Page 27 - 1925 November - To Dragma

TO DRAGMA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI 107

However, I think you have exaggerated the idea in your mind
that they have suffered an inferiority complex which has affected
them during the remainder of their lives. A fraternity woman
who feels or causes others to feel that she is better than they
are just because she is a fraternity woman is a snob, pure and
simple, and a disgrace to her fraternity. College authorities, par-
ticularly deans of women, and Panhellenics everywhere, are doing
all in their power to improve the relations between fraternity and
nonfraternity groups and to break down these barriers of which
you speak. Long strides have been made in this direction in some
of the colleges.

You seem to have forgotten, also, that many women do not
join fraternities from choice and that there are i n the "independ-
ent" body on every campus women who, f o r various reasons, have
preferred to remain outside of fraternities. I t is the aim of the
National Panhellenic Congress to foster the creation of so many
fraternities that no woman need remain outside of one i f she wish-
es to join. Can you not help to bring some more Panhellenic groups
to your campus? Your second semester pledging system also
tends to augment any tendency there may be among nonfraternity
women to feel a differentiation, since it keeps ever before the
student body the question of rushing. Panhellenic fraternities
wish to have this phase of their life put aside as soon as possible
and, f o r this reason, do not favor the late pledging day that your
college authorities insist upon. The preference system, where
used, also helps to "iron out" the differences between fraternity
and nonfraternity women, because, under this system, no one
knows just which women remain independent f r o m choice. Can
you not help to install this system i n your college?

Your statement that, in seeking new members, the fraternity
takes those who will uphold its prestige and social standing and
neglects those who need fellowship i n the group is part-
ly true and partly not, it seems to me. We wish to choose our
members because of their congeniality with our group, believing
that, no matter how much others may N E E D the fellowship of a
fraternity, they will not find it unless they have an interest in
common with our members. T have seen many girls taken into
the fraternity whose only credentials were the facts that they
came f r o m respectable homes and were good students. Y o u real-
ize that your group is very new. I t has not the traditions and
experience of years to guide it, and, therefore, perhaps makes
mistakes that an older group would not, so i t seems to me all
the more necessary f o r you to overlook much and help them to
succeed in the attainment of their ideals.

In regard to the dropping of pledges who do not make their
grades: Do you not realize that in making this rule the fraternity