A record-high turnout for female rush this year forced the Panhellenic Council to turn away 21 disappointed sophomore women, prompting some members of the Dartmouth community to mull the possibility of lifting the moratorium on new sororities.
But even with the limited capacity of current sororities and unusually large pledge classes, the Student Life Initiative poses a formidable obstacle to the creation of a seventh Panhell sorority.
There are currently six sororities that are members of Panhell, and a number of these houses had pledge classes exceeding 50 women during the Fall term.
Despite these large pledge classes, there were still several women who did not receive bids at sororities.
According to Zobeida Torres '06, Panhell's vice president of recruitment, between 240 and 300 women rushed houses during Fall term. Of these, eight women were not invited back for preference night, and two women did not receive bids. During Winter term, of the 67 women who rushed houses, nine were not invited back for preference night, and two did not receive bids.
The large pledge classes have also placed burdens on those who actually received bids.
"One of the main goals of the sorority system is to foster sisterhood within organizations. However, with only six sororities, the size of a rush class is extremely large," Panhell President-elect Shannon Troutman '06 said. "Creating lasting and meaningful friendships is just about as difficult as keeping a relationship alive with the D-plan."
Troutman said she strongly supports establishing a new sorority on campus.
According to Krista Sande-Kerback '05, the outgoing Panhell president, there has been talk about starting a seventh sorority since her pledge term, but the idea never materialized.
"The idea was dropped because there have been seven sororities at Dartmouth, but they haven't been successful in the past," Sande-Kerback said.
Before a new Greek house can be established on campus, students will have to get around the SLI, which the College rolled out in 1999 to widespread protest.
"There is currently a moratorium in place that affects the recognition of new CFS [coed, fraternity and sorority] organizations," Dean of the College James Larimore said.
According to Larimore, there are three criteria that are utilized in determining whether a new organization will be recognized since the inception of the SLI. These are whether the group is single-sex or coed, whether the group has selective or open membership and whether the group wishes to be residential or non-residential.
If a prospective group is single sex, selective, and residential -- as all present sororities at Dartmouth are -- the group would not be eligible for recognition by the College. However, new organizations that are characterized by no more than two of those three criteria are eligible for recognition. A lifting of the moratorium would require the approval of the Board of Trustees.
Even if changes were made to the SLI to allow the creation of a new single sex selective residential sorority, the organization would likely have a difficult time finding adequate residential space.
"Free-standing houses are in ... limited supply, so options for housing newly recognized groups would probably ... be quite limited," Larimore said.
Despite the difficulties presented by the SLI, Troutman nevertheless said she believes a new sorority would stay true to the Board of Trustees' mission.
"As far as the Student Life Initiative is concerned, one of the goals of the recommending committee is to make rush less exclusive. By opening another sorority on campus, more women could be invited into houses, essentially fulfilling this goal," Troutman said.
Even if the obstacles to starting a new sorority on campus could be overcome, the house would likely not open in the near future because of the time needed to recognize a new organization, the difficulties in finding a dedicated founding class and the struggle to secure adequate space in which to house the organization.
Alpha Xi Delta is the newest sorority to be founded on campus. Chartered in 1997, Alpha Xi leases the house that was once occupied by the derecognized Beta Theta Pi fraternity.
