When Emily Cullen '00 decided to pledge the Alpha Xi Delta sorority, she was looking for an environment that would provide her with a solid social foundation.
"I was concerned that sophomore and junior year a lot of my good friends would have different off-terms, and so I thought being in a sorority would give me a good social base," she said.
After a term-and-a-half of membership, however, Cullen decided that she no longer wanted to be in the sorority.
She explained, "I think the amount of drinking bothered me a lot. The longer I was in the house, the more it bothered me. I felt that I wasn't doing a lot with the house and yet I was required to pay the dues and I really couldn't afford that. And I started getting involved in other activities and I really didn't have the time."
So Cullen informed the president of Alpha Xi that she wanted to revoke her membership, signed a form from the national organization that declared her decision, and explained her reasons for leaving the sorority to the house at a Wednesday night meeting.
Thus she was formally depledged.
Rarely do members of the Greek system opt to depledge, making those who do choose that option significant by virtue of being so few in number. While no specific figures are available, it is likely that around 10 students depledge in a typical year, a tiny but significant fraction of the roughly 1,600 members of Greek organizations.
According to Inter-Fraternity Council president Mike Johnson '01, the low numbers are due to the fact that the people who join the Greek system find it desirable in the first place.
"It's very accepting of its members," he said, "and that works on a couple of levels. On the financial level, we're very understanding if people can't pay their dues. As a whole, the brothers are very supportive of each other."
Although their experiences in fraternities and sororities differ from that of a typical Greek student who enthusiastically pursues house activities, the stories of those who chose to depledge offer a unique perspective on Greek life.
Scott Given '02, for example, pledged Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity this fall. He, like the other students interviewed for this article, said that his decision to join a Greek house was based on a desire to meet new students and establish a solid social base.
"I think my fraternity did that exceptionally well," he said. "But I still believe Dartmouth would be a better place without such an exclusive system."
Given explained that he depledged not because he disliked Sig Ep itself, but because he found fault with the system of which he was a part.
"What really turned me off was rush and that people who meet [rushees] for five minutes have the power to make decisions that will affect them for the rest of their time at Dartmouth," he said.
Given also disapproved of some forms of fraternity conduct: "Although this didn't happen at Sig Ep, I think at some houses there is a subtle but strong pressure to drink heavily and make poor moral decisions. Dartmouth should hold itself to a higher standard," he explained.
Eventually, two principle conditions prompted his decision to depledge, namely that he desired more personal freedom and that he had less time to invest in his friendships.
"I learned that being bound to a group turns me off especially if the goals of that group aren't clear," he said. "And for some reason, I was really losing touch with my friends outside the system."
Another student, who asked that her name not be used, joined a sorority looking for "an interesting way to meet more women and to have a more fixed social life."
She said, however, that what she found was an organization in which none of her expectations were met.
"It strikes me as very ironic that people talk about this as being space that empowers women. I didn't see that at all. The activities were really silly and degrading to women," she said.
The student said that she experienced little of the "sisterhood" she had anticipated: "The camaraderie was very false, it didn't feel real. A lot of the women didn't even know each other, they just interacted superficially. There were women in the house that really felt that they were outsiders."
In addition, many aspects of sorority life catered to the male-dominated fraternity system, she said. "One of the things that I found very interesting was that when the social chairs would try to arrange activities, the fraternities would make all sorts of demands. It was like the men thought they were doing us a favor by hosting events with us. It was very degrading."
Some Greek members who depledge, however, have less of a negative experience than did that student.
Tracy Davis '01, for example, joined Alpha Xi Delta after the sorority to which she originally belonged, Zeta Beta Chi, was disbanded when its 15 members were unable to accumulate the money necessary to pay house insurance.
Davis depledged Alpha Xi Delta not because she disliked the environment, she said, but because she never found her niche in it.
She explained, "It was really cool and everything, but it just wasn't me. Coming from a sorority with 15 people, it was just too big, too many people to try to know. I just never felt like I belonged."
