Greek Gals and Gender Guidelines: An Exploration of Greek Life at Centre

Portrait of the Phi Deta Theta fraternity, 1895

By Elena Wiltgen

The history of Greek Life at Centre begins only a few decades after the institution’s establishment, with the colonization of fraternities beginning around 1850. The creation of social organizations that catered to men who could afford to participate allowed for the continuation of class division and the formation of socialization expectations during education at Centre. Greek Life was created in order to fill a space in social life for the men of Centre College, as well as allow for members to “cultivate and cherish friendly feeling for brother members bound together by warmest ties of love.”^[1] While literary organizations existed on campus and filled an academic need for the students, it was recognized that fraternities could be used to replicate a family structure that was sought out at college. The first organizations that were established were Beta Theta Pi (Beta) and Phi Delta Theta (Phi Delt), followed by Delta Kappa Epsilon (Deke), Sigma Chi (Sig), Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE), and finally Phi Kappa Tau (Phi Tau) over the span of the next 50 years. All of which were established as an integral part of social life at Centre before women were even able to attend the college. 

In terms of women at Centre College, there was a tiered approach to integrating education. In the same time that fraternities were being established on campus, the Kentucky College for Women (KCW), as it came to be known, was becoming more of a cohesive entity, if not one attached to Centre yet. In 1926 the institution merged with Centre College, but still prevented women from truly attending the school itself. The women who attended would not receive a degree from Centre, but from the Kentucky College for Women and were expected to keep to a strict time schedule. ^[2] “They were allowed to take walking dates...your date had to sign you out and you were allowed to walk around town. And then they check you back in at 8:00 o'clock at night” recounted Elizabeth “Bitsy” Hawes Unangst of her aunt’s experiences at the KCW.^[3] This included not only the actual classes the women were taking, but also their social lives. Things like dating and even informal get-togethers were regulated strictly in order to enforce propriety and prevent unbecoming behavior. The places that these women could go were restricted off-campus as well, with Bitsy explaining that women could “maybe go to the ice cream place, but not the billiard hall.”^[4] These policies would change but not disappear in the years leading up to the introduction of sororities, making the lives of women at Centre restricted by limits they could not control. 

Even the notion of introducing sororities to Centre would change the social framework, but when the college decided to officially establish three sororities at Centre, things changed drastically. The process began in 1979 when a group of women worked to expand women’s organizations at Centre.^[5] The result of this meeting would be a formal recruitment or “rush” season in 1980, with three established sororities. The sororities were Kappa Kappa Gamma (Kappa or Gamma), Kappa Alpha Theta (Theta) and Delta Delta Delta (Tri-Delt or Tri Delta). The Centre Board of Trustees concluded the rush season by officially stating that the incorporation of sororities was “successful” with “favorable acceptance on campus.”^[6] In a similar fashion, in the alumni newsletter the Centrepiece the following year, the campus change was characterized well, with the expression of the sororities’ active work on campus.^[7] With the establishment of these organizations, women now had their choice of social groups to join that would also offer leadership opportunities and the ability to participate in philanthropy on a national and local level. Before the establishment of sororities on campus there were spaces for women-only gatherings, but not in an official designation. Barbara Kingsolver graduated from Centre in 1975, four years before work to establish sororities began, but she recalled that, because of the way that housing was set up, women found themselves in pseudo-sororities.^[8] In Kingsolver’s time at Centre, she found a space to be surrounded by her fellow women attending the college, and felt the sisterly bond that sororities would take on officially after her graduation. Other women who attended Centre before the colonization of sororities on campus detailed a similar experience, even feeling that there may not have been a need for sororities since the women had a more unofficial way of bonding with each other. What is necessary to consider is the impact of having an official place for women-only organizations on campus that would be looking at women’s experience from a social angle without administrative surveillance. 

While the college deemed the colonization of sororities on campus as a success both through the board of trustees and to alumni in the Centrepiece, women who were students on campus had mixed feelings about sororities on campus. Sharon Morisi graduated from Centre in 1974, and though she saw there was a need for women to have a space on campus, she felt that she “did not miss having a sorority.”^[9] Most felt that having a sorority was not necessary due to the aforementioned physical gathering spaces, but still recognized that there was something missing in their experiences in the community. They had found a way to circumvent not having a formal organization to center their experiences around by having the random housing assignments give them a way of forming close female friendships, but could recognize why they were seeking that kind of relationship. Where men were given ample room (physically and figuratively) to be united, women had to work around their restrictions and go out of their way to socialize with other women. 

