The Greek Crack-Up

By Alexander Wilson | Monday, March 12, 2001

Whatever happened to Greek leaders at Dartmouth? Seniors and Juniors can remember the birth of the Student Life Initiative, when 'the System,' rallied by the Coed Fraternity Sorority Council, joined together in a massive rally on the lawn of Psi Upsilon fraternity. Almost one third of all Dartmouth undergraduates—1200 students in all—stood together, cheering speaker after speaker making the case for the essential value of Greek societies at the College.

Little more than two years later, Delta Delta Delta sorority has seceded from the CFSC, Tabard and Alpha Theta coeducational fraternities are strongly considering an attempt to leave the Greek system altogether, and the CFSC's officer elections drew a grand total of one student interested in running for President or Vice President. With a Greek Life Steering Committee poised to issue decisions that will determine the future of Greek life at the College, few students can tell you the name of the current president of the CFSC—let alone those of the CFSC's sub-councils for fraternities, sororities, co-eds, and African-American houses.

Greek leaders past and present attribute the slow disintegration of Greek unity, and the increasing apathy of Greek society members, to issues beyond their control—ranging from the doubtful future of the Greek system to the drawn-out, mind-numbingly convoluted SLI process to the administration's overt indifference to student opinion. Undoubtedly, all these factors and more have contributed to current circumstances. But today's sorry state of affairs is more the result of the failure of the student leaders of the Greek system over the past two years. In the face of the greatest challenges facing the system since its inception, mediocrity and indecision have reigned. When breadth of vision was essential, Greek leaders remained mired in short-term thinking and a na've hope that everything would work out all right. Most importantly, at no time did the leadership create a thoughtful and coherent plan of action regarding the Student Life Initiative and the Greek response to it.

Most of the responsibility for these failures rests with the CFSC, which is, after all, the elected leadership of the system as a whole and the official voice for Greek members in discussions with the administration. Since the SLI was announced two years ago, there have been two moments when it seemed as though the Council was preparing to take effective and meaningful action. Both times, however, the opportunities were wasted, the momentum squandered, the vision unrealized.

One of these moments I have already mentioned. The Psi U rally was the high point of the Greek reply to the Trustees' salvo in the Student Life Initiative. The CFSC effectively harnessed Dartmouth students' anger over the College's arbitrary announcement of the end of the Greek system 'as we know it,' in President James Wright's words. 'The Greek System here—the fraternity and sorority system here—as we've known it, is going to be ended,' Wright told Mark Mullen of ABC News.

Students' passion was channeled into a declaration of Greek life's positive influence on Dartmouth; a meaningful and powerful statement of students' attachment to the Greek system emerged, and attracted national attention. At that time, there was a window in which a wholesale mobilization of students was possible for support of a Greek system open to change on a moderate scale.

Instead, that rally was the last that was heard from the CFSC on the matter. Winter and spring faded away as the Council prepared a proposal for the College quietly and without any involvement from other students. For all intents and purposes, the CFSC had no impact on campus regarding the SLI until new leadership took over the following winter. Much like the previous group, the Greek leaders of the Class of 2001 began their term with activity that offered hope of an effective policy. Sadly, they continued in the tradition set by their predecessors and fell into insignificance.

Just last winter, in 2000, it seemed as though the CFSC might be poised to accomplish important things. A major effort to prepare an exhaustive proposal on student life—a response to the Trustee Committee on the Student Life Initiative Report (see TDR, 1/24/00)—produced a far-reaching document which, for the first time, included major changes to the Greek system that enjoyed consensus support from all the Greek houses. With this document as the basis for a Greek vision of change at the College, an opportunity arose for the Greek leadership to rally students, alumni, and sympathetic administrators toward the plan's adoption. Instead, the written proposal was left to stand on its own. No effort, beyond the initial presentation, was launched to influence the Trustees or administration. The CFSC never communicated its proposal to students, and eventually it faded into obscurity along with a host of documents from other assorted student groups.

Not surprisingly then, the Trustees ignored the CFSC proposal—not to mention all the other recommendations presented by students—in establishing the current set of Committees to deal with Student Life Initiative issues. With the exception of naming student members to the Greek Life Committee in the fall, the CFSC has essentially left the matter alone. The Council took no action whatsoever, and seemed content to let events unfold as they would without any effort to influence them.

The CFSC's lackadaisical attitude has been the greatest failure of the Greek leadership throughout the process, and the Greek system's biggest albatross. With any number of options available to them, Greek leaders have sat on their hands for two years. The most powerful lobbying force at the College is the alumni—one third of whom were Greek during their time here, and many more of whom were sympathetic to the fraternity and sorority system. When the SLI was announced, nothing was more important than a major effort by the Greek system to contact alumni, start raising money, circulate petitions, hold forums, and do everything possible to get as many alumni as possible involved in supporting the system throughout the process that followed.

Yet the CFSC pursued no such action in any systematic way. To be sure, individual houses have some contact with alumni, to varying degrees; Greek organizations' alumni advisors, too, have had some role in the SLI process. Still, alumni on the whole remain uninvolved. The Greek leadership has made no effort in two years to address that deficiency.

By any reasonable standard, that oversight constitutes an unforgivable error. The Greek leaders abdicated their responsibility, and left it to amorphous alumni groups (which never materialized) to create the alumni support that was needed.

