Quote:
Originally Posted by LucyKKG
Quote:
Originally Posted by alum
Davidson College is an excellent LAC in the Carolinas that allows male fraternities but not sororities. If that policy ever changes, I would be pleased to see us colonize there.
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Whaaaat! Can they really do that? I know some people argue that only allowing women to be members of sororities (or men in fraternities) is discriminatory, but not allowing sororities on campus is wayyy beyond that. |
Crashing, but since the thread got bumped . . .
It's not quite right to say that Davidson doesn't allow sororities. As I understand it from a number of Davidson alumnae, NPC sororities have not been invited to campus partially because there has never been a strong enough demand for them from Davidson's female students, or to the degree there has been a stong demand from some female students, there has been equally strong or stronger opposition from other female students.
Here is a 1998 statement on the subject. Since that time, however, both Alpha Kappa Alpha and Delta Sigma Theta both have established chapters there (2008 and 2011).
Patterson Court at Davidson includes houses (not full residential houses) for 6 fraternities (KA Order, Kappa Sig, SAE, Sig Ep, Fiji and Phi Delt) and the Black Student Coalition House and MultiCultural House. It also includes four women's "eating houses" -- Connnor, Rusk, Turner and Warner. (Along with AKA and Delta, Alpha Phi Alpha and Kappa Alpha Psi have chapters at Davidson. APhiA once had a house on Patterson Court but doesn't anymore.)
About 2/3 of female students at Davidson belong to a women's eating house. Eating houses are a self-selecting with regard to membership, and that seems to be at least in part what differentiates them in the minds of students from sororities.
It's also important to note that fraternities -- at least the NIC fraternities (plus Kappa Sig) -- at Davidson operate a little differently from the way they do elsewhere. Fraternities are also "eating houses" at Davidson, and even if a guy is not offered a bid to
any fraternities (whether he went through rush and didn't get any bids or whether he simply chose not to go through rush), he may still select fraternity of his choice as his "eating house." He will then be a "social member" of the fraternity/eating house. He will not be considered a member of the inter/national fraternity and will not be entitled to vote in chapter (or participate in ritual), but will be entitled to participate in all social events. Beta closed its Davidson chapter rather than go along with the idea of "social membership."