At the same time that women were first allowed to truly be a part of Centre’s community, the fraternities on campus were establishing themselves in a more present, physical way. The six fraternities of Centre were brought together in the Fraternity Quadrangle, which concentrated the Greek men and allowed for a greater bond as each duplex housed two fraternities.^[10] This added to the exclusivity of the clubs, as it “allowed the undergraduates to congregate together in selective groups outside the official college.” ^[11] By giving the fraternities a place on campus, the administration was able to keep a watchful eye on the men of Centre, but it also sent a message to the newly-integrated women who attended that the male presence could not be denied. The physical presence of women at the time were housed in all-women’s dorms, with strict guidelines as to who could visit and when. Mary Clyde graduated in 1962, just after the integration of the KCW into Centre and recounted that “the doors were locked [by a certain time] and you had to be in. You had to sign in and out of the dorm and say who you were going out with and who brought you home.” ^[12]

The physical spaces that Greek organizations occupied also came to play an important role in the social sphere, as it was necessary to have a way to congregate. Before the establishment of sororities on campus, women did not necessarily have a formal way to gather in an all-women setting that wasn’t under the careful eye of the college. Although gendered dorms gave the feel of a sorority, it did not necessarily replace the way that fraternities were able to occupy space without surveillance. At the time, women were only able to interact in spaces composed by men. Having sororities on campus let women decide to interact with other women without men or the administration imposing on their interactions, and gave them a physical space when Greek Park was established in 1994.^[13] In not having an established way to congregate, the sororities were expected to find other spaces on campus to host events, showing how fraternities still had a clear dominant presence on campus. They did not have to find ways of getting together, rather they had a built-in space that they alone could occupy. The women of Centre did not have the same luxury. The establishment of sororities was not intended to oppose this understood cultural norm, but to try and find a way of establishing more of a presence for women at the college. It was an effort to enforce gender parity as well as offer women control over their own spaces outside of the institution’s requirements. Other attempts to do so hadn’t had much success, with a student at the time detailing attempts to put together a newsletter to cultivate a presence for women on campus. Sharon Morisi (‘74), explains in her oral interview that “we decided to put together our little newsletter, “The Flame”, I think that the point of that was to begin to create a community of women. To share their experiences without a lot of judgement because we didn't have a community in the same way that guys had… guys at that point had fraternities there were no sororities on campus.”^[14]

In an interview with Dr. Angela Lipsitz, a 1974 Centre graduate, she explains that just shortly before sororities came to Centre “really almost all the social life [revolved] around the fraternities” ^[15] Given that women had only come to Centre fully starting in the 1960s, there hadn’t been a lot of time in between combining men and women and the establishment of sororities. In the time between women coming to Centre in 1962 and sororities coming to campus in 1980, fraternities were given free reign over social happenings on campus. No other organizations filled the niche that fraternities did, with the physical space available for parties and social gatherings that would have been out of place in the literary societies of Centre’s early days. Things like banquets and formal dances were common practices, and allowed for non-academic gatherings. In a student handbook from 1972, the official purpose of fraternities as set forth by the college was to contribute to social life and the general welfare of students on campus.^[16] This extended to weekend bacchanalia and a clear division in the roles of men and women on campus. Men were able to serve as hosts for parties and overall in charge of the social atmosphere, as they could plan events and had the physical space like fraternity houses to host such things. Women were given a different set of expectations and rules, with limits on their social time and who they could spend it with, old-fashioned rules that lingered from the time of the Kentucky College for Women.

According to a Centre handbook from the 1960s, “No girls would be allowed into fraternity houses except during certain hours when the fraternity’s house mother was present.”^[17] This was shortly after the combining of the two colleges, showing how women in the time were expected to stay under the guardianship of older women or their husbands in order to remain respectable.^[18] This was contrasted by the rules for the men, which were never gender-specific but rather the overall rules for the campus. Men were the expectation, women were the deviation. 

