Despite the College's decision to allow additional fraternities in June 2005, the Inter-Fraternity Council has placed a moratorium on accepting applications for sponsorship until January 25, 2007.
The decision is based on a need to offer the IFC "an important opportunity to re-examine and reflect on its criteria for expansion," sparked by Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity's petition for sponsorship by the council, the first such petition in years, according to a statement from the IFC. A major concern is that an additional fraternity will dilute membership in the current fraternal organizations and therefore pose a financial burden to current IFC members.
Alex Lentz '07, president of the IFC, said that he is not sure whether or not the current policy will be reformed, but that it will be reevaluated.
"We need to address the system to see if it best serves the needs of the IFC and the Dartmouth community as a whole. One of the primary reasons we're doing this is because this is the first [use of the IFC sponsorship process]. We want to make sure we incorporate all interests and examine how best to do that," Lentz said.
Director of Coed, Fraternity and Sorority Administration Deborah Carney did not return requests for comment and Assistant Director of CFS administration Megan Johnson refused to comment after being contacted via telephone.
John Tepperman '08, vice president of the AEPi interest group, noted that the fraternity had two months to review the sponsorship policy between the council's first and second votes to deny AEPi sponsorship.
"If this extra time results in a more open voting process in which the individual votes are communicated to the prospective fraternity, or even better, the inclusion of input from non-Greek members of the Dartmouth community in the voting process, then I and the rest of the AEPi interest group will be glad to finally be on the same page with the IFC," Tepperman said. "If this time is used instead to find a way to deny groups like AEPi while other fraternity interest groups that don't fall under the IFC get recognized by the College, then the IFC will have wasted all of our time."
According to Lentz, the additional time will allow the IFC to observe patterns in fall rush to assess the need or possible consequences of an additional fraternity.
One issue that community members have considered is the weight of this decision and other IFC decisions, which are made solely by representatives of fraternities and an executive board comprised of fraternity members, on the entire Dartmouth community.
Lentz holds that those most affected by this and all IFC decisions are IFC members and prospective fraternity members, initially commenting that the IFC decision "doesn't affect the women on campus," but later clarified this statement.
"I don't mean to be misleading when I said that [our decision to temporarily deny all requests for sponsorship] doesn't affect women at all, because as IFC houses stand, we do have programs that are open to the entire community. We absolutely hope to involve people who weren't even prospective members in our dialogue while making the process the best it can be," Lentz said.
This IFC decision was made without the collaboration of other community members.
"The College gave us the right to make this decision in terms of sponsorship, and it's our prerogative to make that decision," Lentz said.
