The Change is Fraternity Life There are over 350 Greek fraternities and sororities classified as social organization, nationwide today. With so many Greek organizations at nearly every college campus, one must wonder, “How did it all begin”. Every fraternity has a beginning and the majority of them have the same story to go along with the founding. The founders of these fraternities are some of the most respected and brave men to accomplish such a big object, knowing what consequences may come along the way. In the year of 1776 on December 5th, five young men at the college of William and Mary located in Virginia, came together to form the first known Greek-letter fraternity in the United States. The five men who started this group were John Heath, Thomas Smith, Richard Booker, Armistead Smith and John Jones. They thought long and hard of a name using the Greek alphabet that meant something they could live by and a standard these men could hold themselves too. They then named their fraternity Phi Beta Kappa. Phi Beta Kappa stands for the Latin words, philosophia biou kubernetes, meaning ‘Philosophy the Guide of Life’. Even though the existence of religious and trade societies is crucial to the establishment of college fraternities in their basic form, the founding of Phi Beta Kappa, the first Greek-letter college fraternity in America, was due to the desire by its members to unify students at the nine colleges in the colonies and to strengthen the intellect of the members (Fleming). These men lived by three principles “Fraternity, Morality and Literature.” The founding of most college social Greek-letter fraternities was founded during the time of World War II. Fraternities were mainly founded in the state of Virginia and surrounding states in the years 1860-1870. The creation of fraternities was mainly to promote brotherly love, kind feeling, and to hold each other to a higher standard, so one may most successfully accomplish their objects and goals. The reason there are so many different fraternities today, is because every group may believe in the same principles, but may disagree with a principle that other fraternities promote. Therefore, they resolved to form their own fraternity so that one person can promote his values and share them with others who have a common mindset. Since the founding of fraternities at the majority of colleges over 125 years ago, social fraternities have grown tremendously to nearly every college in the nation. The rapid growth of fraternities has had people stereotyping this subculture in negative ways. The view on this youth subculture, from non-members, is generally talking down on the group by basically saying fraternities are rich and spoiled college kids who want to party nonstop. Fraternities generally seem like they would be filled with students who would not make it through their entire four years of school. Though, this may be true for the ‘Frat Guy’ from movies, the real men of fraternities end up doing very will in school and with their life. There is a seventy percent graduation rate for members of fraternities, compared to the independent college students who have a less than fifty percent chance of graduating. Since 1910, eighty-five percent of Supreme Court justices have belonged to a fraternity. In addition, of the nations 50 largest corporations, 43 of those are headed by men of this subculture (Daley). The numbers do not lie and show that being Greek is not such a bad thing after all. With chapters expanding all over the country, people are hearing stories of more and more incidents being broadcasted by the media. A dramatic change that has occurred since the founding of social fraternities that is often shown by the media is hazing. When fraternities were established, there were no rules to what you can do to a potential new member to prove how far they were willing to go and their determination to be in a fraternity. Hazing pledges has been part of being a