Wednesday, October 16, 1996
SHAWN LAKSMI
The number of women rushing sororities on Hilgard Avenue this
fall remained steady despite anti-Greek literature distributed at
the dorms.
SORORITIES:
Rushees not discouraged by anti-Greek propagandaBy Karen
Duryea
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
A 20-page anti-Greek document placed underneath dorm room doors
two weeks ago did not break the spirit of those intending to
participate in Greek life at UCLA.
"The result of women who joined the Greek system through formal
rush portrays enrollment as status quo this year," said student
affairs advisor Ellen Archibald.
Of the 363 women that registered to pledge sororities, 219
finished the process and became members. According to Archibald,
the number of women who pledged was up by 20 people compared to
last year, and the number of women who registered to participate in
rush fell by less than 10 women.
"(The documents) didn’t cut down on the number of women,"
Archibald said. "The same number of people dropped out on
average."
The packet of anti-Greek documents distributed in the dorms
included a timeline of supposed offenses committed by members of
the Greek system, as well as old articles from the Daily Bruin
about the Greek system. They date back to 1991, the year the Theta
Xi songbooks were discovered in an abandoned apartment.
The packets were placed illegally in the dormitories. No action
has been taken since officials are unaware of who organized it.
"On-campus housing policy for distributing flyers in the dorms
states that anything must be approved by the resident director
prior to posting, and anything without an approval stamp is taken
down," said Mark Ng, a first-year political science student and
front-desker at Dykstra Hall.
The packets stirred response from Greek supporters, stating that
the anonymous group who put together the packet was ill-informed
and behind the times.
"Although the timeline presented a very comprehensive list of
alleged offenses, only seven of these occurred after 1992 and
nowhere were the thousands of positive events such as philanthropy,
community outreach programs and community service mentioned," wrote
Adam Lyall, a third-year economics student, and Patrick Strader, a
third-year political science student to Viewpoint last week.
Due to the untimeliness of the documents, students like Regan
Daigneault, a first-year sociology student who received one of the
packets in her dorm room, disregarded its contents.
"I was going through rush when it happened, so that was kind of
weird," Daigneault said. "I ignored it … people were talking
about it but they didn’t take it seriously. Maybe some people were
offended, I just thought it was stupid."
Numbers for fraternity rushees were unavailable; however,
according to the office of Fraternity and Sorority Relations,
approximately 400 men registered for rush this fall.