One of the biggest issues on campus this year is the trouble several fraternities got into before the beginning of the school year. Some fraternities threw parties at Colonial Inauguration and some threw parties during the first weekend of the semester. Each organization that made that attempt to let students have a good time received a firm thrashing from the Interfraternity Council.

The pre-rush rules apparently forbid the fraternities to throw a party before the week designated for rush. My understanding is the rule exists to allow fraternities to meet students and decide who they really want to rush before they make a final decision on a pledge class.

The question I pose is this: How are freshmen supposed to know which fraternity to rush if the only thing they see of the fraternity is the rush week that only occurs once per semester?

The fraternities need to be very strict about what they do on campus. Nothing may be spoken in public that promotes the fraternity, and even people just talking outside a fraternity house get turned away by a cautious brother attempting to save his house trouble from the IFC.

Then, of course, the big rush week comes along in the middle of September and all the freshmen are encouraged to rush the fraternities and make an assessment of Greek-letter life in one week. Many students pledge on the basis of this event-filled week, but still have not seen the way Greek-letter life really works during the school year.

For freshmen to meet the fraternity members and know them well enough by rush week is a near impossible feat. However, social events of some sort before rush week would allow fraternities to meet the freshman class and decide which underclassmen they would like to invite to join their fraternity.

I wish all the freshmen who want to pledge a fraternity the best of luck, but the decision seems impossible to make at this time because all fraternities will lay dormant until only one week before the decision must be made.

A change in the pre-rush rules would benefit both parties by allowing the fraternities to have the parties that they wish to, and allowing the freshmen to see the Greek-letter life they may be getting themselves into for the rest of their years at the University.

-The writer is a freshman planning to major in English.