Societal ideal?
March 8, 2007
Animal House? Van Wilder? Not quite.
| By Christopher Im, Contributor | |||||||||||||||||
| Thursday, March 8 2007 | |||||||||||||||||
| A Schulicher’s experience at one of York’s “unofficial” fraternities.
With fraternities, or “frats” as they are commonly called, what you see isn’t always exactly what you get. The sights you’ve seen in movies and on TV isn’t necessarily an accurate representation of what a fraternity is, nor what it stands for. In 1989, the president of York University declared that fraternities and sororities should not be granted official status. The reason cited was that the group’s commitment to exclusivity is in direct conflict with York’s general principles of inclusivity. Further, both fraternities and sororities are often associated with inappropriate conduct. However, there are currently both fraternities and sororities running at York, albeit unofficially. I had the opportunity to rush, pledge, and serve as a brother of Phi Delta Theta, one of York’s fraternities. While I am no longer with the fraternity, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t learn something and didn’t have fun in the process. Learning and having fun – at the same time! Here’s how it unfolds: It all starts with the rush period. Rushing is arguably the most fun part of becoming a brother. You go out to various social events to meet the brothers and learn about fraternity life. Said events range from poker nights to wing nights to parties, all of which are held on the coin of the fraternity. It’s actually loads of fun, being able to meet new people who you otherwise may not have met. All this culminates with the Phi Delta Theta “smoker”, a formal event where you get to meet a lot of successful alumni while enjoying a cigar – real sophistication! If you have a successful rush period, you are chosen as a pledge, or a “Phikeia” as it is called in Phi Delta Theta. During this eight week period, you are taught fraternity and chapter history, moral principles, personal responsibility and the principles behind the brotherhood. Granted, that sounds a bit boring, but it’s all actually rather interesting material. At the very least, they were readings that I didn’t mind doing. However, studying the aforementioned material isn’t the only aspect of your pledge period. You are also required to take part in a volunteer activity as well as a housing project. The former is self-explanatory. The latter is a day or two where you and your pledge brothers (those picked along with you) undertake a renovation project for the fraternity house. Yes, Phi Delta Theta does have a fraternity house (aka frat house) which is definitely cool. After the eight week period, I came out of the experience telling myself, “I learned a lot… I think.” In hindsight, I really did learn a lot. I mean, I can still recite the Greek alphabet, and how many people can say that? Once you do get through that pledge period, it’s like a whole new world is opened up. As a brother there are a lot of perks that you don’t get to see as a rush or a pledge. Of course, I can’t talk about that… I do have to explain why I left, though. The whole experience was fun and like I said before, you do learn a lot. However, it really isn’t for everybody. For example, the time commitment is something you should really consider before joining, as it is quite significant. Despite the fact that I am no longer with Phi Delta Theta, it is not an experience I regret at all. For more information about Phi Delta Theta, you can check out their website at www.ontariodelta.com or email them at The Innovation: Peer-to-peer lending
The Disrupted: Traditional banks Any industry making a huge profit margin off its customers is a good candidate for disruption. Banking is a classic case — just think of the 19 percent interest you pay on credit cards and the 2 percent you earn on your savings account. Zopa is closing that gap by using the Web to allow personal lending on a massive scale. The startup was the first company to introduce peer-to-peer lending in the United Kingdom 18 months ago and is about to launch in America. “What Skype did to telecoms, this could do to banks,” says David Cowan of Bessemer Venture Partners, which contributed some of the $31 million in funding the startup has attracted to date. Scott Anthony, a managing director of Clayton Christensen’s consulting firm, Innosight, is intrigued by the disruptive potential of peer-to-peer lending. “Are there ways to loan amounts that banks won’t lend because they’re too small,” he asks, “or to serve customers who would otherwise never be served?” The idea is simple. People join Zopa online as either borrowers or lenders. The lenders proffer money not to individuals but to a pool of people grouped together because of similar creditworthiness. Zopa assesses the credit risk of the borrowers, pools the capital, and matches consumers who need money with consumers who want to lend it. Since Zopa is not technically a bank and doesn’t lend money itself, the capital requirements to run the business are relatively small. The average interest rate on a Zopa loan is 7 percent. For the lenders, that’s much better than even a CD, and for the borrowers, it sure beats a credit card or most bank loans. Zopa takes a 1 percent fee, split between the borrower and the lender. So far, about 90,000 people have signed up, and more than $100,000 is lent every day (totaling more than $10 million so far). And only 0.05 percent of Zopa’s loans have turned into uncollectible debts. “We are moving from a consumer society of mass production to a society where we are defined more as individuals,” says Zopa CEO Richard Duvall. Yet in banking, Duvall points out, “there are still enormous corporations controlling our money.” Duvall believes that a nimble Zopa can trounce banks in assessing credit by gauging things that banks typically don’t review, such as a person’s eBay ratings. And he’s injecting a social aspect into lending. Just as in a social network, lenders can read the online profiles of the people borrowing their money. “If I borrow from real people,” Duvall says, “I’m more likely to pay back than if I borrow from a faceless bank.” 
| |||||||||||||||||
