Over the past several months, fraternities here at Texas Tech, as well as fraternities at universities across the nation, have come under fire as a whole because the actions of a small group of individuals, and has put a bad name on the Greek society. The events that have happened especially here at Texas Tech are both tragic and morally reprehensible. The events range from several students lives being cut short after fraternity events, to a couple of pictures taken at a theme party. It is because of these respective events, that the Texas Tech greek system has lost multiple fraternities to suspension or removal by either their respective national headquarters or by the university. 

Now, why have these individual events caused such a problem for the Greek population?, I believe it is because people are misinformed and judge us, based solely on what is presented in the national media. The media only portrays the negatives of fraternity life, and does not show the positives of a young man being part of a fraternity.

The key aspects that are part of fraternity life are philanthropy, brotherhood, and leadership. All three of these things are positive aspects of fraternities, that the media chooses to ignore, and that in turn, causes the outside world to not see all the good that we do in this world.

Philanthropy is defined as "the desire to promote the welfare of others, expressed especially by the generous donation of money to good causes." In 2012 alone, fraternities nationwide donated over ten million dollars to their respective charities.

Brotherhood is something that drove me to picking my fraternity over several others here at Texas Tech, I wanted to be somewhere where I could build relationships for many years to come. I did not realize how big a brotherhood, I was joining however, and I wouldn't realize until this past summer, when I was interviewing for internships, and I put the name of my fraternity on my resume, and the gentleman that interviewed me happened to be an alumni brother from another chapter. It was because of this relationship, that I was able to land the job over the other candidate. 

Leadership is something that plays a huge part of fraternity life, whether its during your time as an undergrad or as an alumni. In the world of today, fraternity men almost control the economy and the government. This can be shown through multiple statistics. 

1. Of the nation’s 50 largest corporations, 43 are headed by fraternity men. 

2. 85% of the Fortune 500 executives belong to a fraternity.

3. 40 of 47 U.S. supreme court justices since 1910 were fraternity men.

4. 76% of all congressmen and senators belong to a fraternity, every U.S. President and Vice President, except two in each office, born since the first social fraternity was founded in 1825 have been members of a fraternity, 63% of the U.S. President’s Cabinet members since 1900 have been Greek.

These respective statistics prove that leadership is bread in fraternity life, and that without fraternities, who knows where America would be today.

It is through these three key aspects of fraternity life that I would like change the way the media and the world as we know it sees fraternity man. Let's change our image from party animals to world leaders.