DePauw University - Mirage Yearbook (Greencastle, IN)

Page 18 text:

Rush: Accept, Regret, The dorm was filled with the shrill screams of delight as the freshman girls on the floor received their bids to join a sorority. Hardly noticed, one girl ran out of the dorm crying hysterically and broke down in the middle of the quad e she had not gotten a bid. As this incident illustrates, both excitement and disappointment make up rush. Since it takes place in the week before classes start, rush serves virtually as the freshmants introduction to DePauw. And since DePauw is so prominently Greek, rush is much more than a bunch of parties to attend and new people to meet. Competition and tension are as much a part of rush as the fun. The treshman's highschool hotshot frame of mind is challenged as it becomes apparent that DePauw is full of valedictorians and homecoming queens. From that point on, rush tests the value one places on oneself and the value one places on the opinions of others. , For girls going through rush, it is a garbled haze of soda shop parties and western theme parties; for guys it is handshakes and siideshows. The rushees are constantly trying to see the hidden meanings in the HGreek to Me books and in the ttgood-byes after each party. The answers to the superficial rush questions are memorized as, ttMy name is . . . Im from My major is I dotdon't have an HTH ... My hobbies are ... And whenever a rushee sees a group of upperctassmen in the hub or the bookstore during rush, the ever- n prevalent question comes up. ttWhat house are they in? As the week progresses the parties become longer and more formal and the rushees receive less and less invitations back. This receiving of bids, the tensest part of rush, also makes up the major difference between fraternity and sorority rush. Fraternities have open houses on the last night of rush when the rushees are told where they stand on the fraternity's preference list. The sorority system is much more ' secretive as Panhellenic rules prevent discussion of preference lists. Also fraternities have Hsnag line. This usually takes place at one in the morning after the regular bids have been given and accepted. Interfraternity Council meets with the thirteen rush chairmen in the Science and Math center and go through each guy that got oross-cut tnot offered a bidt. The rush chairmen may then offer these cross-out guys a bid. Men can also can wait to pledge a house until Open Rush which sororities have too; Open Rush is informal, inviting the rushees over for dinner individually and such. For sororities it lasts two weeks, but for fraternities it lasts until Spring. Only houses that did not take quota tthe maximum pledges a house can taket can open rush. Sorority quota this year was thirty girls. Fraternities make their individual quotas based on house capacity. After each day of rush, rushees return to the dorms and talk over the day of rush. The fraternities and

Page 17 text:

A DePauw player rests on ihe bench. wishing for some way for DePauw To overcome the Wabash lead. The tiger angrin struts along the sidelines as another DePauw attemm to score fails, The cheerleaders and the mascot discuss 16 game. Get you next year. Cavemen was a lamiliar slogan. DePauw ians snuggle under blankets as they wa1ch the game and the people walking by on the track 15

Page 19 text:

Regret With Interest . . . sororities are also awake, often until two in the morning in hashii tproperly called membership selectiom talking over the rushees. Hash never fails to bring up a new ever-prevalent question among upperclassmen, uWhat did they say about me when I was going through rush? The experience of rush from the ominous other side, graduateing from the ignorant ranks of rushee, is not as simple as it seems. Upperclass Greeks usually return to campus two weeks before classes start, one week of preparation and one week of rush. Rush for them becomes a confusion of committees, chants, and scribbling down between each party what is remembered about each rushee. The number of participants in DePauwls rush stresses its importance. From the 1982 freshman women, 76 did not pledge a house. That is, only 171 freshmen remained independent while 519 went Greek. Statistics like that seem contrary to what Panhei and IFC call their philosophy: Greek life is not for everyone. Of course, with such high participation in the Greek life at DePauw, the system cannot really be exclusive. The pain of rush comes in the exception to that idea and from not being able to actively chose where to belong. Many improvements are in order. First, keeping rushees and the public honestly informed about Greek life is a large task. Panhei and IFC are constantly needing to dispell the misconceptions 0f rush. Contrary to some beliefs, men do not drink beer during rush and not all sororites ask, What does your father do? The idea has been tossed around that rush should last longer than a week - perhaps a whole semester. But others refute 'that this would make rush more competitive, ruthless, and chaotic as reputations set in on houses and people quickly on a small campus. At least, Panhei and IFC have more earnestly been offering dorm life as an option to freshman. Senior Laurie Curry, who is was an independent, served as a rush counselor tsee Senior Sectioni. The Residence Hall Association sponsered a slideshow on dorm life during rush. Such actions enabled freshmen to ask more freely not what house to belong to, but if to belong to a house at all. The Alpha Omicron Pi option relieved some , pressure in sorority rush this year also. One committee proposed that freshman males be required to live in dorms like freshman women their first year at DePauw instead of moving right into the fraternities. The University's rejection of this idea only shows that DePauw,s entire housing system is dependent on the Greeks. In addition to the University, rush also continues to have a tremendous effect on the students. It helps to mold the student's sense of identitiy in addition to the student's sense of DePauw.