23 Comments
Imagine our joy when, this morning, an “important update” dropped into our inbox from the Interfraternity Council: Greek membership has exploded from 550 in 2006 to an astonishing 823 today! That’s over 50 percent growth in two years, to just about 10 percent of Barnard, the College and SEAS. There are comfortably over twice as many brothers as sisters, not counting members of the Multicultural Greek Council, which is composed of frats and sororities that carry an ethnic identity.
Curious to see who had cleaned up in fall rush, Bwog asked Interfraternity Council president Matt Heiman for the frat-by-frat membership breakdown, but was informed that the information was “not public.” Heiman said that we “could try contacting the fraternities individually to get this information, but I think it will be difficult.”
Heiman attributed the increase in membership to “strong leadership of fraternity and sorority presidents” as well as a more collective approach in increasing the Greek community’s presence and involvement on campus. His own organization, the IFC, was only formed last year as a parallel to the girls-only Panhellenic Council (plus there’s the overarching InterGreek Council…we know, it’s confusing).
Loading …
23 Comments
@maybe it’s because being smart has actually become socially acceptable, and, really, standard in some areas, so people who typically just cared about their social lives now have to start caring about school, too. that means more people at columbia who aren’t just concerned with studying till their brains explode on a friday night
@Gowb It’s pretty silly and a logical fallacy to assume that if you’re not roaming around a party desperate to land some form of action and/get tagged into as many pictures as possible on facebook the next day that you’re automatically at Butler’s studying.
In between the two cliches there is a LOT to do in this city beyong our 3-block radius. For some people, like myself I guess, spending 4 hours in a crowded EC suite is not the best this city has to offer in terms of free entertainment.
@wait... WE LIVE IN NEW YORK CITY?
holy shit…i gotta get out more!
@interesting Why are you inviting a bunch of liberal democrats to join a “new republican” blog?
@Anonymous Would you consider commenting and subscribing to my blog?
http://thenewrepublicans.net
@answer no.
@matt heiman stop posting about yourself
@coops... columbia DEFINITELY should have more coops… i was surprised how low key they are given this place’s liberal history (berkeley has TONS of coops that are absolutely crazy)
@matt heiman is so hot
@cc'09 most of the parties at bars are often thrown by frats/sororities and non-greeks come too (even if you don’t know it)…greek life here isn’t overbearing at all, I hardly even notice it. I kinda wished I had joined one…at least to live in a brownstone
@... this school needs some proper coops.
@i know of at least one…
@agreed one of the many reasons i chose columbia was for the low-key greek life
@am i the only one Am i the only one who thinks this is a bad thing?
@Hmm Actually, I think about the 90% of us who do not associate with greek life do too.
@hii I sort of by into the prestige theory, but not in that Columbia’s has increased relative to comparable schools, but in the way the whole college selection process has been made into such a lovely consumerist/glossy ordeal.
@theory I think the “war on fun” hypothesis makes sense, but try on this, too: columbia’s increased prestige has brought with it a more generically rankings-conscious student body…a student body that’s less concerned with fitting into the school’s predesignated social stereotypes.
@hmm The prestige has been high for a while … I think the War on Fun may be more accurate. Easier access to a social network/parties.
@I dunno two or three rankings and all of a sudden we have hundreds of frathouse rankings-conscious stepfords?
@Eureka! You must have hit upon it! After all, Columbia wasn’t prestigious just a few years ago, and, as we all know, it’s only the prestigious schools that have active fraternities and sororities.
@CC'09 I think this is a pretty fascinating phenomenon, because freshman year, parties, drinking, fun – was decentralized. You had several circles of friends scattered between casbah, nachos, ‘stend, Mona’s, 1020, Canon’s, etc. On a Thursday night, Broadway would be packed with people moving between places and you’d run into friends. Parties raged in the dorms.
Then the War on fun happened, and everything is different. Maybe this explains the concentration of party-seekers in greek-life?
@ugh more bros and hoes
@it sounds like by “not public” he means, i actually have no fucking clue.