Green Key is finally here. Midterms are done, alumni are on campus, and the beer flows everywhere. It is a time for rest and relaxation, to recharge your batteries before the brunt of finals hits. But, to you freshmen out there, I ask you to take some time out of this weekend to seriously consider an important decision in your Dartmouth career. To wit, whether you should rush and join a fraternity/sorority/coed in the fall.
Why should you be thinking about rush, when it is not until fall term? Because rush is not in the fall, but is now. The few days at the start of fall term for formal rush are just that, "formal". The brothers and sisters get dressed up, provide you with food, try to shmooze you this way and that, all to get you into their house. But, if you were like I was my freshman year, you've spent freshman winter and spring going around to the houses, seeing what the people are like in each, and have a general idea of what houses you will rush in the fall.
Another reason I ask you to think about rush, is that if you like the Greek system, join it and support it. It is no secret that the administration would like to get rid of the Greek system, or short of that, mold it into what its conception of a Greek system should be: all houses coeducational, striving for intellectualism alone. What prevents the College from changing the system is that a high percentage of the students belong to the system, not to mention that alumni support would dry up. Also, I don't know how many of you have visited other Ivy league schools, but let me tell you from my experience, that we have the best party scene in the Ivy League. Princeton eating clubs shut down their taps at 2:30 a.m., whether they still have beer or not. At Yale fraternity parties, you have to pay a cover charge in order to drink. I haven't had to pay directly for a beer here at Dartmouth since those freshmen parties. I have had to pay for beer though through my fraternity. If fraternity membership drops, it is likely that the fraternities will start charging covers when you go to a party. Joining a house will keep the beer flowing and the administration off our backs.
I also ask those who do not like the system now, and want to see changes in the system, to join a house also. Try to change the system from the inside. The Coed Fraternity Sorority Council, Inter Fraternity Council and Panhellenic Council, are all working to improve the system, to change the things people don't like. You who are disaffected can help accelerate these changes. Do not sit on the outside, carping like true cynics, at that which you do not fully know. Living and being in a house is much different than living in a dorm.
Another reason for joining a house is the further contacts one gets by doing so. The national chapters offer you all their alumni from other schools, on top of those who went here to Dartmouth. The locals will normally have more than 1,500 alumni who will be there for business contacts. The Dartmouth name carries great weight in the business world. You will meet many alums who will open a door for you just because you come from Dartmouth. A house is a distillation of the alumni network. An alum from your house, or another house, is more likely to consider you over a someone who was not in a house at all.
Finally, I ask you this, 13 years from now, when you come back for your tenth reunion, where will you go on campus? Will you meet old friends at Baker? Perhaps you will, but I know that I will be coming back to my house for my tenth reunion. My fraternity brothers will be here. My friends in other fraternities will be at their fraternities. The Greek system will be the locus of my reunion. I do not know how I will find my "GDI" friends, but they should know that they will be able to find me in my house.
In conclusion, I ask you, a freshman, to join a house, any house, in the Greek system. The system is diversified enough to accept most anyone somewhere, the key is finding where that is. Your support will save the Greek system, preserving the best party system of the Ivies. And your house will open you up to a system of alumni who will be happy to meet you. Go by the houses this Green Key, when Alumni are up on campus, and see how fraternity/sorority spans the ages, linking one generation of Dartmouth to the next.
