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April 27, 2012 11:00 AM
Cornell’s Greek System “Dead”?
Cornell University’s Greek system may be finished, at least according to students involved.
Back in August the university’s president, David Skorton, took the radical step of ending the pledge process. Fraternities were still allowed on campus, but students would just be accepted into fraternities; no special, semester-long trials and initiations would occur.
That plan has run into trouble. According to an article by J.K. Trotter at Ivy Gate, Cornell’s Interfraternity Council will suspend two fraternities for pledging students. Someone on campus apparently explained that:
Within a week the Cornell IFC/OFSA will kick Sig Chi and Phi Sig off campus, for public “initiation rituals” done 3 weeks after the official end of the pledge period.
Just giving you a heads up that the news will break before Slope Day…The greek system at Cornell is dead.
It’s not entirely clear why the punishment of those two fraternities will kill Cornell’s Greek system, but it certainly doesn’t look good.
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cornell_11 on April 27, 2012 11:47 AM:
The original IvyGate report was wrong: http://cornellsun.com/blog/content/2012/04/26/despite-reports-fraternities-will-remain-campus
Texas Aggie on April 27, 2012 6:53 PM:
Several decades ago the Greek system at Cornell was the basis for EVERYTHING. If an undergraduate wanted to be involved in anything that even smelled like a social life such as intramurals, you had to belong to a fraternity. About the only nonfrat activity I ever found was Friday evening volleyball at the women's gym. At the time I was told that only one other university in the US had more active chapters than Cornell.
If the Cornell Greek system is going the way of the stegasaurus, it will be one of the best things that's happened to the Big Red in a long, long time. At A&M we have the observation "Rent a friend! Join a fraternity." That certainly fit at Cornell.