Introducing: Campus Files

College holds a mythic place in American culture, but behind the polished campus tours and glossy brochures lies a far more complicated reality. Each episode of Campus Files uncovers a new story that rocked a college or university. Consider this your unofficial campus tour.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Kaelyn Moore?

  Hey there Rogue Detecting Society. I wanted to let you know about a show that covers some darkly curious topics at unexpected places, specifically America's colleges and universities. Okay, maybe it's not that unexpected. Some hearts are pounding episodes have definitely taken us into higher learning on several occasions, but Campus Files digs into the archives of American colleges and universities to take us behind some of the most outrageous scandals in the history of higher education. From rigged admissions to sports scandals to Greek life drama, Campus Files shares the stories you won't hear on the campus tours. Check out this preview and be sure to listen to and follow

• 0:40Kaelyn Moore?

  Campus Files, an Odyssey original podcast. Available now wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks, guys.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  So I am from Alabama and went to University of Alabama from 2010 to 2014.

• 0:55Speaker 02

  This is Abby Crane. She's a third generation University of Alabama student.

• 1:00Speaker 01

  Really not a whole lot went into choosing my school. My dad went to Alabama and my grandfather on my mom's side went to Alabama.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  Abby grew up watching Alabama football, which has a nearly religious following. Ask anyone at Alabama and they'll tell you that football is one of the two dominant forces on campus, the other being Greek life. Alabama actually has the largest Greek system of any university in the country with over 12,000 members. To put that in perspective, Alabama has more Greek members than Notre Dame has students.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  I want to say it's like 25 to 30% of the total student population, which honestly is less than you would imagine, but it's just so visible. The sorority houses are right across the street from the stadium. The fraternity houses are the first thing you see when you drive into Tuscaloosa on campus. They're these huge antebellum-esque houses, like the visibility of them kind of shows the weight we put into it.

• 2:03Speaker 02

  The fraternity and sorority houses look more like mansions. Many of them have Greek columns, grand staircases, and crystal chandeliers. They cost millions of dollars to build and maintain.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  It's a literal manifestation of the worth we put into Greek life. Like, the social currency of Greek life was a really big deal. And I remember, as a freshman, they'd be like, "Are you in a sorority? What sorority are you in?" Like, that's immediately what they ask you. And like, there's an assessment someone can make from which sorority you're a part of.

• 2:36Speaker 02

  The competition to get into one of these sororities is intense. Sorority recruitment, also known as RUSH, starts before freshman year even begins.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  I was a senior in high school and was actually going to these things called pre-RUSH parties, where sororities will invite you to these group parties in your hometown. They'll memorize names before these parties. They'll have a list of attributes, being like, "She was homecoming queen. She was a national merit scholar." So, they do know a good bit about, like, who you are if you're coveted by the sororities.

• 3:14Speaker 02

  The recruitment process officially begins in early August, right at the start of the school year.

• 3:21Speaker 01

  Early August in Alabama is the hottest of hot. It's like 90% humidity, no amount of hairspray, can tame the frizz, you're dripping sweat.

• 3:31Speaker 02

  RUSH lasts for nine days, broken up into several rounds. During the first round of RUSH, freshmen visit the sorority houses, where they're greeted by sorority members chanting in the doorway.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  I remember showing up for my first house. Everyone stood in front of the doors. The doors flew open and they started singing a song, like, yelling at us with these huge smiles and this huge hair and the head movements and the hand movements. Everything was so coordinated and exaggerated and girly.

• 4:10Speaker 02

  Once inside the house, freshmen are pulled into a flurry of conversation with sorority members. Lots and lots of small talk.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  You're carried around through each house, having these conversations, and then you're filed out one by one, and they say your name as you leave. They say, "Goodbye, Abby," "Goodbye, Marco," whatever. Yeah, so you do that like eight times a day.

• 4:41Speaker 02

  It's exhausting, but you can't let it show, because it's all about making a good impression. This process is so stressful for some freshmen that they hire consultants. What is a sorority consultant, you ask? Here's one of them describing her role.

• 4:59Speaker 03

  I help them prepare for what they're going to be wearing for every single round. You know, just styling, like accessories, hair, makeup, nails, all that kind of good stuff. And then I also help them with conversation techniques.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  And, you know, it's a big deal picking out the clothes. And like, southern style is canonically different than the rest of the world. Big, poofy sleeves, big frills, bright colors, over-exaggerated silhouettes. You know, they're made for TV, they're made for social media.

• 5:31Speaker 02

  It's not hard to see why sorority recruitment at Alabama regularly captures national attention. There's even an entire documentary about it called "Alabama Rush."

• 5:43Speaker 01

  When people are earnest and serious about something that you know nothing about, it's fun to watch. And there's drama. Girls are crying, not everyone gets what they want, there's winners and losers. And I think all of that makes a perfect kind of reality show of Rush.

• 6:03Speaker 02

  Every year, videos from Alabama Rush invariably go viral on TikTok.

• 6:08Speaker 04

  Rise and shine. Today's Saturday, the first day of Rush. This is my outfit. It's really cute. So today is the first round of like us talking to girls. So like today is like the real deal, which is crazy.

• 6:18Speaker 02

  If you've watched any of these clips, you might have noticed a striking trend. In each of the thousands of videos, nearly every single woman is white.

• 6:30Speaker 02

  To be fair, rush videos from schools across the country are also predominantly white, but Alabama's numbers stand out. When Abby was rushing in 2010, Black women were still essentially barred from the 16 traditional Greek letter organizations. In fact, in the more than 100 years that sororities had existed at Alabama, only one identifiably Black woman had ever been accepted. The only other woman was half Black, but her ethnicity wasn't known until after she was admitted.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  I'm pretty sure I remember noticing it was an all-white process, but I had never learned to question that yet. I went to school at a predominantly white high school in a pretty segregated city, so that was not something I was paying attention to.

• 7:19Speaker 02

  That changed after Abby joined the student paper her freshman year.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  We had a pretty diverse group. Our editor-in-chief was Black, and, you know, people were writing about race, people were writing about disparities in the South that, you know, as a white girl I hadn't been paying attention to until it was kind of in my face.

• 7:44Speaker 02

  Once she started paying attention, it was hard to miss. Throughout Abby's freshman, sophomore, and junior years, all 16 sororities remained entirely segregated. But then, at the start of her senior year, whispers began circulating that change might finally be on the horizon.

• 8:13Kaelyn Moore?

  Do you want more Darkly Curious stories in your life? Sign up for our Patreon for free and get access to a rotating shelf of bonus content, our weekly Rogue Detecting Society newsletter, and the HSP Book Club. Paid members also get monthly bonus episodes and archive access, which I think is more than 40 episodes at this point. You also get a cool jinx sticker after your first three months. And you can check it all out with a free seven-day trial. Link in the bio or go to patreon.com/hartstartspounding. Well, whatever you do, stay curious.