Running head: ALCOHOL AND TRADITIONS

Theoretical Case Analysis:

The Problems of Alcohol, Fraternities and Tradition at the University of Idaho
Bruce B. Mann
Seattle University
SDAD 576
Professor Jacob Diaz
March 10, 2014

ALCOHOL AND TRADITIONS

2
On a freezing January weekend in Moscow, Idaho, Joseph Weiderrick, a University of
Idaho (UI) freshman, left the Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) fraternity with an estimated .25-.30
blood alcohol level walking away from campus and his on-campus residence hall. His body was
discovered the next day miles away, having succumbed to hypothermia (Eiguren, 2013, Feb 14).
In the weeks following the death, UI President M. Duane Nellis created two task forces to
evaluate, assess and recommend courses of action around substance abuse and the universitys
relations with the Greek system.
Student deaths are not common at UI but this incident came on the heels of a spate of
incidents involving serious and severe injuries. Since 2004, there have been three students
seriously injured and five student deaths as a result of alcohol consumption. The fall of 2009 was
marked by two students falling from fraternity house windows within 12 days of each other after
consuming alcohol while under the legal age of consumption. In both cases serious injuries were
sustained and in one case the fall resulted in permanent brain damage. Two years later an
additional fall from a third-floor window of a fraternity house resulted in a fractured pelvis.
While these incidents are rare, they highlight an ongoing real and perceived problem on
the rural, mid-sized land grant institution around underage use and abuse of alcohol. UI for many
years has had the reputation as a party school with a culture of drinking (Sarton, 2013, Feb 5)
and after the Weiderrick death the administration appeared to take the problem more seriously
with the formation of the two task forces.
Binge drinking, alcohol abuse, and the issues that often accompany them (E.g. sexual
assault, injuries, death, health problems, poor academic performance) are not new to the UI (or
many other colleges) campus. The problem, while the media may exaggerate it at times, does

ALCOHOL AND TRADITIONS

3
exist at Idaho and attempts have been made to change the culture on campus. This all begs the
question of if the problem is known, why havent effective changes been implemented to reduce
the issues surrounding alcohol? By employing and examining various organizational theory
models, we can better understand system and stakeholder interactions at play at Idaho, and
hopefully highlight reasons why major change has yet to happen. The following will analyze
UIs alcohol problem by utilizing the organizational anarchy, cultural, and political theoretic
perspectives, wrapping up with suggestions on how best to move forward.
Background
While the number of alcohol related incidents at the University of Idaho are not
tremendously different than many other mid-to-large sized institutions, it is still a serious
problem that has dangerous health and safety consequences. Idahos reputation as a party
school is not entirely without merit given its recent legal history. Up to 1987, the legal drinking
age in the state of Idaho was 19 and until the early 90s alcohol consumption was permitted
wholesale on campus. The lower drinking age placed alcohol at the center of social life on
campus and in the small town of Moscow. At one point in the 80s there were over 26 bars
mostly along the stretch of streets leading from campus to downtown. After the law changed
putting the drinking age in line with the rest of the country, culture began to shift but very slowly.
From Dean of Students Dr. Bruce Pitman, It was putting toothpaste back in the tube, because
going from a social environment that was not only permissive but legal, to engage in a wide
range of social activity that involved alcohol (Tarinelli, 2014, Jan 30). While things have
improved, this centering of alcohol in the college life of students has persisted to the present time
and cannot be separated from the current issues facing the university.

ALCOHOL AND TRADITIONS

4
Organized Anarchy Perspective
The first organizational perspective we will employ to examine the issue at UI is
organized anarchy. Marked by the reality of trying to solve multiple goals and purposes,
organized anarchy is not rational in its approach to problem solving. According to Manning
(2013), organized anarchies have three main properties: problematic (unclear, contested and
competing) goals, unclear technology, and fluid participation. UIs overall structure and function
as a large multi-leveled institution with many competing goals can best be understood by
employing the organized anarchy model.
No one person, especially in a large organization such as UI, can understand all of the
goals, realities, and perceptions in the organization leading to a strong sense of uncertainty in the
organizational structure (Manning, 2013). This uncertainty combined with the reality of multiple
goals and purposes, leads to UI embodying the worst of the organized anarchy model while
being too large to reap its benefits related to flexibility. From Manning (2013, p. 15), the
unclear and contested goal structures of higher education institutions means that nearly anything
can be justified and almost anything could be attacked as illegitimate. These characteristics lead
to confusion and therefor stasis in the face of an not easily solved problem such as alcohol issues
at UI.
Not many stakeholders would disagree that something must be done to work to improve
the rates and effects of alcohol abuse on campus, but change has been slow and incremental due
to the multiple competing problematic goals and distrust of other stakeholders. Students are
resistant to any changes they see infringing on their freedoms and lives; alumni are powerful and
protective of their former fraternities and romanticized college life; administrators feel pressure

