It's that time of the year again - when foreign letters and acronyms take on a whole new meaning. Rush is underway for sororities and starting next week for fraternities, and soon, many students will decide whether they want to go Greek.
The prospective pledges have already begun taking house trips and getting to know the people that may soon become their brothers or sisters in Tufts' ten fraternities, three sororities, or one co-ed house.
This also marks the beginning of two weeks of a virtually party-free campus - Tufts institutes a no-alcohol policy for the duration, creating what is known as "dry rush."
While Tufts may enforce the policy on campus, fraternities and sororities must abide by more than university regulations. The Risk Management Policy instituted by the Fraternity Insurance Purchasing Group (FIPG), which provides insurance for most houses nationwide, specifically delineates the dry rush rule as part of its insurance agreement.
Dean of Students Bruce Reitman does not recall any serious problems with dry rush in the past years.
"There have been very, very few violations of dry rush that have been found," he said, adding that the fraternities' governing bodies, not the Tufts University Police Department (TUPD), have generally discovered most of the infractions.
Reitman also suggested that fraternities might willingly accept dry rush because they don't want alcohol to interfere with a possible pledge's choice. "I think the reason the fraternities adopted [the policy] is because [rush] became an issue of who had the best alcohol in their house," he said.
Fraternities and sororities differ slightly in their approaches to rush. A student looking to join a fraternity must first decide which fraternity he would like to rush. At the end of the recruitment period, the fraternity decides whether or not to grant a bid to each candidate.
The three sororities on campus operate differently. Students interested in joining a sorority are required to rush all three, and are encouraged to attend events for each house. Jessica Boschee, a sorority sister and former president of the Pan-Hellenic Council, describes the bid process as a sort of "mutual agreement" between each particular house and each girl, emphasizing that the process involves many factors to ensure that the selection process is unbiased.
Sorority rush began this past Sunday, and events will continue throughout the week and into the beginning of next, when bids will be offered.
While rush events for fraternities have not officially started, students are eager to begin. Freshman Gidi Fisher has already decided to rush Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi). His reasons for wanting to join are simple. "I like the idea of always having something to do," he said, while also expressing discontent with the dry rush process.
For sororities, the issue seems to be moot. According to Massachusetts law, they cannot host parties with alcohol present regardless, so the sisters don't seem to mind the dry rush policy. "For me personally, and for the girls that are rushing, it doesn't make a difference," Boschee said.
While AEPi member Sam Schwartz didn't particularly take issue with the concept of dry rush - most fraternity brothers view the policy as something by which they must abide - he is concerned that it may do more harm than good. "It's well known that cases of alcohol poisoning increase during dry rush periods, since students that want to drink are forced to do it in their rooms," he said.
Without parties, the fraternities host other events for their potential pledges to get them in the spirit. "In the past, we've gone to restaurants or gone bowling...we had fun ways for people to meet each other and interact," Schwartz said.