In comparing fraternity life and sorority life at Centre, the differences and similarities become strikingly apparent. In terms of similarities, Greek Life organizations have levels to membership that can become barriers for many students. Things like membership dues and formal expenses can keep people from joining, and during the 1980s many Greek organizations still had what is called a Legacy policy, where members who had family members as part of the organization were given preference. This implies that not only could you afford to be part of this organization but that your family has a history of wealth that would allow for participation. Gail Hoyt (‘92) recounts that Greek functions were “a pretty big strain on my budget on my personal finances.”^[19] This allowed classism to become part of the social culture at Centre, with those who could participate divided from those who could not by using a financial barrier. In terms of similarities, both kinds of organizations were primarily also focused on the social aspect, but fraternities were the hub of social life at Centre. “[Fraternities] have way too much control of our social life, you know?” Cathy Lynch (‘81) realized in thinking about how her social life was run at Centre.^[20]

As a brotherhood, fraternities are often considered synonymous with masculinity, as the overall demographic trends towards tradition and men being surrounded by other men. This was another crucial difference between fraternities and sororities and their respective purposes. When sororities were being incorporated on campus, they were not expected to exist in the same way that fraternities did, but rather to become their own entity. Fraternities had become an emblem of masculinity on Centre’s campus by the 1980s as an all-male space, and it is shown in the interactions that students had in the spaces they occupied. The fraternity houses were characterized by their disorder, with students at the time calling their rooms “pigsties.”^[21] Not only were these spaces predominantly occupied by men, but they were uncomfortable to be around while simultaneously being the only way for students to socialize. This meant that while students like Kingsolver would prefer socializing in places like the girls’ dorms, they were usually relegated to using the fraternities' houses despite their disarray. 

Masculinity was also seen as aggressive in this time period, a departure from the original intentions of having fraternity organizations on campus. After their establishment, fraternities had begun to depart from fraternal brotherhood to some “questionable rituals.”^[22] This then devolved over the next 100 years as freshmen were ritualy disciplined. All the way into the 1960s in an official student handbook, initiation into fraternities was referred to as “hell week” or “help week.”^[23] Activities during this time were expected to be tests for the pledges, and could include anything from running the flame to buying ice cream for someone. Even the administration recognized the extent of treatment of freshmen, with some fraternities even going on social probation as a result of hazing in the early 2000s.^[24] Rituals like “treeing” were often recounted by women who had attended Centre, with the idea being that when a fraternity brother became serious with his romantic relationship, “[his brothers] would strip the fraternity member down, tie him to a tree...and then just throw stuff at him, and God only knows what it was, rotten tomatoes, urine, beer” according to Molly Newell (‘89).^[25] Once again physical space comes into play as well, as the ritual would not just affect the fraternity brothers. Gail Hoyt (‘92) explained that “the place where they would tree them was outside of Yerkes. Where better to tie a naked man than right outside of the women's freshman dorm?”^[26] The point was not just to show the tenacity of the brother to accept the treatment but also to scandalize/harass the first-year women. 

Additionally, the masculine presence on campus could even be threatening to the women at Centre, with Sharon Morisi (‘74) explaining that not only did the men have somewhat of a chauvinistic attitude but that “fraternities could be wicked with freshman girls and… somewhat predatory.”^[27] By understanding the social atmosphere created by fraternities, the change of working to create a new space for women to exist together and develop a feminine presence became more important. The establishment of sororities was not expected to combat the masculine presence on campus and reduce it, but to open up a way to express femininity and recognize that women needed a space to be with other women.    

With the establishment of sororities, not only did women find the space to develop friendships with other women, but they also were able to create that presence that they were seeking on campus. In the first recruitment season of Centre College for sororities, there were 99 women who decided to join Greek Life. This was substantial due mainly to the fact that it was such a large portion of the campus women who decided to join. With ⅓ of the female population in Greek Life, it became increasingly harder to deny the presence of women on Centre’s campus.^[28] As opposed to the start of fraternities on campus, where the first pledge classes only had about nine members, sororities came onto Centre’s campus in full force. ^[29] While the sororities didn’t have a physical space, being able to consider themselves a part of something greater than just Centre through national organizations allowed for a way to express themselves on campus and find other like-minded individuals.    

Social life is an important aspect of a college education and experience with many changes throughout the years. At Centre, however, it is clear that greek life continues to dominate the discussion surrounding how students socialize. The establishment of sororities at Centre changed the way that women participated in socialization and how they were presented on campus by giving them a physical space to occupy, a way to socialize without men, and an official presence on campus.