I am submitting this article on behalf of the current presidents of the seven Panhellenic sororities, to explain our support for bringing a new national sorority to campus.
The reasons for bringing a new sorority to Dartmouth are well understood. New member classes that number 40 women and a median chapter size of 145 among Dartmouth sororities create a situation that is far from ideal. It is worth noting that the number of women choosing to join Panhellenic organizations is steadily increasing, so it is imperative that we add a new organization sooner rather than later.
Monday night, the Panhellenic Council held a vote in which representatives from all seven Panhellenic sororities voted unanimously to open the campus to National Panhellenic Conference Extension ("Panhell. begins process to add eighth sorority," March 3). This vote simply means that we will start discussions with organizations that are interested in coming to our campus, and is the first of many steps that will hopefully lead to the establishment of a new national sorority at Dartmouth. We will only allow a group to colonize if we find an organization that we think is a good match for Dartmouth's campus culture.
The most common question from students will likely not be why Dartmouth needs a new sorority, but rather why that sorority needs to be national. As current sorority presidents, we hear and understand the campus outcry for the creation of new local sororities, but after months of discussion, we feel that a national sorority is what is best for our Panhellenic community.
First off, the College's current policies require any new sorority to be a national one. We need a new sorority now, and we cannot wait until that policy changes, since we cannot even guarantee that it will.
The second, and perhaps most salient reason for choosing to focus on national sororities, is the financial costs associated with colonization. The creation of a new sorority costs between $70,000 and $100,000. A national organization provides this funding, along with consultants and professional staffers to help the fledgling organization function. The College is not in a financial position to allocate the funds or manpower required to establish a sorority, and we must rely on a national organization to resolve the financial concerns.
The third reason, perhaps the most difficult one to understand, relates to infrastructure. We have never had a Dartmouth local sorority start from scratch. Sigma Delta sorority and Epsilon Kappa Theta sorority both came directly from national organizations. By the time these sororities "went local," they had established a presence on campus. Kappa Delta Epsilon sorority had a slightly more complicated beginning, but the founding members were counseled by women who had been members of Alpha Chi Omega sorority, a national organization. In addition, employees of the Office of Residential Life dedicated countless hours, above and beyond their normal duties, to help KDE become a fully functional sorority. All three of these groups built their internal structure (bylaws, constitution, officer structure, rituals, etc.) on the foundation created by their national groups. The creation of these practices from scratch would be arduous at best.
All seven Panhellenic sorority presidents are in agreement that we need another Panhellenic sorority at Dartmouth, and that the only way this will happen right now is to look for a national sorority. This is not a decision made on a whim, but rather one made after viewing recruitment numbers over the past five years, and holding weekly discussions during our time in office.
We hope this sorority will be just the first of many more to come to the Dartmouth campus in the future.
Adding a single group will not be sufficient to bring the median membership in each sorority down from 145 to our goal of 100. Over the next few years, we will continue to work towards the creation of new sororities, and we will consider both national and local groups -- and the financial and campus climate -- when deciding which sororities will join the Panhellenic community.
