The inadequacy of the current sorority rush process once again became evident at the end of this term's rush cycle, to the discontent of both current members and rushees. National sororities and organizations like the Panhellenic Council imposed their recruitment systems on Dartmouth, disregarding the fact that the contrived and convoluted process is an exceedingly poor fit for Dartmouth's small, tight-knit and self-contained social scene.
As a result of many blunders and the current system's inherent deficiencies, some women were invited to preference night without actually receiving any bids, and 88 women -- 24 percent of the total entering rush last week -- were not placed in sororities, many of them having dropped out of the process because they were dissatisfied with their placement.
The current process is a six-day ordeal marked by fastidious regulations and needless formality. The excess complexity of the system is reflected in ridiculous terms like "Select and Rank" or "flex-list," which sound more like they belong in a college football playoff rankings system than the Dartmouth social environment. The computer algorithms and multiple voting and matching systems produce outcomes far removed from the real preferences of the sisters in any given organization, as well as from those of potential new members seeking to join them.
The sorority recruitment process must be adapted to be more appropriate for Dartmouth, both in terms of letting women choose the house they would like to pledge and letting the houses choose whom they would like to incorporate. Reforming rush would have to be a multi-step process requiring the cooperation of all the existing sororities as well as national organizations, since the decisions made by any one sorority impact the pool of prospective new members, and consequently recruitment at all the other houses. The impetus for this change would have to come from current sorority members, who are the only ones with the capacity to carry it out. Perhaps sorority recruitment could be made more similar to fraternity rush, which yields more mutually satisfactory outcomes, with selections based more on actual compatibility than on arbitrary quotas and algorithmic variables.
Before any significant procedural changes can be made to sorority recruitment, however, new local sororities must be established. While the benefits of national organizations should not be discounted, a new local house is the only substantive way to slake the ceaseless demands for more female-dominated social spaces. Starting a new house without the machinery of a national organization would certainly be a challenge. The frequency and intensity of concerns about gender relations at Dartmouth, though, should push the College to not only lift the current ban on local sororities, but also to provide funding and institutional support for the establishment of new local organizations.
