Fraternal Intimacy

what it means to be close on the court

j e f f   d o n o w i t z

When people come to college, they come with all different sorts of expectations. These expectations range from the classroom to the field to the party playground. If one fall a student finds himself at Chambers' daunting door, his expectations for college will be put to the test by our teachers, staff, students, and by Patterson Court.

We all realize that Davidson's fraternities are a little different than the large party palaces that line the streets in the neighborhoods around big state schools. Patterson Court doesn't offer its members the relationships formed in these large beer halls of social and sexual experimentation. What we offer is a different kind of relationship. Frats at Davidson mean a multitude of things that cannot be foreseen by the new pledge. With a pledge pin comes obscene dues, date functions, guys from nationals, campus stereotypes (both true and untrue), and all-day service projects. With a pledge pin comes the right to come into a corndog lunch and cuss for an hour about the chem test you just bombed to whomever might also be eating. You have the right to discuss the events of your third date with the cute international girl and get critiqued on your poor restaurant choice. You get the right to listen to whichever of the forty guys is around and hear their daily gripes, rousing successes, and weekend tales. What you get when you join a fraternity at our school is a right to, at any time, enter into a thriving forum on Davidson.

The bonds developed during one's time in a Davidson frat differ. They range from someone you nod at in chambers to the guy you're adding numbers with come RLO lottery time. By the time you get your gown at the vary first "senior event" there will be those within the house you mesh with better than others. It is these chosen few, among the pack with whom the bonds developed run deep.

These select are the ones you have lived amongst for four years. They know which brand of toothpaste you use and if you wear the same size clothes. They know how you like to party, how you hit on girls, and how you act at four in the morning the night before a final. They know the "Davidson you" better than anyone else. They've seen all of you, from the "stressed-to-the-limit" you to the "nothing-to-do-but relax" you, and you know too.

Davidson expects a lot from a person. It throws difficulties at each of these friends, and you've shared it with them. Together you searched for your maenads, and it was their council you sought when the Code of Responsibility changed again. You've shared the most jovial high and the most doleful low and when it comes time to gather in that great receiving line and walk away, diploma in hand, these few will be the only ones that know what that moment means to you and you will be one of the few that understands it for them. Like before, this great moment will be shared among these friends and we will be able to shake hands on that day as fellow accomplishers, brothers in our mutual experience and our mutual success.