnout is relatively sparse tonight, everyone is in good spirits, shaking hands, mingling, and enjoying the evening. Everything’s nice.

Sitting on a six-pack

But wait a second—shouldn’t we be having a drunken orgy here? Certainly this isn’t a party night, when, perhaps, a fraternity is at its most revealing. Is this casual and friendly atmosphere what Delta Kappa Epsilon really wants to project? If alumnus George W. Bush were to rush Delta Kappa Epsilon today, would he be with it, or against it?

It’s difficult to reconcile the polite company before me with the certain stigma that the fraternity carries—that it’s an exclusionary institution catering to snobbish, career-driven yuppies who vent their white, upper-middle-class angst by partying 24-7 with occasional brutal and drunken hazing while wearing togas.

“It’s not reality,” says Eddie Middaugh, Delta Upsilon’s recruitment director, sitting in his fraternity’s living room. “It’s the Hollywood image of fraternities. We’re non-elitist, we have no cliques in the house, everyone gets along.”

Real-life incidents of “Greek life” gone wrong have been highly publicized, though. In May, fraternities were banned at Alfred University in St. Bonaventure, NY, after a Zeta Beta Tau member, Benjamin Klein, was found dead on a frozen creek. He had been beaten for spilling his fraternity’s secrets to outsiders. In January of last year, Indiana University—the Princeton Review’s number one party school for 2002—banned Theta Chi after one of its members, 19-year-old Seth Korona, was found dead due to alcohol poisoning.

Vivake Khan, vice-president of Beta Theta Pi’s Toronto chapter, points out that negative incidents can happen anywhere. “What you do is what you do. It has nothing to do with being in a fraternity.” He adds that these sorts of incidents have not happened here in Toronto—“The stereotypes come from the States.”

Toronto fraternities have not been completely free of distasteful incidents. In October 2000, an Alpha Delta Phi brother was charged with “weapons danger to the public peace” after allegedly firing a BB gun from his window at the fraternity’s house on Prince Arthur avenue.

Andrew Broad, Rush director for Alpha Delta Phi, is both amiable and unarmed, and dispels the notion that his fraternity caters to puerile interests. “This isn’t a drinking club,” he says. Rather, he emphasizes the brotherhood aspect cultivated in the house. And unlike certain American chapters, parties at this Magna American chapter are well-regulated.

Broad’s father and uncle are both alumni of the chapter, and its rush are usually friends of current members. However, Broad says, the fraternity’s rush process doesn’t indulge in patronage when it comes to choosing brethren. “It’s more the person than where they come from,” he says.

Delta Kappa Epsilon chapter resident Dominic Lacroix agrees, pointing to its membership’s diverse cultural background. “The university changes and we change too, you know? When the fraternity started this university was full of Anglo-Saxon guys.” A quick survey around the room records five Caucasians, four East Asians, two African Canadians, one South Asian, and one Southeast Asian.

Long live Nero

Toronto fraternities may very well have a clean, reputable disposition, and Rush events may accurately reflect its character. But is this entirely a good thing?

Images gleaned from CNN and Hollywood of wild, crazed fraternities do have their positive aspect. In films like Animal House and Dead Man on Campus, fraternity members exemplify both an Apollonian virility and a Dionysian decadence, which are largely wanting in this era of emasculating political correctness. When Nietzsche called upon modern men to imitate the Greeks, surely he would have held up the fraternity as a living paradigm had he not been so hung up on Wagner.

In short, fraternities have been supposed by many to offer a place where men can be men. Now that certain fraternities have banned hazing, gone dry, set minimum GPAs, and even become co-ed, could this new conservatism draw fraternity members from emulating Apollo and Dionysus, to emulating someone a little more like George W. Bush.

“No,” says Don Lee, a Delta Kappa Epsilon member. He thinks the contemporary fraternity can strike a balance. “We can talk about totally serious stuff one minute, and then it’s like, tits and ass—you know what I mean? It lets off stress.”

Ryan Reaney, Delta Upsilon’s security manager, says that it’s a question of values. “If you’re only into drinking and that stuff, then sure, we’re not what you’re looking for. We’ve always been non-secretive, non-hazing. We’ve always been a fraternity based on merit.”

Middaugh points out that Delta Upsilon has been socially responsible since day one. They organize food drives, volunteer at the Scott Mission and award academic scholarships. The crazy eighties can be seen in this context as an aberration on its sum history.

Besides, “We live our own lives. We don’t live the lives of the past,” he says. Sitting behind him are a hundred baleful, long-dead frat brothers glaring down from a set of framed photos.

Ryan invites me to stick around and to take in the atmosphere. Eerily, the X-Box consoles from Delta Kappa Epsilon have reappeared in the Delta Upsilon courtyard across the road. A couple of people play basketball. Burgers cook on a barbecue at the side of the house. A couple of rush come over and we mingle. It’s a beautiful autumn evening and it’s very pleasant. It’s so pleasant, in fact, that by now I consider joining a fraternity myself. So what exactly can fraternities offer the average communist and bi-curious figure-skating fan?

Beta Theta Pi treasurer Stephen Murray says fraternities, which are student-run and separate from the university, encourage members to take on responsibilities they wouldn’t assume elsewhere.

He sits comfortably on his frat’s porch and sprays the lawn with a hose. “It’s a lot of work joining a fraternity. I would never do this at home,” he explains. When asked what his fraternity looks for in a rush, he considers for a minute. “We’re looking for a guy who won’t scare the chicks away.” He smiles, then pauses. “I shouldn’t say ‘chicks,’ should I?”

Illustration by Derrick Chow