THE MICHIGAN DAILY

Tuesday, August 27, 1968

THE MICHIGAN DAILY Tuesday, August 27, 1968


anhel: Choice of few from many

STATUS PLAYED DOWN:
IFC tries to re-shape image,
Computers for fraternity rush

By ALISON SYMROSKI
In addition to their usual
attention to social and cultural
activities, the University's 24 un-
dergraduate sororities last year
were forced to confront a major
problem area: discrimination in
membership selection and hous-
ing.
Amid much debate, the Panhel-
lenic Association passed a resolu-
tion last fall committing itself to
the elimination of required recom-
mendations in membership selec-
tion.
This had been a controversial
issue, since many national organi-
zations require a recommendation
from an alumna for each girl to
be pledged. Often alumna will
veto a girl on the basis of race or
religion. Often the, houses are
dependent on the nationals for
financial support and must take
aluma recommendations as bind-
ing.
Last, the University's two Negro
sororities were able. to attain
housing for the firstItime by re-
serving a section of Oxford Co-op
for a period of two years.
And Panhel hopes to aid these
sororities in finding permanent

houses before the two-year con-
tract is up, according to Vice
President Karen Lowe, '69,
"A sorority house is filled kWith
a great diversity of people," she
maintains. "You're not as likely
to get cut off as in an apartment
living with four of five others."
A major duty of the Panhel
lenic Association is planning in-
ter - sorority activities. Among
those being worked on for this
year are:
Trips to the Toledo Art Museum,
an exchange with sorority mem-
bers from other schools, a Spring
Concert featuring a well-known
pop artist, a sing with the Inter-
fraternity Council, horseback
riding program, and a leadership
conference-perhaps in the form
of a retreat.
On the academic side, Panhel
requires a girl to have at least a
2.0 over-all average to pledge.
The current average among soro-
rity women is 2.92.
In addition to Panhel-organizedi
activities, the individual sorori-
ties also plan after-dinner speak-
ers, weekly "T.G." parties with
'fraternities, philanthropy projects,
Christmas parties, pledge formals,
etc.

Panhel generally puts most
emphasis however, on Rush. It is
a two-week process of mixers,
parties, and desserts through
which sororities meet potential
pledges and girls interested in
sororities have a chance to visit
the houses.
This year rush will be held in
January, with registration and
meetings explaining the me-
chanics of rush.
Last year Panhel had experi-
mented with holding it early in
the fall. However, they have re-
turned to the usual winter sched-
ule to give girls more time to be-
come acclimated to the campus
before entering the rush whirl-
wind.
Going through the process puts
a girl under no obligation to join
a sorority. "All you can do is take
a look and try it for yourself,"
Miss Lowe explains. "It's a good
idea to participate in rush even
if you aren't interested in pledg-
ing a sorority. It's a way of meet-
ing people.
"You'd be surprized how much
smaller the campus can become
after going through rush," she
adds.

By DAVID WEIR
A new structure, a radicalized
self-image, and the determination
to increase fraternity involvement
in campus activity characterizes
the 1968 edition of the Univer-
sity's Interfraternity C o u n c i l
(IFC).
Under the leadership of'Presi-
dent Bob Rorke, '69, IFC is at-
tempting to "forget the past and
get into the present reality" of
University life.
"We have restructured IFC into
a corporate service organization,
for the 46 campus houses," says
Rorke. "We hope in this way to
offer more of an activist or radi-
cal leadership, in place of the pro-
tective image we have had in the
past."
Rorke is concerned with elimi-
nating the "status image" con-
nected with the Greek'system due
to ties with conservative nationals
and alumni.
"Group living can be a. very
good thing at the University,"
Rorke claims. "As originally con-
ceived, fraternities were student
power in its rawest form. Proper-
ly exploited, they represent an
opportunity for constructive stu-
dent power-for undergraduates
to do things."
One of the programs IFC is in-
itiating this year is a "college
headstart" which entails housing
boys from the Detroit ghetto for
a few days in order to acquaint
them with the University.
Another plan is for a "radical
in residence" program, where
members of Voice-SDS will "live-
in" at various houses in order to
stimulate discussion of political
issues.
Another change this year is in
the Rush procedure. Materials dis-
tributed in the dorms during the

first two weeks of September will University fraternities is consid-
acquaint freshmen wi t h the ered valuable, IFC recognizes the
changes before the mass Rush militant segregation of the two
meeting on Monday, Sept. 16. black houses as part of the na-
Following t h r e e nights of tional search for identity and
"smokers" from 7-10 p.m.. pros- culture,
pective rushees will be invited IFC is however, says Rorke;
back to houses on Sunday. Sept. planning programs of cultural in-
22. tegration with the black houses in
In order to assist both rushees areas of community service and
and houses in this process, an in- campus social life.
tensive, computerized counseling Overall, Rorke feels that fra-
service will be initiated.'This serv- ternities must modernize and
ice will be available both Friday update their time-worn image,
and Saturday of Rush week, in and become more involved in cam-
addition to the following Monday. pus activities.
"We hope to help every guy "The Greek system can and
find the right house," says Rorke. should supplement one's univer-
"With 46 fraternities to choose sity education. In a fraternity, a
from, many freshmen rush the man has the opportunity to spend
wrong five houses, and miss the time in athletics, social and
opportunity of seeing the house leadership activities, and political
right for them. . affairs that students in other
Although racial integration of housing units don't.

*

Rush: Still mainspring of sororities?

Too much emphasis seen on parties

i F ,'

WALTER SHAPIRO-

XX X

Will they ever learn?


and what it can do for, you now!

