Cornell women of color are presented with a choice — joining Panhellenic or MGLC sororities.

Three weeks into the start of the semester, sorority members see both the pros and cons of the new Greek rules.

Casey becomes a housemother, Dale enters Greek life, and one unlucky reptile gets caught in the middle of rebel activity.

The University informed Greek student leaders Tuesday that they must implement — in no less than two years — some sweeping changes to how they run their fraternities and sororities.

Female, 21, Senior

ILR

Welcome to Cornell Diaries, where we print the anonymous recorded lives of Cornell students. While The Sun maintains the confidentiality of each writer, all facts have been verified and all diaries record the true, uncensored lives of different Cornell students.

Wednesday, Jan. 21

11:15 p.m. This has not been my week by any stretch of the imagination. Most people say things happen in threes, but that does not seem to apply to me since I passed three on Tuesday.

I realize my streak isn’t over after the fantastic premier of Lost when my roommate starts screaming for me to come quickly.

If Barack Obama were rushing a sorority, he would be the number one recruit. First impressions are his specialty, flirting with girls is in his blood and keeping a smile plastered on his face in the most awkward of situations is a talent he possesses. While changing into four-inch heels in negative eight degree weather and sprinting up Libe Slope may not be his cup of tea, I am confident that Obama’s daily morning workouts would prepare him to be first in line for each and every house.

Hoards of students returned to Ithaca in waves last Monday, a full week before the scheduled start of classes, in order to rush sororities and fraternities. While sorority rush is strictly dry and confined to the daytime, men rushing the Greek system are encouraged to attend late-night beer-soaked parties at prospective houses.

The Inter Fraternity Council points to statistics suggesting that evening events are only of secondary importance to students who consider joining a house; the fraternities themselves, however, continue to lavish outlandish sums of money on rush week parties, and it is not uncommon, as a result, for a house’s rush budget to run in the tens of thousands of dollars.

As the spring semester at Cornell begins, annual recruitment week has come to a close. The rush class this year was comprised of a record number of freshmen, sophomores and transfers including 719 potential fraternity members. New members received bids to the Panhellenic Association’s 11 chapters and the Interfraternity Council’s 41 chapters.

The recruitment process was very different for boys and girls. The potential sorority members spent their days meeting sisters in each house and taking house tours.Behind the eight ball: Doug Kuts ’09 plays pool at a fraternity’s rush event on Wednesday

Cornell’s 11 sorority chapters on campus came together last night to elect the Panhellenic Board that will lead them for the next year. The board — which is charged with coordinating between houses and making overarching decisions affecting all sororities — works with the Interfraternity Council and Multicultural Greek Letter Council to govern Greek life on campus.

Leading the Panhel board will be Alison Ewing ’10, a member of Kappa Delta sorority and last year’s vice president of programming.

“I’m really excited about this year’s board,” she said. “We have really great personalities and I think we will all work well together.”

After a mass meeting of Cornell students on Oct. 17, 1901, the University decided to eliminate fraternity hazing for good. An article in The New York Times reported, “rushees attended by personal injuries have been frequent, and students have been taken by force to gatherings where they were made the sport of the throng. [Cornell] President Schurman regards the latter practice as interfering with the rights of the students, and says that the practice must be stopped.”