Fraternity History & More

Louise Leonard, an Alpha Gamma Delta, served her organization in many ways, as Quarterly Editor, Grand President, and National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) delegate, to name a few. She served as NPC Chairman from 1926-28. Eighty years ago, she wrote something that resonates as well today as it did back then. “How Do We Rate?” is its title. It was published in several NPC member magazines. Note that when she wrote it, there were 23 NPC groups, today there are 26.  Sorority recruitment has started on some campuses and the sentiment of this is as true today as it was eight decades ago.

Last spring, when fall rushing plans were already in the air, there came to my desk by chance one of the prevailing booklets which are prepared for the information and edification of the presumably uninformed rushees who invade the campuses each fall. Persons will disagree concerning the details of what should go into such booklets, but it has always seemed to me that fraternity good taste is as valuable a requisite as personal good taste. Therefore it was with a distinct shock that I read among the ‘Do you knows’ of this booklet, prepared by a chapter of a fraternity other than my own, the startling query ‘that ____ fraternity ranks first of all the N.P.C. fraternities because of ___ .’  The reasons, which could easily be refuted by one with a Panhellenic background, I omit since the identity of the fraternity in question is not pertinent to the present discussion. 

A universal besetting sin of the human race is talking too much. Most of us love to talk and it is impossible to talk a great deal and not have a goodly amount of that talk worthless. With some of us a stronger designation must be used, dubbing our words harmful or even vicious. This is especially true in any superficial discussion of the relative rating of the NPC groups….

Each of the twenty-three N.P.C. fraternities is founded on ideals which dedicate its members to service and to honor and uprightness in all human relationships. Each fraternity was founded because it was felt that within its circle, deep friendship and high endeavor could be more easily fostered than without the bond of ritual. One fraternity could not possibly give membership to all who wished it and retain the close association which is an essential for the forwarding of its highest aims, It would all seem very simple then to think that one fraternity being good, and there being plenty of students to fill the ranks of twenty-three fraternities, the twenty-three would be just what was needed. And, since the problems of all twenty-three must be approximately the same, there would out of this similarity of purpose grow a solidarity which would tend toward cooperation and understanding among the individual chapters of those fraternities in working together. But the usual picture is quite different. There are campuses on which a really Panhellenic spirit prevails–where those chapters that, through some turn of the wheel, are undergoing a lean period are really given a helping hand, sympathy expressed for their present hard luck, and their good points enlarged upon in conversation . In general the campuses after rushing remind one who views them with a discerning eye very much of battle fields whereon national, chapter, and individual reputations lie torn in shreds without regard to truth or consequences, so long as the letter of the college Panhellenic rules is preserved. Theoretically everyone deplores the methods used in rushing, but we all go on year after year building up a more elaborate and complicated and devastating system of competition which completely undermines and at least temporarily annihilates the finer qualities of interfraternity relationships. Nothing in the whole system is more vicious than the complete lack of reticence in making statements which can not be proved by facts. It would indeed be a brave national officer who would undertake to prove the assertion that her fraternity was the “best” or “first,” for she knows .there is no such listing.

It is beneath the dignity of any fraternity woman to make such a statement concerning her own fraternity or to make derogatory remarks concerning the national or local rating of any other fraternity…

A college Panhellenic should be a constructive body engaged in a progressive program of real value to its members and the general college community. There should be fostered a spirit of confidence in the integrity and fair play of all its members. Keen though competition is, it should be carried on without questionable methods and statements. It should not be necessary for any group to be forced into methods of which it disapproves in order to preserve its existence.

If all twenty-three N.P.C. fraternities would earnestly apply themselves to the task this change could be brought about. How does a fraternity “rate”? “first,” “best,” “Big Six,” and on and on? It rates by its members truly living the ideals of the fraternity, by their being contributing members in the better activities of the campus and their home communities, by remembering that there is a culture which is supposed to be acquired through a colIege education and intellectual contacts that is more than a veneer. It rates by actually being and not saying it is. In fraternity as in all else-“What you are thunders so loud I can not hear what you say.”

Louise Leonard at her typewriter.

© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2016. All Rights Reserved. If  you enjoyed this post, please sign up for updates. Also follow me on twitter @GLOHistory and Pinterest www.pinterest.com/glohistory/