While the number of men who rush fraternities each year remains about constant, the numbers at each individual house can fluctuate greatly from year to year.
Houses compete against each other to gain large pledge classes, and those who do not fare well face problems filling their houses and with meeting financial burdens because there are so many fraternities to fill.
Assistant Dean of Residential Life Deb Reinders said the number of men who join fraternities each fall is somewhere just above 200, while individual pledge classes this year are as large as 31 at Alpha Delta and Chi Heorot fraternities, and as small as zero, as Gamma Delta Chi fraternity has no new member contracts on file with ORL.
About 30 students joined the coed Greek houses -- Alpha Theta, Phi Tau and Tabard.
Uneven numbers, financial burdens
With about 200 men pledging each fall and only 15 houses, it is not possible for all houses to have large pledge classes. If the pledges were evenly distributed, each house would get about 15 new members.
So when several houses have pledge classes numbering in the twenties or even thirties, other houses will inevitably be wanting for pledges.
Chi Gamma Epsilon fraternity President Eric Newton '97 said he thinks the large number of the fraternities dilutes membership at each house.
AD President Jeff Woods '97 said he thinks the ideal pledge class for AD is 25 to 30 people, because with larger numbers factions form, and with smaller numbers there are financial problems and difficulty maintaining minimum standards housing requirements.
He said one advantage to smaller pledge classes, though, is the creation of tighter bonds between brothers.
But he said a major consequence of a smaller pledge class is not being able to bring numbers back up.
"When you start getting low numbers, you start getting into a cycle," he said. "The house starts getting weak and then people don't want to join."
Newton said another consequence of small pledge classes is the "fear that you are not going to be able to keep up the traditions and usual things that go on in a fraternity with a smaller number of people."
Reinders said minimum standards say a house must maintain enough members to keep the house at full occupancy, but some houses have unaffiliated students pay rent to live in the house in order to fill it.
Reinders said when membership in a house declines, other problems arise.
"The leadership pool depletes," she said. "They can't fill the house, and they don't have the income" coming in from membership dues.
She said money is important because the buildings are owned by corporations and the mortgage needs to be paid.
Reinders told The Dartmouth last fall the administration had talked to small houses about their low membership, and "their futures will be up to them."
She said, in the end, it will be the students who decide how the system changes itself.
Several houses had small pledge classes this year.
While Reinders said Gamma Delt has no new member contracts on file with ORL yet, according to rush results released by the Interfraternity Council, Gamma Delt has six new members.
Last fall, Gamma Delt had three pledges, and before rush this year it had 15 members.
Sigma Nu gained four pledges, Bones Gate had five, Kappa Kappa Kappa had four and Phi Delta Alpha had three.
Overall membership at Tri-Kap is in the low twenties.
Fluctuation and competition
While some fraternities gained few new members this fall, others gained many members to bolster their houses.
Thirty-one men sank bids at Heorot this year. Last fall only 15 men pledged Heorot, according to ORL.
According to Heorot President Adam Nelson '97, there were 43 Class of 1994 Heorot brothers, and "the past two fall rushes, though not disappointing, were not as large as we would have liked them to be."
Woods said he thinks competition between the houses has "a little bit to do with" fluctuations each year.
But he said he does not think all houses are in competition with each other.
"I don't think we compete that much with Beta [Theta Pi fraternity] or [Zeta Psi fraternity]," he said. "Our competition is more [Theta Delta Chi fraternity] or Heorot."
Nelson wrote he thinks there is a lot of competition between certain houses.
"We have a few houses whom we compete with directly for people every year. There is no avoiding this issue," he wrote. "Some years you get all the guys you want, some years you lose the guys you want."
Zete President Juan Alban '97 said he thinks every house feels there is competition during rush.
"A lot of it is the fact you have to attract," he said. "There is a lot of convincing and selling going on."
Sigma Nu President Brian Hickey '97 said he thinks there are occasionally "some guys that just attract the attention of a lot of houses."
"There are some guys people would just like to see in their houses," he said.
Beating the fluctuations
There are several methods fraternities employ to try to keep their numbers up.
Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity president John Dooley '97 said he sees competitions among the fraternities as an "issue of comparing images and what people are looking for in a house."
He said houses provide and emphasize different things for its members -- particularly when members first join.
"Looking at what each house has to offer is when it becomes competitive," Dooley said.
Some houses do not have pledge periods, which could attract members, whereas new members at other houses get haircuts or carry lunch boxes, Dooley said.
Newton said he thinks the image a house has could also "have something to do with getting pledges," and a house that improves its image will probably attract more people.
Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity has seen an increase in new members over the past few years since it changed its house image and started its "Balanced Man" program, an alternative to a pledge period.
This year Sig Ep had 29 new members, nearly double last fall's new membership at 16. Sig Ep gained 12 new members the year before.
Sig Ep President Russel Stidolph '97 said he expects to see high numbers "from now on," because of the Balanced Man program. He said he thinks some things that draw students to Sig Ep are that it is the largest fraternity in the country and it has a development program unlike any other house.
But the lack of a pledge period may be an additional incentive for new members.
Ian Campbell '99, a new member at Sig Ep, said he thinks "the guys in [Sig Ep] are like no other" because new members are "immediately accepted as one of them."
"We don't have to prove ourselves to anyone by degrading ourselves. We prove ourselves by showing that we care about the house and by just being who we are," Campbell said. "I mean, they chose us to be in the house for who we are, not for how low we can go."
Newton said one way Chi Gam attempted to attract new members was to invite them to the house last spring to get to know the brothers and the house so they would be "comfortable with the house and the people in it" when rush came around this fall.
Some fraternities attract members from a certain segment of the Dartmouth population. A court constituency often brings in a certain number of pledges each year and explains why some houses have smaller fluctuations.
AD has had pledge classes of between 25 to 30 for several years. This year there are 31 AD pledges.
Woods said he thinks AD definitely has "some feeders coming in from rugby and now starting to come in from the track side and the soccer team."
But Woods said he also thinks "part of the reason AD does so well is that it attracts a diverse group of people -- a scattering of everybody."
Dooley said there are some houses "that seem to consistently have members from a particular team," while others "draw from a more general group, guys that don't all know each other and join together."
Renewed interest in coeds?
About 30 students pledged coed Greek houses this year.
But Tabard President Brian Dolan '97 said he does not think Tabard attracts "the same pool of people that would be attracted to a single sex house -- the people coming to Tabard are looking for a more progressive environment."
He said Tabard has about 26 pledges this fall, compared to about 15 last fall. There are an equal number of men and women pledges this year, and about 20 of the new members are '99s, while the rest are '98s and '97s, he said.
"We typically have a lot of people who don't join until they hang around the house a few years first," Dolan said.
He attributed the increase in new members this year to the fact that "more people are interested in the social alternatives that Tabard provides and the coed environment."
According to ORL, Alpha Theta has two new members this year, and Phi Tau's numbers have not yet been released.