ALCOHOL AND TRADITIONS

5
from all sides including the media, State Board of Education, and donors; and student affairs
professionals are left to try and produce solutions without the support of the whole campus
community.
The organized anarchy model is best utilized when the organization can put aside the
competing goals to harness the benefits in its flexibility and fluid participation. Yet, especially in
the case of UI, that doesnt seem to happen often in reality. The model acknowledges issues with
self-interest, irrationality, and competing goals but those factors can render an organization slow
to adapt and change, like in this case. Organizational anarchy provides a decent lens in which
UIs dysfunction around improvement and change can be understood, but it is limited in helping
us understand the other factors at play including the role culture and tradition play in continuing
to prop up destructive behavior.
Cultural Perspective
UI was established in 1889 before Idaho was even recognized as a state, so it should
come as no surprise that tradition and culture play an important role in the organizational
structure and operation. Greek life has played a central role throughout the institutions history in
shaping traditions mostly in the positive. Currently, half of the students who live on campus
reside in privately owned fraternity and sorority houses and one third of the undergraduate
student population are members of a Greek organization. Greek life has played, and continues to
play a substantial role in shaping the rules, culture and norms of campus life at UI. At this point
it is important to note, however, that while many of the high profile incidents related to alcohol
involve the Greek community the problem is not isolated there, residence hall and off campus
students drink at similar rates as their Greek counterparts at UI. The power and influence of the

ALCOHOL AND TRADITIONS

6
Greek community and alumni on the process to improve issues around alcohol can be best
understood through the cultural organizational perspective.
Culture as a positive force builds community, creates congruence, gives strength and
provides clarity (Manning, 2013). The cultural perspective places the organization in the context
of history, traditions, and past players with major characteristics that include subcultures, values,
symbols, and organizational saga. All of these, and more, are at play at UI in relation to alcohol.
From the culture that emerged in the 70s and 80s with the lower drinking age, UI has history,
stories, and traditions with alcohol playing a supporting role in student life.
Just understanding the culture of an organization is not enough to understand how that
culture affects efforts for change. We must examine how the culture and traditions are used to
stymie or slow change to those stakeholders for whom the culture holds the most significance.
During my time working in student affairs at UI, there were multiple occasions that I listened as
Greek alumni (who were also large donors) reminisced on their days on campus and how much
fun the party culture was. When specific fraternity chapters have faced sanctions or reviews,
when the local police step up alcohol enforcement during football game tailgating, and when
changes to the 44-year-old student code of conduct have been proposed, powerful Greek alumni
have not been afraid to voice their displeasure with the university. Typically Greek alumni give
back to the institution at higher rates than others and with that fact can come a lot of power to
attempt to influence policy changes. A common refrain I heard from staff, faculty, and
administrations was the idea that UI must be careful about how it goes about fixing issues with
alcohol, lest Greek alumni donors see it as an attack on their tradition and culture.

ALCOHOL AND TRADITIONS

7
In this case the cultural perspective helps us understand the importance that culture can
play on a campus and how some stakeholders will use culture and tradition as a reason to oppose
change. Unfortunately, the cultural perspective is limited in adequately helping us understand
how the whole organization functions and does or does not affect change. When looking at an
organization through the cultural lens we tend to focus on the extremes; the positive, community
building traditions on one end and the negative, unsafe behaviors on the other. The perspective
fails to take a holistic look at the institutions culture including all that it is in the middle. As an
aside it also seem best suited, like in this case, to explaining a portion of the institution but not
the entire structure. For an organization to be purely conceived in the cultural model would
become an anachronism as the world changes around it.
Political Perspective
The next organizational theory that can help explain the slow pace of change and lack of
effective action in dealing with alcohol issues at UI is the political perspective. This lens views
the organization as an interacting set of relationships among individuals with differing interests
brought together for the sake of expediency (Manning, 2013). The relevant primary
characteristics of the political model of organization theory for this case include the presence of
coalitions and interest groups, prevailing of inactivity, and conflict as normal.
The political perspective can help us understand how the upper-level administration at UI
has attempted to deal with the issues involved with alcohol abuse in the past. Disengagement of
the majority of stakeholders on the issue has led to influence by special interests and power
elites to slow down or derail the process to affect change to the culture. Greek alumni and
donors along with current students and national Greek organizations form not-so-loose coalitions

