Sororities consider decisions about renewing their campus contract
Panhellenic Council, the sorority representative body on campus, is deciding whether or not to join the ranks of the university’s fraternities by not renewing their student organization contract with CU.
On Jan. 29, executive members of the Panhellenic Council met with Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Ronald Stump to discuss the upcoming renewal of their contract with the university.
“Last spring, Panhellenic Sororities laid out standards for CU based on the standards set by the National Panhellenic Conference,” said John Henderson, director of Greek life. “The meeting with the vice chancellor was to review our progress in meeting these standards.”
Though the exact details of this meeting have yet to be disclosed, CU’s sororities have long been considering breaking with the university, feeling that they have enough numbers to support themselves.
“What the Panhellenic sororities have done is continue to follow the policies of that agreement and go beyond the agreement by setting goals to help their community,” Henderson said.
In April of 2005, the Panhellenic Council signed the fraternal organization agreement with the university to, among other things, defer fall rush to the spring semester. This was the same agreement the Interfraternity Council (IFC) refused to sign, resulting in their loss of status as a student organization on campus.
“None of the local sororities wanted to sign it,” said CU’s Greek Advocate, Marc Stine, said. “They were ordered to do so by their national headquarters. From that time, my perception is that their numbers have gone down considerably.”
The past two years have been going reasonably well for the IFC though.
“It has been irritating, offensive at times, and expensive, but other than that, we are doing just fine,” Stine said. “The university has made several efforts to try and hurt our recruitment, but I don’t think they have been particularly successful at it. Our two recent recruitment periods have made an increase of 20 percent more than the previous 12 months, and our total membership is up 13 percent.”
The Panhellenic Council now has the same qualms the fraternities had with the agreement. Some sororities feel that one semester is just not enough time to fully bond new members.
“It would be good, in a way,” said Jaclynne Barrow, a sophomore open-option major and member of Alpha Phi. “The sororities now are not benefiting from the university making them defer rush to spring rather than fall”
Henderson feels the sororities will renew their contract with CU.
“The way I understand it is that they will continue to work with the university,” Henderson said. “For now, the idea is that each semester we review the agreement to check in and see how things are going.”
Barrow is conflicted though.
“I think it’s really important to be involved with CU,” Barrow said. “We go to school here, we’re not just Greek, but our numbers have tended to go down a lot since they have changed it to spring rush.”
It is uncertain whether the Panhellenic sororities will renew their contract with the university, attempt to alter their contract to allow for fall rush or simply continue to abide by the current contract.
