With the goal of promoting healthy gender relations in the Greek system, Sexual Awareness through Greek Education is planning a kickball tournament to foster positive gender interaction.
SAGE also plans to change Greek new-member education and to encourage social interaction between Greek houses.
"In the past terms and years, it has been a lot of talk, and they haven't made strides to get things done," said Posy Evans '99, SAGE co-Chair and Kappa Delta Epsilon sorority member. "You can have discussions to no end, but this term we are getting going again ... hopefully it will last over to other terms."
SAGE co-Chair Greg Neichin '99, a member at Alpha Delta fraternity, said the group has been trying to change its focus.
While SAGE previously focused on sexual harassment and abuse and legal implications, they are now tackling basic gender relations, he said.
Evans, who is serving her third term on SAGE, said SAGE's main goal to try to promote respect. She said the cause of unhealthy gender relations in the Greek system is often "the poor drinking atmosphere."
"Most of the Greek interaction between houses revolves around alcohol," she said. "We want to try to increase interaction outside the basement."
Kickball with an incentive
To encourage sober Greek interaction, SAGE is planning an all-Greek kickball tournament for August, Neichin said.
He said he thinks SAGE could get Greek members to participate in the tournament voluntarily, but the group might offer a $200 gift certificate to Stinson's Village store, where Greek houses purchase kegs, as an incentive.
But Neichin said he thinks Greek members could use that award responsibly -- "they could go to Stinson's and get two kegs of really good beer instead of five kegs of really horrible beer."
"I think that what needs to change is not the consumption of alcohol," he said. "People's attitudes towards the consumption of alcohol are the problem."
Other SAGE plans
Evans said SAGE members met with the Coed Fraternity Sorority Council, a body made up of the presidents of all the Greek houses, on Tuesday. She said they urged the presidents to consider coed programming events that are different from traditional basement beer parties.
SAGE members suggested parties that do not revolve around alcohol which would be held outdoors or upstairs in Greek houses that would "have a different atmosphere than when people are downstairs puking, then revert back to pong," she said.
Neichin said the inappropriate use of alcohol "is a function of the environment being centered around basements and pong tables."
He said he thinks people should be "hanging out upstairs at parties, drinking bottles over kegs, making it a more comfortable environment so guys and girls are not meeting for the first time in a packed basement where there won't be a healthy interaction."
SAGE is trying to influence social chairs to have more creative parties with jazz bands, cocktails or smooth beers, he added.
Evans said she has heard the new-member education in fraternities "was a joke," and SAGE would like to have a coed discussion about this issue.
Last fall, females new to the Greek system watched a video about date rape, but the males did not. Evans said she thinks everyone should watch the movie and then discuss it.
Neichin said SAGE members have also discussed improving the peer alcohol education program at Dartmouth and forming a separate program for the Greek community.
SAGE is comprised of at least two members from each fraternity and Panhellenic sorority and meets weekly.
Evans said the coed Greek houses are not required to send delegates to SAGE "because SAGE is about gender relations, and since they are coed they probably know how to get along."
SAGE, formerly known as Greeks Against Rape, until 1994, has also recently worked to improve its on-campus activities.
