Hooking Up at Penn, Shutting Down Cornell Frats, and Losing a Python at Dartmouth

The quick and dirty about what's been going on around the Ancient Eight.

Most Ivy League students have traded in their textbooks for ties or travel for the summer, but that hasn't kept their campuses out of the headlines in recent weeks.

In case you missed it, the New York Times reported a shocking new trend in a feature last month detailing the "hookup culture" at Penn: Some college-aged women have casual sex. (Wow.) What could possibly explain this breaking news, you ask? In fact, the paper of record concludes, some college women are too busy or ambitious for committed relationships, among other factors.

That might seem simplistic, particularly for a nearly 4,800-word article that took months to report, and students at Penn seem to agree. The Daily Pennsylvanian reports that, of the students they interviewed, "most" objected to the article’s portrayal of their campus. The DP also published its own editorial proclaiming that “[author Kate] Taylor drew conclusions that inaccurately represented and overly generalized the university's student body.”

In more serious news over in New Haven, Yale released its fourth semi-annual report of sexual misconduct complaints this past Wednesday. A total of 61 complaints of sexual assault, harassment, or other misconduct were brought to Yale officials between Jan. 1 and June 30. That number represents the greatest number of reported complaints since Yale began releasing the reports, according to the Yale Daily News.

At Cornell, more fraternities than even exist at Harvard are in trouble with the university for reports of hazing. Cornell shut down two fraternities and sanctioned four more following investigations that occurred during the spring. One frat is being punished by being put on "provisional recognition status for at least four years,"according to the Cornell Daily Sun—something that wouldn’t be such a big deal at Harvard, considering that officials here refuse to recognize frats and sororities (not to mention final clubs) at all.

Greek life is also once again in the news at Dartmouth, where fraternities came under national scrutiny in 2012 after Rolling Stone magazine published a piece detailing allegations of hazing at a campus fraternity. Last month, a three-foot ball python went missing from a coed fraternity for several days, only to be found by a dog who was "'yapping really loudly,'" The Dartmouth reported.