This term the Coed Fraternity and Sorority Council has been working to rectify the perceived inequalities in CFS elections. Last week, the full body voted to change the rules so that the almost 700 members of sororities were more proportionally represented relative to the 900 members of fraternities.
Under the old voting system, each house had one vote, giving the 15 fraternities over twice as many votes as the 6 sororities, although the respective number of members were much closer than that. I feel that changing the voting procedures is just fixing the symptom of a problem, as opposed to dealing with the problem itself.
The problem here is that there are not enough sororities on campus. The 800 women who take part in rush can only choose one of six houses, a 120:1 ratio, as opposed to the about 50:1 ratio that the male rushees face. During the rush process last year, over 100 women dropped out in the middle or did not receive bids from a house because of the membership quotas.
The limited number of houses causes each sorority to be too big for the members to come together in a cohesive group. A number of women drop out each year because they feel lost in the crowd. It also causes a shortage of leadership opportunities for women.
Right now there can only be 6 sorority presidents, while there are 15 men who can call themselves President of their house. And, of course, this dearth of leadership positions is felt from top to bottom in each house.
Why does Dean Pelton continue to block the creation of additional sororities? I have heard explanations ranging from a moratorium on additional single-sex houses to a cap on total number of Greek organizations. However, Dean Pelton did approve the creation of Omega Phi Psi, a black fraternity, just scant months after rejecting a proposal by a group of 40 '95s to create a new sorority.
While Omega Phi Psi may be a good house to have on campus, the historically black Greeks have a total membership of 24 people, spread between 4 houses, a 6:1 ratio. Obviously the deciding factor here was not population pressure!
The creation of Kappa Delta Epsilon sorority will help alleviate the number of houses who are pushing up against their rush quotas every term, and it will increase the number of people who choose to join a house. However, even if the new house takes 40 members a year (approximately what the 5 large sororities take) there will be 60 women a term who have gone through rush without finding a house that suits them.
Until people are free to create new houses, there will not be enough sororities to allow women the same range of choices that is afforded to men.
Women deserve the same diversity of Greek houses that men have now. When the number of sororities is allowed to grow to its natural level, say about nine or 10, the new CFS voting procedures will be unnecessary.
