You can debate the merits and flaws of the Greek system all you want, but one thing is undeniable: Dartmouth students really care about rush. Discussions about rush are ubiquitous during this time of the fall, but one question is perhaps asked more than any other: How can the fraternity and sorority recruitment processes be improved? How should rush ideally function at Dartmouth?
MEN'S RUSH
Although Dartmouth's fraternity culture has been criticized over the years for issues related to hazing, sexual assault and binge drinking, the men's rush process does not seem to be highly condemned.
"I think it's a good system," Greg Knight '12, Theta Delta Chi fraternity rush chair, said. "I think it gives people a lot of freedom of where to be, and most people find the right fit."
Because Dartmouth is home to such a large number of fraternities there are 15 in the Interfraternity Council there are many options for prospective rushees, according to Satoshi Harris '12, Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity rush chair.
Typically, sophomore men spend an evening of rush visiting the fraternities they are interested in joining. At the end of the evening, sophomores "shake out" at a house by physically shaking the hand of every brother, indicating their preference for the house. The brothers then deliberate, and bids are delivered later that night.
In spite of this large amount of freedom, the system is not without scrutiny. Kevin Griffith '14, a sophomore who plans to rush, said that fraternities often make up their minds about prospective new members before rush even occurs, and the criteria on which male rushees are judged are not always fair.
"For guys, I think it's a little bit of a popularity contest and a contest of how much time you can spend in the basement," Griffith said. "I think if the frats were a little less based on who knows who, each class in each fraternity would be much more balanced."
Unlike with sorority rush, fraternity rush is subject to the different operations of the various IFC fraternities, according to IFC rush chair Hunter Dray '12.
"Whether or not an individual receives their desired bid is subject to the vagaries of each house's deliberation mechanism," Dray said. "While not every potential new member will receive a bid at his preferred house, the rush process is designed to find a good fit for both the new member and our houses."
Compared to women's rush, fraternity recruitment generally seems to be the focus of considerably fewer critics.
"To be honest, I think men's rush is very fair," Tommy McQuillan '13, a member of Alpha Chi Alpha fraternity, said. "The fact that you can elect your first choice in person and you can decline any bid is more empowering than women's rush."
The infrastructure of men's rush is also a more self-selecting system. The process of "shaking out" enables men to indicate their first choice in a fraternity, but men must also take into account the likelihood of receiving a bid from the fraternity at which he shakes out, according to a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity who wished to remain anonymous.
"You kind of already know where you're going to go before you rush," he said.
Dray said that while the IFC encourages each potential new member to visit at least four fraternities, there is a larger degree of individual choice.
WOMEN'S RUSH
Sorority recruitment, by contrast, is one of the most criticized and scrutinized practices at Dartmouth, and many acknowledge that the Greek system inherently exacerbates an existing social hierarchy. For affiliated women who work to recruit new members to their sororities, one big consideration is disseminating more information.
"It's a difficult social scene to navigate through because you have such limited exposure to all of the houses," Kappa Delta Epsilon sorority rush chair Annie Saunders '12 said.
Sarah Cohan '12, the vice president of operations for the Panhellenic Council, said that the current recruitment model which requires that all participating women visit each house through a five-day process is prescribed by the National Panhell organization. The process occurs in three rounds, according to Panhell rush chair Lauren Pace '12. During the first round, potential new members must attend all eight Panhell sororities, after which they indicate their top picks, Pace said.
"You kind of have a mutual selection process whereby each house is selecting a group of girls that they would like to get the chance to meet again," she said.
This "mutual selection process" occurs in both the first and second rounds of women's rush, the results of which are largely determined by the preferences of the individual sororities.
On the final night typically called "pref night" women return to no more than two houses, and potential new members must make a final decision, Pace said. This is the stage in which women have the most freedom to choose which house they want to join, she said.
The success of Epsilon Kappa Theta sorority's recent event, which allowed women to attend and "shake out" at the house without going through official recruitment, could lead to future innovations in the process, according to Cohan.
Under Dartmouth's Greek-heavy social scene, it's pretty common to hear girls say that rushing was never even a consideration before coming to campus. Anoush Arakelian '14, who plans on rushing this weekend, said she initially could never have imagined herself in a sorority when she came to Dartmouth.
