Editorial: Rush alterations?

Next week, the Interfraternity Council is making changes to the rush process. Although these changes are minor overall, they also seem to be an attempt to change the nature of fraternity rush and make it into something it isn't.

The biggest change is the abolishment of dorm rushing, where brothers go into East Campus dorms to personally hand out invitations for upcoming rush events. Under the new system, rushees will go to the IFC offices to pick up their invitations. The IFC claims this change is being made to improve safety by preventing upperclass men from running around freshman dorms.

However, the ultimate result of this policy will be to reduce the amount of personal interaction between fraternity members and rushees, which means that the matches between rushees and frats will be worse. Additionally, the new policy trades one type of awkwardness--giving an invitation to one roommate but not both--for another--where rushees all storm into the IFC office and find out if they have been cut or not, like at a middle school sports team tryout.

Registering for rush online and not with the frats themselves also cuts down on personal interaction. But the benefit to frats from learning about where rushees have been cut so that they can offer bids to the maximum number of students, outweighs the potential costs. Of course, frats will need to be careful to protect the privacy of the rushees.

Another change includes shortening the rush period by a week, which is probably a good thing since the process is currently long and drawn-out and the additional time is not necessary to figure out where people match up best. Especially since many rushees know where they want to go before rush begins, shortening the rush process only makes sense.

Mandating alcohol-free dinners and event nights seems like much less of a good idea, especially since many fraternities are frequent drinkers. If the social atmosphere of a fraternity includes alcohol, then mandating alcohol free events seems to misrepresent what fraternities are about. The new emphasis on community service, by moving that day to the beginning of the rush process, also may misrepresent the priorities of many fraternities.

Ultimately, many of these changes seem to try to be making frats into something they are not and it seems that the IFC is trying to police itself so that the administration doesn't have to. But it seems that if the University is going to have fraternities, those frats should act like frats, not like something they aren't.