As members of the Dartmouth community try to imagine what the next few years will be like as the College's social system undergoes what is expected to be a near complete transformation, they may look to a handful of northeastern colleges who also eliminated single-sex Greek systems from their campuses.
The colleges -- Williams, Middlebury, Bowdoin, Colby, Amherst and Hamilton -- all had fraternity oriented systems at one point in time, but their reasons for change and current systems are quite different and demonstrate the wide range of possibilities for the future of Dartmouth's social system.
The Need for Change
The chief complaint against the single-sex fraternity system at other colleges has mirrored the Trustees' criticism of Dartmouth's system -- selectivity and exclusion, and in particular, exclusion by gender.
In the 1980s, the Middlebury College Greek system was entirely male, consisting of about eight fraternities -- sororities voted themselves out of existence 20 years prior to the decision to terminate Greek life at Middlebury, according to Elizabeth Burns '99, former president of the Inter-house Council which oversees the small Vermont college's five current coed social houses.
In 1991, former Middlebury President John McCardell issued a report prohibiting single-sex organizations -- fraternities could stay, but they would have to admit women.
At Williams, the small college located in northwestern Massachusetts, exclusivity of the fraternity system was also an issue, but the 1962 decision to move away from fraternities came before coeducation at the school, Dean of the College Peter Murphy said.
The most recent college to disband their Greek system, Bowdoin College of Maine, voted in 1997 to eliminate fraternities by May 2000. An announcement by the Board of Trustees in 1988 first called for all fraternities to be open to all students regardless of race and gender in keeping with college legislation, Dean of the College Scott Hood said.
The increased need for social space and the poor conditions of the fraternity houses also necessitated the college takeover of the houses at Bowdoin, Hood said.
The 90-percent membership enjoyed at one time by the fraternity system in its "Golden Age" dropped dramatically, dwindling to about 25 percent -- meaning one-quarter of the students were in control of all the social space.
"The buildings suffered," Hood said. With financial pressure to provide social opportunities the fraternities could not maintain their houses.
Reactions: surprise results in anger
When the administrative legislation altering social life was a surprise to students, the proposal met with student uproar and alumni anger.
The 1984 ban of fraternities at Amherst and the early 1980s Colby decision were not received well by the student body.
Colby students still refer to "frat row," although it is now a street of college-owned dormitories.
At Middlebury, brothers were forced out of houses bought by the college from the national chapters and fights erupted with members of the new coed system living in former fraternity houses.
Violence and fighting between students was "part of the deal," according to Burns.
Student reaction to the 1994 proposal by the Hamilton Department of Residential Life to tear down the fraternity houses was "overwhelmingly negative," sophomore Benjamin Zoll said. Protests were held following the decision and people are still angry and debating about it five years later.
At Bowdoin, where students were informed about the Trustee decision, and at Williams, where the ignition for change came from students, the proposals were met with positive reactions.
The college atmosphere was "so anti-frat, anti-theme housing" that the change was not a shock to the student body, executive editor of the Williams Record Scott Moringiello '01 said.
Effects of the change in social arenas
The Middlebury plan involved the conversion of single-sex fraternities into five coed houses whose membership varies from 15 to 100 students. The change has been largely a language game. According to Burns, The houses still have rush, called "open house" and pledge periods, known as "new member education."
It is rumored that there is still a single-sex fraternity at Middlebury, although it operates underground -- in secret and without recognition from the college. The house of one fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon (Deke), sits empty since it refused to go coed or sell the house to the college.
Alumni of the fraternity use the house for parties during Homecoming weekend, and the top floor of the house has been converted to office space used by the college's faculty.
At Williams the phaseout of fraternities coincided with the exploration of new social opportunities with the reception of a Carnegie foundation grant.
After pushing the fraternities into the dormitories at Amherst, the college began sponsoring campus wide keg parties, called "taps" on Thursday and Saturday nights in the basements of the abandoned houses, according to Elizabeth Royles '99, the Editor-in-Chief of the Amherst Student.
Although students do not live Greek houses, four fraternities, one of which is coed, remain at Amherst, and it seems likely they will remain for some time. Although they are underground, the college has issued a report acknowledging that they exist.
With social space not being utilized at Hamilton, the limited social options encourage unsafe alcohol use, according to Zoll.
"There's a lot more drinking -- closet drinking," he said. Students are drinking in their rooms because there is nowhere for them to go and drink socially.
Under the Bowdoin plan the fraternity houses will be bought and restored by the college. Each residential hall will have an association with a particular house, and living in a dorm will mean automatic membership in a house. Students will still be able to hold parties and have money in the bank to fund them, Hood said.
The failures and successes
Although one of the goals of the Middlebury administration's plan was to eliminate exclusion in residences, the exclusivity of the social houses is still a debate.
"We give out bids, and its always a question of -- 'what criteria do you base it on?'" Burns said, a member of the coed house Omega Alpha, known on campus as Tavern.
The new Middlebury social system only incorporates seven percent of the student body.
As a Williams administrator, however, Murphy said he has encountered an alumnus "maybe once in four years" who was not pleased with the elimination of the fraternities.
"I never talked to anyone who liked fraternities," he said. Murphy said in the field of admissions where Dartmouth and Williams are very competitive, "one of the advantages we have is the absence of fraternities."
The student body at Hamilton has changed to meet the changes in the social atmosphere of the college, Zoll said.
Younger students are happier with the environment and tend to be "more academically oriented than socially oriented."
The controversy at Hamilton seems only now to be calming -- after holding out for years and refusing to sell their houses to the college even after administrators forbid students from living in them, the fraternities have finally caved under the weight of legal fees resulting from the battle and agreed to sell their houses to the college.
Hamilton administrators decreed only seniors can live in off-campus housing, and seem to be moving towards mandating that all students live in on-campus housing for all four years of college.
Some of the fraternity houses have sat empty, entered only for maintenance purposes as fraternity alumni held out and refused to sell the houses to the college. Some could not sell the houses to anyone other than the college because although the houses are privately owned, they are built on college owned land.
Of the houses already sold to the college, three have already been turned into college dorms.
Although students are increasingly accepting of the new system at Hamilton, local residents have complained about the increase in drunk driving and public drunkenness since the loss of the fraternity system, according to Phil Allogramento '00.
The success of the Bowdoin social system, which most students there have embraced, is largely due to the comprehensiveness of the report issued by the Trustees, Hood said. Open forums on the issue -- both residential and dining space debates -- were held on-campus and with alumni in New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C., mostly with former fraternity members.
"The reaction was probably less volcanic than it could have been," he said.
"The new system embraces what the fraternities do well," Hood said, such as hosting social gatherings -- something they couldn't do prior to the change because of a lack of resources.
