Letters: Memories of College
We read letters from our listeners regarding Diane Robert's essay on sorority rush.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
Time now for a couple of your letters.
Diane Roberts' essay on sorority rush week at Florida State University brought in a stream of angry e-mail, perhaps the irony she was thriving for didn't come through.
One of the more even tempered letters comes from Susan Hamen(ph) of St. Louis. She writes: Having endured the nightmare and humiliation of rush week many years ago, I waited to hear her moment of epiphany. Greek life is so shallow, so superficial. So she dug into her studies, became involved in meaningful activities and - but no, not only did she pledge but she became a model pledge. Just shows you can never predict the ending to a good story.
The essay also brought back an old memory for Edward Baxter(ph). He tell us, I haven't thought about rush week for a long, long time. And it suddenly occurred to me that in a few days, it would in fact be the 40th anniversary of my walking into a classroom as a graduate teaching assistant at FSU. My task was to convey the basic of English composition to the willing, the unwilling and the totally indifferent. The last two, especially included most of the young women in the course, during the first week or two of classes, as they focused with all the passion and intensity they could muster on attaining, above all else, acceptance by the house their choice.
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