"I'd never even considered it until I realized it was such a huge part of life here," she said.
Although Arakelian said she is excited to be in a house, she is "not too excited to go through the [rush] process."
"But I know it's necessary," she added.
Sara Bitarafan '13, a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, acknowledged that the well-known and often criticized computer system which ultimately matches women and sororities based on preference among potential new members and interest from the houses themselves is another obstacle with which women must contend.
"It not only depends on who likes who, it also depends on the computer matching system," Bitarafan said. "That's why it's just silly, and even though everyone knows it's silly, it seems like there aren't any better ways to go about it since so many people rush at such a small school."
Other students criticized different elements of the sorority rush system, including its length.
"I think it's a really short process so people in the houses don't necessarily get to know the people rushing on a less superficial level," said one female member of the Class of 2013 who rushed but chose to remain unaffiliated.
She added that the decision-making process is "somewhat blind," which is frustrating to many women.
Another affiliated '12 female said women's rush inherently causes disappointment for both the participating women and the sororities.
"I think everybody comes out of rush feeling like they were unwanted by at least someone, whether you're a house that didn't get a girl you want or a girl that didn't get a house you want," she said. "It's really hard to not get your feelings hurt."
Not all students are entirely critical of women's rush at Dartmouth, however.
"I'm from Texas, and people who think rush is intense here clearly have never experienced it at any other school," Chloe Teeter '13, a member of Delta Delta Delta sorority, said. Teeter added that other schools, especially in the South, require girls to have recommendations and headshots in order to be accepted into sororities.
The process itself is also a good opportunity to meet other women on campus, according to the unaffiliated '13.
"I enjoyed talking to some people, especially having conversations that were unrelated to rush," she said. "It was interesting meeting other people and getting an idea of what other people were involved in."
THE IDEAL RUSH
As long as Greek life exists at Dartmouth, there will be those who scrutinize every element of the system. Clearly, this is the case with the recruitment process, which many people administrators, rush chairs, prospective rushees and both affiliated and unaffiliated students think needs a substantial overhaul. Panhell isn't complacent about the issue, either, as evident in EKT's recent open rush event.
"There was a really positive response to it," Cohan said. "Just the fact that this event was so successful is definitely a step in the right direction, and the other sororities have expressed positive feelings about this event and would be interested in exploring it as a possibility for the future."
Becca Powell '12, who elected not to rush, said that both the tediousness of the rush process and academic commitments as well as not feeling the need to expand her group of friends all deterred her from going through recruitment. Had sororities hosted a more open event like EKT's, however, Powell said might have considered going through the process.
"I think that definitely would have changed my personal decision," she said. "Someone mentioned to me that I needed to rush because that's just the way it was. I think the direct quote was, Rush is a terrible, terrible process, but everybody does it and so will you.'"
Unfortunately, five of Dartmouth's eight Panhellenic sororities Alpha Phi, Alpha Xi Delta, Kappa Delta, Kappa and Tri-Delt are prohibited from hosting open social events and from instituting a more open rush procedure by their national organizations. While EKT's recent event which resulted in an undisclosed number of bids was a step in the right direction toward women having more of a say in the recruitment process, it clearly cannot be universally employed. Furthermore, women are not in universal agreement that an open rush system would be entirely beneficial.
"You kind of shortcut the one good benefit of rush, which is that you're really forced to see every single house and talk to a whole spread of people across campus," Saunders said.
Furthermore, Dartmouth's three local sororities EKT, KDE and Sigma Delta would have a decisive edge in an open rush process due to their ability to host open parties and meet prospective members, according to KDE rush chair Jessica Chen '12.
"There's more exposure for us locals," she said.
In an ideal system, all of Dartmouth's sororities could host parties at which girls could learn more about the different Greek options available to them. However, an overhaul of the sorority system to more closely resemble that of fraternities' is not a real possibility for the near future.
McQuillan suggested that doing away with the automated computer matching system could lead to a more fair sorority rush process.
"It seems to me like it would make more sense that if a girl was going to get two or more bids, similar to a guy, then she should make her own decision rather than the computer," he said.
Certain details of the computer system and its specific algorithm are kept secret, Pace said, but it takes into account the preferences of both the participating sororities and the potential new members.