'

A LOUD and almost falsetto
voice rose unseen from the other
side of the partition between
booths in the Union, "I just
don't like sharing people."
Everyday in class, at the '
UGLI, along State Street I
glance momentarily into the
passing gallery of faces. Faces
I'll never know. I nod hello to
people I little note, nor long
remember. It's their University
too, but I can't perceive what
sort of Ann Arbor it is that
they know.
* * *
FOR SOME perverse reason in
the shower the other morning
I was thinking about fourth
floor Wenley House, West Quad
of three years ago. I've fallen
totally out of touch with almost
all of them except for a hasty
nod and a word or two of,
meaningless banter. Dorm life
is important because it repre-'
sents a panorama of the Uni-
versity which we quickly learn
to obscure in our self-con-
structed cjoisters. '
Today one is surviving some-
what less than happily in Tor-
onto-a fugitive from the vor-
acious appetite of a military,
machine unable to understand
students not carrying 30 credits
a.'year in the national interest.
Another became the perfect
fraternity man, veteran of
countless TG's, who has now
mellowed into the perfect apart-
ment dweller with his life semi-
molded before him.
The guy next door broadened
his Traverse City horizons by
touring the world with the
}Michigan Glee Club. My old
roommate has been rewarded
with a grade point average just
a tiny fraction below 4.0 for
his compulsive goal - directed
academic efforts. Another guy
on the floor is now the acid
WELCOME
STUDENTS !
" DISTINCTIVE COLLEGIATE
HAIRSTYLING for Me-_
And Women--
* 8 Hairstylists
THE DASCOLA BARBERS
Near Michigan Theatre

end of a campus acid rock
group.
Over, three years all of them
probably could have become al-
most anything. Instead today
they are only the logical ex-
tensions of what they once were.
S . * * *
ONCE I was rabidly anti-
fraternity seeing the self-seg-
regation of the Greeks as a
unique evil. That was before I'
heard the ingentus theory of a
friend about the way the Uni-
versity really operates. Now I.
see that almost all of us be-
come limited in our outlook and
restrictive in the people we
want to know. Anyway_
My friend claims that there
are only 483 real people in the
University. Of course, she
doesn't know all of these real
people but when combined to-
gether everyone she knows col-
lectively knows all 483.
The rest are cardboard mock-
ups made by a renbwned card-
board factory in Grand Rapids.
It's the mock-ups who provide
all the placid faces which fill
the hot, crowded lecture halls.
It's the cardboard cut-outs who
take all the spaces in front of
you on line' at Cinema Guild
and it's these Grand Rapids-
made mock-ups who make the
line for making a counseling
appointment so .interminably
long."
The University uses the card-
board mock-ups to inflate their'
enrollment figures for the bene-
fit of the penny - pinching,
know-nothing state legislators.
For if the solons in Lansing
only gave us a niggardly $60
odd million for oit alleged
35,000 students, you can im-
agine how little we'd get if
they ever discovered that the
University is only educating 483
real people.
TIME MAGAZINE and every-
one else in this screwed up
country has been picturing the
college campus as allace where
the grass is as high an an ele-
phant's eye and where every
pillow comes complete with a
co-ed and her precious Pill.
For many they are right-
God if they only knew how
right. But there are others who
never drink anything stronger
than beer, still smoke cigar-
ettes with a guilt complex, and

whose sex life is more fancied
than factual-and they prower
it that way.
What I'm getting at is there
is just no norm, no typical
-student. I suspect half of the
,"immoral" behavior on this
campus is motivated by a per-
verse "keeping-down-with-the-
Joneses," "everybody's doing it"
half-admitted sense of inse-
curity.
It's too bad, because that
way we're all the victims of the
leering magazine writers.
PERHAPS one of the major
fruits of our generation-I
sound like someong's mother
talking about the Depression-
is the destruction of the tra-
ditional goals of society by the
ever-growing ranks of the dis-
enchanted.
The problem of the contem-
porary rejection of the shams
of success is that too many
doubters just meekly gravitate
to the least abrasive niches of
a malformed society-teaching,
social work, journalism-and
too few try to create alterna-
tives of their own.
Oddly enough perhaps that's
the University's greatest failing
-not giving students a reason
to ever escape academia.
* * *
ONE NEVER fully accepts the
loneliness that accompanies the
,modern university. Few really
believe the orientation leader's
trite pronouncement, "Nobody
'gives a damn what you do here
-you're on your own."
But fewer have a legitimate
right to feel otherwise. The
University is designated as a
publicly supported t r e a s u r e
trove for the goal - oriented
Maybe that partially explains
the bitter despair of the aim-
less.
* * *
One summer's night I walked
the , streets of Ann Arbor and
listened to the whir of the fans
and the steady hum of the air-
conditioners. Behind all those
windows were so many people
I'll never know and so much
I'll never understand. There is
a loneliness of the too much
and the too quick which haunts
us all. And looking back "that
may be the ultimate sadness of
Ann Arbor.

041

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When your banking needs are immediate, next week or even tomor-
rdW won't do. We know that students and faculty alike need banking
services that are geared to the present. We have scheduled our bank-
ing hours for your convenience. We offer NOW SERVICES:
Open Saturday 9:00 until 12 noon and Friday until 8 pm.
Additional hours: Drive-up windows open until 5 pm Mon-
day through Thursday.

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Thrifti Checks still only 100 per check.

FREE. Checking when you maintain a $150 minimum balance
or hold a $1000 Certificate of Deposit.
Three convenient locations:
Washington at Fifth Ave. (Downtown)_
Washtenaw at Huron Parkway (Eastside)
West Stadium at Pauline (Westside)
FREE parking at all offices.
HURON VALLEY

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