As bashes go, the party at the Alpha Tau Omega house was an old rerun: fraternity members donned leis, frolicked with sorority sisters and drank gallons of beer.
But it was the last of its kind at Southern Illinois University. Greek Row here is going dry."This is going to kill recruitment," said Sean Pechan, a 22-year-old advertising major, who said he doubted that students would be willing to dress in togas or grass skirts while sober. "It just wouldn't be the same."
It is a change that will surely flabbergast some old alums returning at Homecoming this fall. As part of a pilot program, Southern Illinois and four other American colleges are banning alcohol in their fraternities. Two national fraternities have also vowed to ban alcohol in all chapters by 2000.
National fraternity leaders say that "substance-free housing" - tobacco is also forbidden - will become the norm at fraternities on American campuses in the next few years. Alcohol has always been banned at sororities.
"We're trying to change the culture of fraternities who misuse alcohol," said Jonathan Brant, an official with the National Interfraternity Conference, calling for what he described as a return to the founding principles of fraternities: scholarship and public service.
He conceded that many members would not be pleased. "There are people who joined a fraternity to consume alcohol," Brant said. "They're not happy."
But he said many young fraternity leaders are working hard to fight alcohol abuse. Indeed, he noted the "odd dynamic" of older alumni going back to the fraternity house "to relive college for a weekend," and encouraging the students to drink up.
"It takes a lot of courage for a junior or a senior to stand up to an older person and say, `I'm sorry, but times have changed,' " Brant said.
A Harvard University study in 1995 found that fraternity members are more likely than other students to drink in binges. Over the years, there have been many tragedies involving alcohol at fraternities. In February, a 17-year-old boy at Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y., died from an alcohol overdose at a fraternity house.
The four other colleges that volunteered to take part in Select 2000, the pilot program to ban alcohol in fraternities, are Villanova in Pennsylvania, Florida Southern, Northern Colorado and the Rochester (N.Y.) Institute of Technology.
In Utah, the "dry frat" movement began at Utah State University two years ago and has been spreading ever since.
While not included as one of the four pilot schools in Select 2000, USU voluntarily adopted the program's principles in 1995 in response to growing problems along frat row.
Citing the large number of police calls and complaints at the houses, one USU official said at the time the fraternities deserved to be called a "row of saloons." One fraternity, Phi Gamma Delta, opted to drop its university affiliation rather than accept the ban.
This year, two fraternities at the University of Utah, Sigma Nu and Phi Delta Theta, received word from their national organizations that they, too, would join the Select 2000 movement.
Other local chapters of national fraternities are expected to follow suit as alcohol abuse takes an increasing toll in property damage, liability insurance and academic performance.
On the national scene, some of the fraternity members found it irksome that stricter rules were being imposed by baby boomers who are now college administrators and national fraternity association leaders.
"There's a little hypocrisy here," said Pechan, the advertising major, who has heard stories from a generation or more ago, when fraternity house parties rolled through the nights, with keg after keg of beer, and marijuana smoke wafted down halls of dormitories.
"I think this is unconstitutional," said Ryan Anthony, a fraternity member.
Members of fraternities here complain that they are being singled out, since students who live off campus are obviously free to drink in their homes. But since universities own the fraternities, they have the authority to impose such rules. The fraternity members also say they resent the caricature of "frat-rats" interested in little more than beer blasts and sexual conquests.
The brothers at Alpha Tau Omega, for example, participated in many community service pro-jects during the last year, raising money to fight multiple sclerosis and organizing blood drives.
"We do a lot of good things and work very hard," said Craig Troyer, a senior and former president of Alpha Tau Omega. "The parties are seen as a reward for that work. It just doesn't seem fair."