Greek leaders have displayed a similar passivity in keeping students involved and interested in the process, in reaching out to faculty, and in building a constituency among administrators. None of these endeavors would have been easy, of course. That they have barely been tried speaks to a submissive, almost fatalistic attitude among Greek leaders that has crippled their response to the SLI.

The CFSC's primary function for the past two years has been, simply, to keep a lid on any problems that might reflect poorly on the system as a whole—and to immediately apologize any time such issues arise. In so doing, the CFSC has allowed itself to fall into two traps, with significant detriment to its efficiency. First, the CFSC, by adopting a purely reactive role, has reinforced the opinion that Greek societies rely entirely on the mercy of the Dartmouth administration. The CFSC itself seems to believe that all it can do is try to make the system look good in the eyes of administrators, and to hope for the best. In fact, Greek houses have at their disposal significant legal recourse (which has been detailed in these pages over the past two years) as well as more opportunities to influence college policy than it has ever made an effort to use, as detailed above.

Second, the CFSC has lost the ability to determine when to fight and when to acknowledge its mistakes. With a series of capitulations to ludicrous claims of racial bigotry, the CFSC has conceded, erroneously, that the Greek system is chronically racist and sexist. At the same time, the CFSC's repentant hysteria devalues those apologies and rebukes which are legitimate and well deserved. The CFSC's condemnation of Chi Gamma Epsilon fraternity for the 'Ghetto Party' in the fall of 1998 may have been meaningful. But since then, apologies have been issued for a series of incidents that are simply not worthy of regret.

Sigma Phi Epsilon's 'Will Smith/Miami party' in the spring of 1999 is the best example. An internal house e-mail about the party referred to 'dressing as your favorite Cuban.' The Cuban in question, a well-known member of the house, had no objection to the e-mail, nor did the other Sig-Eps who received it. Apparently, however, some other student not on the e-mail's recipients list gained access to the message; he perceived a racist attack on Cubans. Deeply offended by something he did not understand, the student launched a campus uproar over the issue. Rather than fighting the groundless charge, both Sig Ep and the rest of the Greek leadership apologized profusely to anyone who may have been offended.

The pattern repeated itself during the Lu'au Party incident the following summer. A small group of students found a proposed lu'au party theme offensive. That lu'aus are common practice at every beach resort was irrelevant. The Greek system eagerly, and publicly, apologized for the 'harm' it had caused. These repeated apologies not only cede the moral high ground to those who claim Greeks foster racism, but it increasingly detracts from the apologies' credibility. If you apologize for anything, no matter how ridiculous, people start to doubt (accurately) your sincerity. And that is exactly what has happened with the Greek leadership.

(A brief disclaimer here is in order. In criticizing the Greek leaders of past years I do not intend to present their failings as nonsensical. I myself served as CFSC Vice-President during my sophomore summer, and in that position both consented to the apology for the lu'au party and presided over the farce that was the Judiciary Committee hearing for the offending parties. It is often very difficult to look beyond the immediate scenario and take a larger view. Precisely because it is difficult, however, leaders must do it. The simple fact remains that the leaders of the Greek system, including myself, have failed miserably to do their jobs.)

The sub-councils of the CFSC also bear responsibility for the failure of Greek leadership. The Inter-Fraternity Council in particular has completely disclaimed the leadership role that once came naturally to it. The IFC now does nothing consequential but plan fraternity rush, and has had no impact on the major issues facing fraternities at Dartmouth.

On the other hand, the Panhellenic Council, which represents all sororities, has gone too far in the opposite direction. Instead of providing leadership for sororities in cooperation with the CFSC, Panhell has actively undercut the superior body. Most notable was last winter's presentation to the Trustees of Panhell's own proposal, in which it explicitly disagreed with the consensus document of the CFSC.

Panhell also championed Tri-Delta's still largely unexplained condemnation of the CFSC when the sorority seceded last year. If Panhell believes that sororities can survive at a Dartmouth that has eliminated fraternities, the body is sorely mistaken. A united front is the only weapon the Greek system possesses; Panhell's leadership, for whatever reason, has weakened that unity considerably, making it almost a greater failure than the do-nothing IFC.

The Coed Council and the PanHellenic Council, which represents the African-American Greeks houses, have up to now been perfectly effective, to the extent that they are active. Unfortunately, both groups are hindered by small memberships. It remains to be seen whether the Coed Council will act to persuade Tabard and Alpha Theta to remain in the Greek system. If it does, the Coed Council will be the exception among Greek leadership bodies, having actually made a positive impact.

The failures of past leadership are not irreversible. Students with the vision and energy to influence Dartmouth's future can do so, if they form a cohesive and consistent policy and follow through on it. Students need to identify specific goals, and be convinced that substantive action is possible. Alumni remain an untapped resource, with a greater power than students to impact college decision making. Many members of the faculty remain sympathetic to students, even if they are reluctant to identify themselves publicly.

There must also be something the Greek system is fighting for, besides mere survival. That goal can be, and should be, change that improves on the old without discarding Dartmouth's unique history.

This is still attainable, if Greek leaders will make the effort. Otherwise, the apathy, disunity, and weakness that are present now will only increase, with potentially disastrous consequences for Greek life at Dartmouth.

The Greek Crack-Up

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