The views expressed in this article reflect those of the writer(s) and do not necessarily represent the position of Her Campus Davidson. If you have any questions please feel free to contact the authors.
Over the past week, Leah and I have been listening to a lot of concerns, questions, and general complaints about NPC Sororities, what they would be at Davidson, and the types of women that join such organizations. We’ve heard the good, the bad, the harsh, the misinformed, and the reasonable. We anticipated this and wanted to compile the questions and concerns people had in one place so that the general campus could have access to what we’re saying instead of trying to do it piecemeal on Yik Yak.
The way this is organized is by a general, oft-repeated-in-different-ways statements and questions we got. So read them all, find the ones you’re most worried about, or just skim. All we are asking for right now is that PCC allow the general campus to continue having this discussion.
And just to clear it up, we are not misogynist, hateful people. We just want a space on campus that we couldn’t find and that we think would augment our and others’ experiences at Davidson, in addition to increasing national appeal for the school itself. Yes, there are others who would take on the charge after we leave. Whether the conversation goes well enough that they want to stick their necks out is an entirely different question.
THE QUESTION: Who is going to lead this movement when Madi and Leah graduate? Is there are niche for NPC organizations on campus?
We’ve gotten really positive responses from women on campus who don’t feel comfortable expressing vocal support and opening themselves up to some of this discourse. If we can convince Davidson that there is a need for NPCs on campus, those women we have spoken with will support the effort in the future.
The fact that there are women on campus:
- wanting more from their Eating Houses, but knowing their fellow members don’t support that change
- speaking out in their houses, to their friends, to me and Leah about their desires for NPCs
- who feel as though Eating Houses or NPHCs don’t offer the experience they want
- who came here wanting these things second to wanting to be at Davidson
- who thrive in smaller and more intentionally focused female communities
- who join an Eating House only to realize that its size and flexible nature preclude certain experiences
says that there is a niche at Davidson for NPCs. It’s a small niche, and that’s actually the perfect niche for people on all sides of the conversation. We don’t think that hundreds of Davidson women need to swarm to NPCs to make their inclusion on campus valid. They will not overrun Eating Houses, they will assuage the over-population of the houses now. Imagine your Eating House with 10 or 15 less women—there’s not much of an overall change in your House, especially because you’d still see those 10-15 women very often around campus, when you invite them for a meal, in your dorm room, in class. But those 40 women would be more than enough for introducing one NPC to campus (which is how the process goes).
Participation from women on our campus in Patterson Court Council Organizations is growing rapidly and will likely quickly hit its ceiling if it hasn’t already. 71% of women on campus are a member of a Patterson Court Council Organization. The issue with this is that we do not have adequate female organizations to accommodate those numbers. NPC sororities would offer a third group of female organizations to expand both participatory options for women in PCC.
THE CLAIM: Eating Houses are enough for every woman on campus and every woman who might come to campus in the future (ok, we paraphrased with that sentence a bit…); they couldn’t co-exist with Eating Houses; Eating Houses would be for rejects; let’s just fix Eating Houses!
Let us be clear: Eating Houses need room to grow in accordance with their original intentions… intentions we believe they have been unable to meet because of increasing interest, different social contexts, and a general progression of time. There are a lot of different suggestions for how to “fix” the Eating Houses, depending on what one identifies as being wrong with them. Rather than consistently try to reinvent the wheel by adding regulations and expectations onto Eating Houses that squeeze them into narrower and narrower roles while trying to serve the vast majority of Davidson’s women, we believe that Eating Houses should be able to grow and address changing needs in ways that speak to their unique existence. They should be able to keep offering varying levels of commitment to women—eat there every so often or run for president. They should still be able to provide casual and fun social spaces for women—go to a sisterhood, have some Andre, hang out with your girls. They should maintain their inclusive selection nature and not feel the pressure to make it more mutually selective.
But Eating Houses aren’t perfect, and they are sold as alternatives to sororities when they aren’t (and shouldn’t be!) alike. Sororities offer women a stable and small intentionally focused community of sisters that are accountable to one another.
There is no way that NPC sororities would overtake or erase Eating Houses on campus. The organization structures offer ENTIRELY different things, and NPCs would not be able to touch Eating Houses’ social capital, their tradition capital, or their broad appeal. Without a house on the court, without the ability to throw parties with alcohol offered by the organization on campus, without a meal plan, without the huge populations, without Davidson’s firm commitment to offering those much-needed and highly-valued spaces, NPCs have no chance at drastically altering Eating Houses.
NPCs would merely offer an additional experience. Women could join both, one, or neither. There would be more philanthropy, leadership development, and relationship building on campus. Eating Houses aren’t perfect, and they’re not the right fit for everyone, and we shouldn’t try to keep making small adjustments that adversely affect the experiences of women in the houses to make them take the place of NPC sororities.
Different types of organizations in PCC would be the best way to provide varied experiences for Davidson women. A new dynamic created by additional organizations is not something to shy away from. It is something to work through for the benefit of all organizations.
As a final note: we imagine self-selection happening before Recruitment, meaning that the current system of groups of friends joining Eating Houses would still be driven primarily by social ties built before entrance into PCC.
THE CLAIM: Sororities go against the tradition of Davidson + “I came to Davidson because there weren’t sororities.”
News flash – unless you started at Davidson College before 2008, you arrived at Davidson College when there were sororities on campus. We once had a tradition of not having sororities on campus, but we do not anymore. We also used to have a tradition of not having women on campus. Times change and traditions do as well. Eating Houses are not what make Davidson College what it is. Davidson is much more than our Greek scene (we do indeed attend a Greek dominated scene since Eating Houses are considered Davidson-Greek) and more than our social scene. Further, NPCs are not being brought in as an alternative large social space, and they would barely make a mark in the social scene for many years to come.
Eating Houses are great because they are open to all and strive for inclusivity. However, on our campus, it is important to recognize that socially Eating Houses function much in the same way that NPC sororities do on other campuses. We do service, we have functions with other organizations, we have formals and semi-formals, and we do big/little. From a social standpoint, it is difficult to step back and say that Eating Houses are dissimilar from the stereotypical NPC sororities elsewhere. NPC sororities would not be like that here; just as they are not like that on many other campuses across the nation. They would still do service, have big/little, and participate with other organizations in events, but they also would be smaller, tighter communities of women connected by a shared values system with a lifelong commitment that offer different experiences than Eating Houses.
THE QUESTION: Is bringing a NPC organization to PCC worth the time/space/resources?
From a college perspective, NPC organizations would require very little in terms of financial support or space (See #3). We have a need for more female PCC spaces, and an NPC organization could effectively fill multiple gaps. Erica Urban is a capable and incredible person who is completely committed to the success of PCC. If NPC organizations were to become a part of PCC, Erica would have no trouble navigating their integration. Additionally, she would be getting a lot of outside help. An NPC organization would have alumnae and national council members to support its inception and to foster a successful chapter here.
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