Univ. of California at Berkeley: Cliques and Student Alienation

Several years ago a University of California humor magazine published a map which charts the meeting place of every fraternity and sorority on the Berkeley campus. Around the "Sally tree" gather the Tri-Delts and across Dwinelle Plaza mingle the Dekes. This burlesque tour of the "ins and outs" of the Plaza was not only a surprisingly accurate joke, but an ironic comment on life at the Berkeley school.

To uninitiated Easterners the University of California at Berkeley usually glows with the promise of incessant sunshine and 17,000 tanned, wildly social collegiates. When compared to the slush of a Cambridge winter and the frequent dearth of "available" 'Cliffies, the Cal student does indeed lead a glamorous life. Yet it is the unfortunate plight of Berkeley students that intense social pressure deprives many of them of a full share of the advantages which are so glaringly available.

The prime feature of Berkeley is its size and diversity. Students from the 50 states and 97 foreign countries throng through Sather Gate every morning not only with tans but with beards, sandals, and briefcases. Combined with the academic strength of one of the country's ablest faculties are vast athletic and recreational facilities.

Important as well is the freedom and independence which every student enjoys. An undergraduate may live in dorms, fraternities and sororities, small approved rooming houses, apartments, or at home. Despite this wide choice, over 80 percent of the student body lives within ten blocks of the campus.

To service this vast congregation of students, a sprawling and strikingly modern student union was constructed about five years ago. Administration officials are very pleased with the success the Union has had. Three separate cafeterias are packed during lunch, the pool hall and bowling alley are in constant use, and the lounges are crowded at all hours.

To the Harvard freshman, perplexed by his failure to meet girls, the student union provides a frustrating contrast to Cambridge. Not only are all the Union cafeterias completely co-educational, but the many lounges provide a perfect meeting place that widener will never equal. At least once a month, the student government (the Associated Students of the University of California, or more commonly the ASUC) sponsors dances attended by as many as 1500-2000 students. Every Friday night, a cabaret features night-club entertainment and "soft beer" for 25*; capacity crowds of 500 are quite common.

The two sexes are thrown together even more blatantly in the University residence halls, in which about 5000 students live. In each complex, two women's and two men's dorms are clustered around a common dining hall. At every meal, the entire melange of 880 undergraduates eats together. To supporters of giving 'Cliffies interhouse dining privileges at Harvard, no situation could be more ideal.

The ideal deteriorates, however, when we examine student groupings within these dorms. One sophomore, now living in a fraternity, noted that during his freshman year in a dorm he met very few people. He had come to Cal with several friends from high-school, and had been so overwhelmed by the size of his dorm that he rarely moved outside his small group.

Many Cal students experience the same problem. One begins to realize that size is not only Cal's major feature but also its major problem. In addition to presenting a vast opportunity, the large, polymorphous student body can pose a frightful prospect of insecurity and alienation.

Berkeley students, many of somewhat questionable academic ability and uncertain ambitions, face from the very beginning of their college careers an implicitly hostile environment. Confronted by a splintered student body, many students are forced more deeply into whatever group affiliations they can salvage.

The initial experience of "smallness" is even more acute than at Harvard. One girl, wandering aimlessly through the Bear's Lair, one of the Union cafeterias, complained, "I never see anyone I know here anymore." To overcome this loneliness, the high school friend becomes a powerful crutch.

Since over half of the undergraduates from California live in the San Francisco area, and more than 4000 come from one county alone, many students find it easy to stay within their knot of previous acquaintances.

Eventually, though, students cannot help joining specifically campus groups. More than half of the 30 per cent of the freshman living in dorms soon move out, most frequently to fraternities, sororities, or apartments.

It is at this juncture that severe group pressures begin to attack the student. Specific cafes and plazas are the very definite hangouts of various groups. On the Terrace, another of the Union lunch spots, a large foreign and graduate student block congregates. Both the Bear's Lair and Jules', an off-campus restaurant, are the sanctums of the fraternity-sorority crowd. One sorority girl commented that she "never saw any of her friends on the Terrace," but always found them at Jules'.

As well, the infamous soap box orations which are a Berkeley institution are regularly atended by a distinctly "Beatnik" and semi-intellectual crowd. Several espresso cafes also serve as forums for this group.

Cal's cliquishness even thrives in its political groups. For example, Slate, the reasonably influential, peace-oriented student political party, has its own social gatherings, which draw a constant flock of distinctly "Slate-types." One sophomore commented that he had been deterred from joining Slate for fear of being "lost in the clique."

The most stereotyped examples of social pressure are the sororities, to which just under one-quarter of the women belong. "Pledges," the sorority initiates, are urged to look their best and to act sociably. A few sororities reputedly accept only blondes. One "Sally," as the house members are called, said that "the girls think only of dates, and nothing else."

Even the small rooming houses for women, which are no more than small dorms and are not selective, pressure their residents into active social lives. According to a freshman in a very small house, it is almost mandatory to attend the Saturday-night parties.

Fraternities, which include about 20 per cent of the men, place even more pressure on their members. They offer a pleasant way of meeting one small group of friends, but within the group, the influence on the individual is strong. The "frat-rats" seldom associate with students outside their own house. According to Peter van Houton, Assistant Dean of Students, very few of the fraternity members attend the ASUC sponsored dances at the Union; each house has its own party on the week-end.

Very apparent, as well, is the effect that the fraternities have upon scholastic averages. On a four-point grade scale, the over-all average of fraternity pledges is 2.1, as compared to a campus-wide average of 2.5, a rather significant difference. Even more suggestive is the fact that out of the eight fraternities with the highest scholastic averages, four are either Jewish or Oriental. The other four are very small, socially unacceptable houses.

Another victim of the "groupiness" at Berkeley is the large colony of foreign students. Of the 2300 foreign students at Cal about 350 live in the huge International House. Despite an effort to mix them with Americans, most of the foreign students keep to their own nationality. The large block of Orientals, including 550 Chinese and Japanese citizens, is especially cohesive.

Perhaps the most confusing aspect of this fragmentation of the University is that it makes it virtually impossible to ascertain exactly how many students are involved in precisely what cliques or even more important, how many students are influenced. Cal is most certainly not of the Mid-western breed--there are no football idols and there is certainly not as much diehard campus spirit. Berkeley is sophisticated enough to avoid such conformity.

Yet Berkeley is also not a melting-pot of left wing non-conformists, as many would like to imagine. The intellectuals and peace marchers are only one of these many groups; their numbers are far less significant than their noise would suggest.

In fact, the number of Berkeley students subjected to group pressures seems quite large indeed. With the California Master Plan for State Education, a grand formula for channeling less able high school graduates into the state and junior colleges, still-in its initial stages, Cal admits many students with very capricious academic ambitions and rather dubious abilities.

In a survey conducted by the Berkeley Survey Research Center, only 30 percent of the entering freshmen considered the probability that they would graduate as "extremely likely." Also, about 30 per cent of the freshmen were below the top tenth of their class. It is this large block of students who become overwhelmingly concerned with their social life and they are the most susceptible to the social pressure.

Until the Master Plan transforms Berkeley into a more genuine center of academically oriented students, its size and diversity will continue to force many students to withdraw into their own cliques. For those many students caught between somewhat faint academic ambitions and intense social pressures, Berkeley will continue to be a surprisingly unrewarding and sometimes unpleasant experience