I have to acknowledge at the top of this brief blog post that I didn’t belong to a fraternity in college.

I was a young married father by the time I enrolled at Portland (Ore.) State University. I commuted to class from my small rented house and went home at the end of the day.

But when I read about Florida State University suspending fraternity activities, I couldn’t help but cheer the news. FSU President John Thrasher suspended Greek life after the death of an FSU student who died as the result of a fraternity prank gone horribly bad.

This is the kind of tragedy we hear about from time to time. Students join these frats and sororities and subject themselves to all kinds of misbehavior from their “brothers” and “sisters.”

I know that deaths from these kinds of pranks aren’t all that common. I also accept that there’s a lot about Greek life I never have experienced and arguably don’t quite “understand.”

What I’ll never get is why students attending institutions of higher learning have to behave as though they’re still in junior high school. Yes, I’m an old man now. I do remember a time when I was much younger and I can recall some of the foolish things I did when I considered myself virtually bullet-proof.

Still, I want to applaud FSU President Thrasher for banning all Greek life and prohibiting alcohol consumption by students on the Tallahassee campus.

Perhaps this terrible story could send shockwaves across the nation’s vast networks of higher ed institutions.

Sadly, I doubt it will.