This Monday, the administration, led by Dean Larimore, announced the possibility of moving Greek rush back to Fall term from the winter. This is a change long favored by Greeks whose depleted fall memberships have caused financial deficits and trouble filling residences. But Greek leaders are hardly breathing easy and clamoring to sign up for the new change in rush. The catch with the new initiative is that rush will take place in the middle of fall, as opposed to its usual position at the beginning of the term. This introduces weighty issues concerned with placing time-intensive rush during the demanding midterm season as well as dramatically shrinking the pledge period to just a few weeks.
The reasons against a mid-term rush are substantial, but are the reasons for it relevant at all? One of the main purposes cited for pushing rush to the fifth week of the term is out of consideration for first-year students. Rush activities should not "detract from efforts to welcome incoming students to the College community" ("College announces return to fall rush," April 6). While there may be valid concerns about diverting staff and other resources away from first-years at the start of the term, the pivotal argument is social in nature. This argument is that the time commitment of rush and pledge period removes upperclassmen from the greater Dartmouth community. Rush confines Greek members to their houses. They disappear from Food Court and barely make it to class. The Greek system shuts down as a social outlet for first-year students. This Greek disappearance inhibits first-year integration into the College. A huge division is born between the upperclass Greeks and fledgling new students. Ruin is on the horizon for the cohesion of the Dartmouth community.
Whether you buy that argument or not is immaterial. Maybe an early rush would imperil campus cohesion, if it existed in the first place. But it doesn't. First-year/upperclassmen interaction on this campus is practically non-existent. There are exceptions where positive interclass relationships are formed, such as athletic teams and other extracurricular organizations, but these are few and far between. Official first-year mentoring programs exist but their enrollment is limited. And the upperclass UGAs, despite their best efforts, hardly substitute for legitimate bonds between classes.
The failure of formal efforts to engineer interclass relations has not been remedied by informal campus endeavors. The social order on campus is hardly integrated by age. Not so shockingly, the "first-year experience" is largely characterized by experiences with first-years. Particularly with the expanded first-year housing initiative, freshmen tend to stick together; it's where the term "shmob" came from.
The reasoning typically offered for enhancing relations between first-years and upperclassmen is that older students can pass on their wisdom and experience, in essence becoming positive role models. It's slightly trite but generally legitimate.
But improved relationships have even greater practical justifications, particularly in the scope of the Greek system. Ironically enough, while a debate ensues over whether the Greek system's rush will potentially inhibit freshman/Greek relations, poor freshmen/Greek relations presently do exist and are curently hurting the Greek system. Exceptionally poor exchanges between first-years and upperclassmen are fostered in Greek basements. Most first-years who frequent fraternities barely socialize with the brothers of the houses they enter. They use them to reap free beer and obtain a space in which to socialize with their underage peers. When there is interclass interaction, it's often negative. Potentially poor gender relations develop between first-year women and upperclass men. First-year men are ignored altogether. Precisely because no positive relationships are built, Greeks endure significant headaches from having first-years in their houses. These stem from alcohol violations, property damage, and general issues of respect. The well-behaved freshmen suffer in return from these stereotypes and are often banned from houses.
The division that currently exists will not be closed by having rush mid-fall, nor will it be widened by moving rush to the beginning of the term. The effect of rush on first-years is insignificant. Rush/pledge term is undeniably a time commitment for both current members and pledges, and it does segregate Greeks from non-Greeks, including all first-year students. But we cannot preserve a relationship that does not exist to begin with.
There are substantive issues with first-year interaction with the Greek system that must first be addressed. Instead of worrying about the coincidence, or lack thereof, of first-years and upperclassmen during freshmen fall, we need to facilitate a new interaction between them. There are certainly legitimate concerns with having rush at the beginning of fall. But examining the problem with a distorted perception of what goes on freshman fall is useless. I'm all for saving freshman/upperclass relations, but let's make sure we create them first.
