You know, I think The Chronicle has been a little rough on fraternities lately. Especially opinion writers and cartoonists, as pointed out by several fraternity members over the past couple weeks.

I guess nobody wants to be picked on, especially in a public forum. That’s understandable.

So as I was thinking about the recent event involving two members of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity coming to the aid of a woman being attacked by a dangerous assailant in late August, I began to think of fraternities in a more positive light.

What they did was truly an act of heroism, and it was unfortunate that such an assault should even take place this close to our university.

Of course, hopefully anyone in the position of the men who helped make the predator flee would take action as they did, but it made me think of what something like this could lead to.

Kind of like that Coke commercial that begins with a tough-looking man in a Grand Theft Auto-type situation. He looks like he’s going to yank a man out of a car, but instead hands him a Coke. The tough man then goes on to make several other people’s lives great, while the commercial finishes with him leading a parade of cheerful people down the street, while “Give a little love, and it all comes back to you” is played in the background.

Maybe the love shown by those Sigma Phi Epsilon members will provide the foundation for making the world around fraternities, and henceforth, the U, a better place.

Here are some situations that popped into my mind as I thought of how this could happen.

In an effort to show the rescue of the woman was not a fluke, and to push aside stereotypes that all fraternities do is drink, party, haze and sleep with sorority girls, the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity will begin holding weekly campaigns to promote doing good.

Of course, once the Sigma Nu fraternity recognizes that if it doesn’t do something, people will think, “Oh, just the Sig Eps are good-natured. After all, they save women from dangerous men and help us do good things,” so the Phi Delta Thetas would then respond by fixing the parking problem.

They’d purchase the abandoned Delta Delta Delta sorority house and convert it into a massive, twelve-level parking structure, thus strengthening greek-commuter relations.

Realizing their chances of another Deans Award of Excellence could be in jeopardy, the Alpha Tau Omegas would begin the construction of underground passageways, connecting several distant parking lots and TRAX passengers to the main areas of campus, providing students and faculty with safe, warm routes to classes throughout the cold winter months.

And as you might guess, this would only cause an even greater domino effect in greek generosity.

Sigma Chis would show their genuine citizenship by establishing a food court to rival Chartwells, only they would charge reasonable prices and offer several choices of food we have grown to love, not just Coyote Jack and tiny Pizza Hut pizzas.

Rapidly, fraternities would discover ways to lower tuition, help the sports teams win all their games, lower textbook prices, not go into debt for concerts, speed the renovation of nearly all buildings on campus and so on and so on.

Give a little love, and it all comes back to you.