All eyes have been on the sorority expansion process this semester. The Panhellenic Council’s extension committee narrowed the field down to five organizations that will make presentations on campus next month. The selected sorority will then be notified by the end of October.
We voiced our support for adding a new sorority last winter. Given the increase in Penn women participating in formal recruitment — and the fact that Phi Sigma Sigma closed at the end of last school year — it makes sense to bring another chapter to campus.
What doesn’t make sense, however, is that the extension committee approved a “stacking” process — meaning it will also choose an organization now for the next sorority expansion.
The committee has been spending a great deal of time lately evaluating each interested sorority and determining which one best meets the needs of the community. It would be unfair for students’ fate to be set the next time around. Who knows how long it will be before a ninth chapter is added and how Penn and the sororities’ national organizations will have changed during the interim? After all, the last time a new sorority colonized at Penn was in 2002 — a full eight years ago, when many current students were in middle school.
