The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/sororities/)
Despite the increase in DEI initiatives within sororities under the Panhellenic Association, four members told The Sun about race-related anxieties over recruitment and biases within the Greek Life system.
The IFC president and the director of sorority and fraternity life sent an email lifting the ban on social events while implementing new measures for students’ healthy and safety.
Nahbuma Gana has big dreams for Greek life reform. She is slated to be the next president of the Panhellenic Council.
I wiped graham cracker crumbs from my lips and gulped down one last gooey mouthful of marshmallow and chocolate as I traipsed down the Slope. It didn’t taste very good. I continued to distance myself from the Arts Quad on my descent to West Campus — and yet, I still couldn’t shake the saccharine aftertaste that the s’more left behind. Supposedly, I had consumed the s’more in the name of service. Realistically, my only takeaways were sticky fingers glued together by melted marshmallows and a $6 charge on my Venmo account.
On Friday, the President of the Panhellenic Council proposed an unprecedented shift in Greek Life on campus: a freeze of all social mixers between member sororities and fraternities on campus until the Interfraternity Council and Executive Board upped safety measures for party-goers.
Cornell yearbook fraternity rosters from the 1980s feature altered names such as “Ku,” Klux” and “Klan.”
Due to a winter storm that struck the greater Tompkins area Saturday night, Cornell University’s Panhellenic Council and Interfraternity Council had to make changes to their recruitment timelines, including pushing recruitment timelines back a week.
After reading Ara Hagopian’s recent column titled “Don’t Decry the Greek System if You Use It for Your Own Gain,” I felt a flush of emotion: anger, sadness, shame and, ultimately, an overarching sense of disempowerment. As someone who holds multiple marginalized identities and actively works to reform my fraternity and the Greek system at large, I felt betrayed. I first want to challenge the idea that there is an option to “not participate” in the Greek system at Cornell. Any undergraduate student who attends Cornell interacts with Greek members on a daily basis, benefits from the financial contributions of wealthy Greek alumni and creates a professional network that is heavily influenced by the Greek system. Historically, these privileges were created by excluding people of color, the LGBT+ community, people of low socioeconomic status, international students, religious minorities and many others.
Apgar worked to end the pledge system that fraternities and sororities used in recruitment and to replace it with an orientation system that is based on the first-year orientation program.
As the spring semester at Cornell begins, annual recruitment week has come to a close. The rush class this year was comprised of a record number of freshmen, sophomores and transfers including 719 potential fraternity members. New members received bids to the Panhellenic Association’s 11 chapters and the Interfraternity Council’s 41 chapters.
The recruitment process was very different for boys and girls. The potential sorority members spent their days meeting sisters in each house and taking house tours.[img_assist|nid=34200|title=Behind the eight ball|desc=Doug Kuts ’09 plays pool at a fraternity’s rush event on Wednesday|link=node|align=left|width=|height=0]