ALCOHOL AND TRADITIONS

8
to protect their shared interests and promote inactivity. As mentioned previously, past efforts to
improve the culture around alcohol consumption have met with virulent opposition by these
groups. The political lens can also help explain the decision by the then UI President M. Duane
Nellis to move forward to create task forces to examine and provide solutions to the problem.
After the death of Weiderrick, the administration received pressure from other (nonGreek) interest groups to start working to solve the problem at UI. The media, State Board of
Education, faculty, and staff spoke up in greater numbers than in the past. This put the
administration in the position of having multiple, powerful stakeholders with competing goals
and agendas. The task force creation had the effect of showing that action was occurring without
substantively changing anything at that point. From a political point of view, the administration
was attuned to the attention cues of the majority (Manning, 2013), moving to action when faced
with rising frustrations regarding the continued pattern of inactivity. They were also able to quell
some dissent from the Greek and allied coalitions by staffing the Greek relations task force with
almost entirely Greek alumni. This co-optation served to minimize vocal dissent by including
them in the process.
The UI administration, it appeared, was moved to action after being faced with a political
reality that was affecting the image and power of the institution. In this case, the political
perspective helps us understand why progress was slow in the past and why finally some
movement was made for change. The political model alone, like many of the other organizational
theories presented in Manning (2013), is not sufficient to explain the complicated, dynamic
factors at play related to trying to change the culture around alcohol on campus. It helps explain
the reality of the interactions and influences of the multiple stakeholders, but also falls short in
helping understand the entire organization.

ALCOHOL AND TRADITIONS

9

Moving Forward
One single organizational theory cannot totally explain how an organization functions
when dealing with problems and working toward change. UI is a large, multi-level organization
with multiple stakeholders and coalitions that all have influence on the decisions of the
university. The decision to create the Greek relations and alcohol task forces by the President
represents the interplay of the political model with the bureaucratic and organized anarchy
perspectives. The Division of Student Affairs along with the local police department have been
working to solve the problem of underage drinking and general alcohol abuse for years but with
only small gains to show. This can be attributed to multiple factors but a primary one is that
without broad institutional support and solidarity across stakeholder lines, innovative programs
and changes have an uphill battle in the fight to improve student health and safety.
Solving the problems associated with underage drinking, binge drinking, alcohol abuse,
and the myriad of problems resulting from overconsumption, is not an easy task. It is also not a
problem that is specific to the UI campus, but that does not absolve UI from trying to find
solutions. The Presidential task forces came back with their recommendations in the fall that
include most notably changes to the student code of conduct (which had not been updated since
1969) and more university oversight of the Greek community. These are valid and valuable
changes, but it remains to be seen if it will be enough to overcome the powerful role culture and
tradition plays on the UI campus. From a legal and moral perspective, UI must concern itself
with issues of student safety but it must also be willing to go beyond incremental changes in
order to affect broad, lasting change. While increased oversight of the Greek community is a

ALCOHOL AND TRADITIONS

10
positive, more must be done to change the attitudes and values of the entire student community,
Greek and non-Greek alike.
In my opinion this is where the organizational theories presented by Manning fall short
from a critical multiculturalism and social justice perspective. They all fail to adequately
consider the role privilege, power, patriarchy, misogyny, sexism and racism play in shaping our
organization. We live and work in systems that are set up to privilege those in power who tend do
what they need to hold on to that power. Any organizational theory that fails to address these
issues is incomplete and only serves to help understand a piece of an organization rather than the
whole. The University of Idaho would be best served by critically examining its systems of
privilege and oppression and how they related to the issues of safety, health and alcohol abuse.

ALCOHOL AND TRADITIONS

11
References
Eiguren, Elisa. (2013, Feb 14). Moscow police: Wiederricks BAC as high as .3 percent. The
Argonaut. Retrieved from http://www.uiargonaut.com/2013/02/14/moscow-police
wiederricks-bac-as-high-as-3-percent/
Manning, Kathleen. (2013). Organizational Theory in Higher Education. New York, NY:
Routledge.
Sarton, Dee. (2013, Feb 5). UI student deaths raise concern over culture of drinking. KTVB.
http://www.ktvb.com/news/Police-UI-respond-to-culture-of-binge-drinking-perceptionafter-student-death-189956491.html
Tarinelli, Ryan. (2014, Jan 30). University of Idaho old school. The Argonaut. Retrieved from
http://www.uiargonaut.com/2014/01/30/university-of-idaho-old-school/