"Girls have a certain number of houses that they're supposed to select as their favorites, and they rank their bottom choices," Pace said. "That way, based on what the houses give as their list of people they would like to see back, there's some algorithm that goes into the computer that matches girls."
Pace added that on occasion, the numbers don't always work out, after which point the computer begins to consider houses that women indicated as their three least favorite houses, in order of preference.
Arakelian said that the consequences of the computer system often lead to discontent among women who rush, and she personally feels apprehensive about the system as rush approaches.
Cohan acknowledged the benefits of men's rush, which primarily exist because most parties are held at fraternities rather than at sororities. Because men are afforded the opportunity to explore the various fraternities for the full year before being eligible to rush, there is less of a necessity for them to go through a formal recruitment process that exposes men to every fraternity on campus. This male dominance in the social scene inherently creates roadblocks for women trying to meet other women who are affiliated with sororities, according to Cohan.
"In the Panhell women's rush situation, because it's harder to hang out at a sorority, you might not know if you like a certain house or not, so the women's rush system does help people get exposure to different houses," Cohan said.
Although most students interviewed spoke more to criticisms of sorority rush, others indicated that fraternity rush has its own drawbacks. Teeter suggested that men's rush should actually look to women's rush as a model that allows students to meet others and branch out more.
"Why not, for one night, have all of the guys go to every house for 30 minutes?" Teeter asked. "I think it should be a hybrid. I think that both [systems] should be like the other for different reasons."
Teeter acknowledged that many men likely would have made up their minds regardless, but a hybrid rush could be an effective means of integrating other men on campus.
An unaffiliated male '13 said that many fraternities are only looking for "more of their own" in the rush process, and by contrast, the sorority recruitment process encourages a greater breakdown of social boundaries. He agreed that a broader men's rush that requires men to visit other fraternities could be instituted to remedy the issue.
Additionally, Pace cited a higher degree of privacy in the women's rush process due to its use of Rho Chis recruitment counselors who work with PNMs during the rush process. This can be an advantage over the openness of the system used by fraternities, she said.
"There's no element of figuring out where your friends are going to go and what everyone else is picking," she said. "[Women's rush is] completely private you don't feel that peer pressure."
The tremendous time commitment required by women's rush is another common criticism of the process. By contrast, men's rush is a very quick affair, lasting only two hours on one night with an optional callback night the next day. Certainly, much of this has to do with the number of men and the number of women that end up pledging sorority pledge classes are nearly twice the size of an average fraternity pledge class.
"The only reason we have to go through this is because of numbers," Saunders said, adding that she was a proponent of bringing in more sororities in order to reduce the size of sorority pledge classes.
The issue of creating numerical parity between sororities and fraternities is complicated by the presence of sororities without physical plants. Sororities lacking a house face a unique challenge to recruiting new members, according to Chen.
Because women tend to know less about individual sororities than men do about fraternities, sororities must take the initiative to host events separate from Dartmouth's main social scene. This would be the best means of improving the system for women, Chen said. She added that more pre-rush events held throughout the year would be the best option.
The Co-Ed Council, unlike the IFC or Panhell, has not established a universal recruitment policy. Its three members the Tabard, Alpha Theta and Phi Tau all engage in rush differently, according to Alpha Theta rush chair Erika Murillo '13.
"Every time we have rush, we have two rush dates," she said. "With us, we prefer you to hang out before for a bit and then go to rush."
Murillo said that for Alpha Theta, recruitment focuses more on the personalities of the PNMs than IFC and Panhell recruitment do.
"It's all about people wanting to get to know you, as opposed to getting to know what kind of mold you fit in," she said.
Tabard has no official rush process, according to member Emily Liu '12, and Phi Tau has a "rolling" process in which new members can join at any point during the term, according to Murillo.
Clearly, there is no universal opinion on how to improve either men's or women's rush. There are benefits to both systems men have a higher degree of freedom in choosing their Greek house, but the system in place for women should not be ignored in its ability to better reach across campus boundaries. IFC and Panhell can clearly learn each other's recruitment processes, however, and an eventual increase in the number of strong sororities will hopefully diminish some of the most highly criticized aspects of women's rush.
Wes Schaub, director of Greek Letter Organizations and Societies, declined to comment on specific Greek policies at Dartmouth due to his relatively recent appointment as director. He assumed his role at Dartmouth in mid-July of this year.
