Last Wednesday, Oct. 23, the Inter-Society Council (ISC) met with Travis Hill, Assistant Dean for Student Engagement, to discuss proposed and planned reforms for Greek life on campus. Hill recently assumed responsibility for the day-to-day oversight of Fraternity and Sorority Life (FSL) on campus.
The ISC is a governing body for all recognized Greek societies at Hamilton and serves as a platform for communication between the administration and societies. This particular meeting addressed the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Committee regarding the rush process. The Committee was established last year by Vice President and Dean of Students Terry Martinez to review Greek life on campus and implement common guidelines and practices. It specifically deals with chapter advising, guidelines for recruiting new members, national affiliation, certificates of insurance, and the role of the ISC.
Last year, the Blue Ribbon Committee reviewed the rush process and made several recommendations, including shortening the rush process to one week. The current rush process varies from society to society, but usually lasts the entirety of the spring semester. Considerably shortening the rush process would align more with national standards but has been criticized by those students directly involved in Greek life at Hamilton.
Travis Hill has been working closely with the ISC to ensure that Blue Ribbon proposals do not impede on the integrity of the rush process or greatly limit societies’ abilities to successfully recruit new members. Many students involved in Greek life adamantly oppose the shortening of rush and have been vocal in their concerns to Hill.
Issues with the rush process outlined in the Blue Ribbon Committee’s report revolve around perceptions that the process is non-recognizable and should have more visible components, such as an “open-house” or public events.
In response to the Committee’s recommendations, some society members point out that many groups do host public events that in the form of invitations to formal rush events sent out in all-campus emails in the spring.
Other members of the ISC argue that the primary difficulty in having “open-house” events is a lack of adequate infrastructure. There is a limited amount of social spaces on campus, they say, and while a one-week rush period is standard at schools where fraternity and sorority members live in houses, this is not the case at Hamilton.
Furthermore, at the meeting some students expressed their view that a single week of rush was antithetical to the point of the process. They argued that having a rush period that lasts throughout the semester allows first-year students to become closer with one another as well as with the older members of the societies. A single week, they said, may reduce these initial interactions to superficialities.
Several ISC members said they were January-admits and worried that a single week would prevent future students like them from meeting others on campus. Many said that they relied on the rush process to branch out and meet not only others in their grade, but older students as well. Other ISC members shared stories of friends who chose not to join a society but still found that they had made friendships throughout the process and did not feel as isolated from Greek life afterward.
Finally, students said the semester-long process allows needed flexibility. Currently, societies are able to coordinate events with one another so that they do not overlap, but if the process were reduced to a week, they worried that instances of overlap would be unavoidable. Advocates for maintaining the status quo said they often felt relieved by the knowledge that rush lasted a semester, especially for athletes who often had to miss rush events for practice or games.
After the meeting, Hill signaled that a conversation about how the proposals of the Blue Ribbon Committee will implemented is ongoing. Members of the ISC said they also hope to continue the conversation and work with the administration to determine a plan that addresses their concerns with aspects of the recommendations.
