Sorority stupidity

Of all the weekends on the academic calendar, the greek system picked the absolute worst for its 21 party.

The first sorority recruitment hurdle was a grand two-day event for close to 2,000 women in search of the perfect environment in which to bond, grow and live in a wonderful community of sisterhood.

If only the timing wasn’t so asinine.

Two weeks before finals, an underclassman has far too much going on to drop everything to be vetted for two days. Projects are due, tests are looming and the pressure is cranked up to the max. Anyone who supports the greek system will cite that it teaches young people how to prioritize and organize so a girl can turn into a
well-rounded woman.

It is a shame, then, that actions are screaming contradictions at the words.

It is in no way teaching a girl to prioritize when she is asked to dedicate well more than 12 hours of the weekend before dead week to rush. There is no good reason to take the focus away from academics.

IU is widely regarded to have one of the most rigorous and thorough sorority recruitment processes in the nation. Let’s not, though, confuse rigor and intellect.

The second step of the recruitment process involves participants coming back to school early from winter break and continuing to narrow down the options. This step is perfect, actually. A student going through rush during break only affects her winter break, not any part of the school  year. It doesn’t ruin her grades or her focus on anything truly important.

The question then becomes, if women have to come back early anyway, why doesn’t 21 party also move to the week before a semester begins?

It is important for all of the recruits to learn dedication.

It might require some kind of sacrifice to be in a sorority, and if a woman isn’t really serious, she should be weeded out of the system quickly.

That doesn’t mean, however, that a woman who takes her school work seriously should be questioned for her dedication. It is a disservice to the best of the women to disparage them for wanting to do well in the classroom.

And although the greek system would never admit to it, that is exactly what goes on during the rush process.

This isn’t even considering the impact on sisters already in the house. Someone has to be there to put the recruits through the ringer.  It is an immense time commitment to put on a game face and give up a pivotal weekend in favor of sisterhood. It is irresponsible of the sisters to do it and negligent on the part of the system to ask them to do so.

If there were no other options, this would be admissible, if not a little superfluous.

But because there are others, and better ones, it instead appears to be a downright offense to exactly what the greek system is supposedly meant to teach the young college students who get involved.

­— azoot@indiana.edu