Dartmouth Sorority Recruitment "Spring" 2014 -- Strange Development
 

It has been reported that officers in some sororities at Dartmouth have announced that there will be a boycott of "spring" recruitment. Other sororities have announced that recruitment will be held. See:

http://dartreview.com/dartlog/2014/1...nter-rush.html

Expenses
 

One of the five issues: "the “exorbitant” expense of participation in Greek Life"

Panhellenic Council Dues:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~orl/greek-...hell_dues.html

$300 to $450 per term?

That is not even in the ballpark for the live-out fees at my daughter's sorority.

I'm not sure if you are an NPC alumna, Maman, so for the benefit of others who might not understand the various membership costs: this fee (council dues) may be assessed to the individual sororities to be members of the council - it isn't the entire cost of dues for each individual member. They are two different items.

Updated line - recruitment is continuing as planned.

There are other issues at Dartmouth.

ETA - nevermind, I see where you got that number. I'd like to know what that covers, i.e. I don't think that covers meals.

Greek Life at Dartmouth is in a period of change. Let's just hope it all works out for everyone involved.

For what it's worth, that's in line with sorority dues at Columbia.

Um… it costs ~ $63K-$64K/year to attend Dartmouth (according to this). I don't want to derail the thread into a discussion of costs. It just gave me pause and perhaps that would explain the "exorbitant" cost of participation? Like, that's the tipping point for these students? Am I making any sense at all?

Nevermind.

Girl's recruitment? WTF? I'm pretty sure they are women.

Anyway, I hope they do make progress on the sexual assault issues.

It absolutely makes perfect sense to me.

" In the email, entitled “A Call to Action,” the protesters outlined five issues they hoped to address by refusing to organize winter rush: the need to stop “blindly empowering fraternities,” the “exorbitant” expense of participation in Greek Life, the superficiality of the rush process, the need for a more inclusive environment, and the need to move beyond “drinking and alcohol” as a focal point for the Dartmouth Greek system."

It seems to me that several of these issues are COMPLETELY within the control of the sororities to change. No need to boycott anything.

Yeah, let's see. How can we stop our sorority from being only about alcohol? That may be beyond the mental capacity of a 21 year old, who by the way was intelligent enough to get into a school as competitive as Dartmouth. And if you don't want to deal with douchy frat boys, then DON'T. They will be exactly as douchy as they are allowed.

I honor their wanting to make a statement, but this was pretty dumb.

It also annoys me immensely that the Panhel exec council apparently didn't bother to notify the sororities before announcing that recruitment was cancelled. Why they didn't seek the opinion of the members they represent or at least their Panhellenic Delegates is beyond me...completely undermined their demands since they weren't presented as a unified front.

I found that problematic as well. The council members are not dictators but are supposed to represent the interests of their individual groups. If their chapters were surprised by the vote, that means they didn't discuss this with their chapters. That is not the role of Panhellenic. It can't enforce a blockade of recruitment against the will of its member groups. The officers apparently are not aware of the purpose of Panhellenic and their role as officers in the organization. Hopefully their respective GLOs (for the ones involved with NPC groups) have addressed this issue with the women involved.

But it's really something that needs to happen as a united Panhellenic council. If one group changes, then they become *that group*. Sure, the tactics here are a little disorganized, but I understand the sentiment these women were going for.

True, but again there are ways these very bright women can think of to fix a significant problem. And it doesn't take every chapter. If Panhel as a group can't come to terms with changes, 5 of the most competitive chapters can get together and none of them will be THAT chapter. Even little steps like 1 dry exchange per semester would be a start. Or 1 daylight exchange per semester. That doesn't solve a reputation for ridiculous excess at parties, but it's a start.

Update with text of the message from the Panhellenic women who favor / call for a "boycott":

http://jezebel.com/boycott-threat-fr...pts-1500181356

I noticed the four of the five who issued the initial boycott message are members of local sororities. Do you think this stems from a cultural conflict between the locals and the NPC groups? For example, the "exorbitant cost of participating in the Greek system" is very subjective. If the locals had to jack up their dues to compete with the programming the NPC chapters offered, that may be why they consider those dues exhorbitant.

There's one thing that really make my frown lines deepen, though. They don't say a word about reducing programming or other activities to reduce the cost of dues. Instead, they have several suggestions about someone else picking up the cost of that programming. If they can find a rich (foolish) person who donates a ton of money to set up an endowment so these women don't have to pay their sorority dues, more power to 'em.

And this part... I don't know what to think about this. If they were found guilty of rape by a court of law, they would be in jail. I can only assume the "Committee on Standards" has a different definition of guilty, but still!...

The dues thing sounds like a thinly veiled attempt to get rid of national affiliations (and the sometimes patriarchal rules that go with them - in other words, they don't object to alcohol, they object to having to rely on men for it). There's no way that any NPC would agree to such a thing and these girls are well aware of it. If you want to dump your national, just effing do it. This is one place where it probably would work, as it has before.

Interesting points by GCers. Re dues: if one looks at the dues link in this thread, both local and NPC group aggregate dues fall pretty much within the same range. There is not a meaningful disparity. Reading the article, one could surmise that the protesters want the dues to be zero (underwritten, part of the general student fee, etc.). Re programming: Not only is a discussion of reduced programming not present, neither is a discussion about different programming (not alcohol-related, more service activities, etc).

It's well known that the formal legal system repeatedly fails victims of rape. What's more, many universities 1) Pressure victims not to report to LE, and 2) Mishandle their internal investigations of rape.

Here's a nice read on Dartmouth:

http://jezebel.com/dartmouth-quick-t...f-ac-510282870

Sorority recruitment will take place, apparently all eight sororities will participate. A couple more stories from the student paper:

http://thedartmouth.com/2014/01/14/n...lds-discussion

http://thedartmouth.com/2014/01/10/n...xec-abstention

COMMENT: Am I the only one who finds it interesting that a group of Panhellenic officers have chosen this timing to come thisclose to telling the world, “sorority life at Dartmouth is terrible” ? Well, maybe this is vaguely like the Alabama situation last fall.

Certainly Dartmouth has had more than a few troublesome experiences with sororities, as a glance at irishpipes’ list will indicate.

Dartmouth Greek life is kind of an odd duck. Many former chapters of national sororities broke away and became some of the locals on campus now because of disagreements with their HQs.