Page 8 - 1913 November - To Dragma

TO PRAGMA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI 11

Committee on Student Organizations for limited terms, under the rules applying
to all other organizations, and should be permitted to retain their affiliations
with their National organizations if this should be possible under their National
Constitution.

"A minority report was also drawn up by some members of the general
Investigation Committee. This differed from the majority report especially in
recommending that, instead of having the opportunity of being chartered under
the new system, if they made public the essential facts concerning their organiza-
tion all fraternity chapters should be forbidden, for a term of three years, to
elect new members."

The main fight in the committee was over the first section of the resolutions
finally adopted by the Faculty, which many of the students believe means the
end of the secret societies at Barnard. On this resolution the Faculty has taken
a firm stand and at the joint meeting called for next fall the Faculty will do
all in its power, it was said yesterday, to promote new forms of social organiza-
tions.

When the notice was posted, there was all manner of confusion. It took but
a few minutes for many to get together and denounce the measure.

That the decree of the Faculty will be obeyed is, however, almost a surety.
The officers of the various, societies have telegraphed to their National organiza-
tions, but as yet no replies have been received dictating any course of action. It
is certain that if the decree handed down after months of investigation, is
not obeyed the offenders will be expelled.

The present agitation was begun last fall when Miss Freda Kirchwey, a
daughter of Prof. George W. Kirchwey, formerly Dean of the Columbia Law-
School, wrote articles for the Barnard Bulletin, the weekly paper, and the
Barnard Bear, the monthly literary magazine, denouncing the attitude of the
sororities toward the life of the college, and urging that they be abolished. The
Faculty, through its Committee on Student Organizations, which is headed by
Dean Gildersleeve, began an investigation of the whole sorority question.

Dean Gildersleeve is a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma, one of those
to fall under the ban, and it is understood that she was in favor of con-
tinuing the societies under certain restrictions. Prof. Brewster, however, who
was acting Dean of the college for several years following the resignation of
Dean Laura Drake Gill, was actively opposed to the continuation of the sor-
orities, and he, it is said by the students, pushed the matter through to the end
and obtained the concurrence of his fellow-members of the committee.

Barnard is the second woman's college to abolish the sororities, Mount Holy-
oke being the first. Several years ago Miss Mary E . Woolley, President of
Mount Holyoke, decreed the abolishment of all secret societies there on the
ground that they were out of harmony with the democratic spirit of the college.

From the Netv York Times, Sunday June S, 1913.
But these societies include in their membership most of the students who are
socially, intellectually, and athletically prominent, and their threatened dissolu-
tion is a matter of grave concern to the whole student body. The Greek-letter
societies represented at Barnard, in the order of the founding of their chapters,
are: Kappa Kappa Gamma, Alpha Omicron Pi, Kappa Alpha Theta, Alpha Phi,
Gamma Phi Beta, Delta Delta Delta, Pi Beta Phi, Chi Omega Epsilon, in 1906.
Dean Gildersleeve, as has been said, is a loyal member of Kappa Kappa Gamma,
and several other fraternities have Faculty members, notably Kappa Alpha
Theta, to which Prof. Pauline Hamilton Dederer belongs.