Wesleyan's only sorority seeks to provide female students with a sense of belonging.

In the past few months, news about Wesleyan’s all-male residential fraternities have made national headlines, but Rho Epsilon Pi (Rho Ep), the University’s only sorority, has been notably missing from headlines. Founded in March of 2011 by Samantha Pop ’11, Grace Zimmerman ’13, Lucy Finn ’14, and Melody Oliphant ’13, Rho Ep is a local chapter that exists only at the University. According to Rho Ep’s website, this allows the members of the sorority to “guide the organization to best suit their needs and the needs of our campus community.”

Upon introducing Rho Ep to the student body in March 2011, Oliphant wrote an article for Wesleying in which she explained that for women on campus who are not on a sports team or involved in a club, it can be difficult to meet other women, especially in different class years.

During her freshman year, Finn was surprised by the discrepancies between male and female bonds in the University’s social scene. Despite being part of the women’s crew team, she did not feel as though the bonds she shared with her teammates provided her with the solidarity that fraternities provided her male friends. Additionally, freshman-year social anxiety led her to search for more guidance and support.

“I was hearing stories from my guy friends in my freshman hall about how much fun they were having with rush, hearing about how they were planning on living with all their friends the next year, and seeing them have upperclassmen give them advice about classes and getting summer internships,” Finn wrote in an email to The Argus. “I was able to get some of this needed advice through joining the women’s crew team, but still felt it was unfair that there was no equivalent Greek organization on campus.”

Oliphant agreed that though campus offered some activities conducive to female friendships, none allowed for bonds as close as those that fraternities facilitated.

“Not to say that there weren’t tremendous women’s groups on campus, but none that seemed to allow for dozens and dozens of women to join and feel part of the kind of community we sought to carve out,” Oliphant wrote in an email to The Argus.

The idea for Rho Ep came during a period of tension between the University and Beta Theta Pi, when in 2011 President Michael Roth and Vice President for Student Affairs Mike Whaley made the decision to ban students from participating in social activities on an any property owned, leased, or operated by private societies that are not recognized by the University, which included Beta’s 184 High Street.

This policy change created a hotbed of discussion in the WSA, of which Pop, Oliphant, and Zimmerman were all members. These conversations prompted them to think about starting a sorority, and they sought out co-founders from different class years who shared their goals.

“That combination of class years was very intentional, as we wanted to try our best to have founding members from each class year,” Oliphant wrote.

The founders said that they found female students on campus to be receptive to the creation of Rho Ep.

“I had dozens of conversations on how women at Wesleyan had such a disadvantage to the guys,” Finn wrote. “In general the community of women was very weak across campus.”

Finn and Pop quickly found a base of women excited about what they were doing. According to Finn, when they first started sorority meetings, over 120 women walked in the door.

“From that point on I was able to walk around campus knowing and respecting the female faces I saw around campus,” Finn wrote.

Oliphant did feel the need to respond to concerns about the stereotypes of exclusive and catty girls typically associated with sororities. In her Wesleying article she asserted that Rho Ep intended to create an atmosphere in opposition to this conventional image. She pointed to Rho Ep’s mission statement to support her sentiment, which was written by Pop and remains the same today:

“The mission of Rho Epsilon Pi is to cultivate the creativity, knowledge, and spiritual illumination of its members through a perpetual bond of friendship and sisterly affection to develop strong, passionate Women with a commitment to leadership, moral integrity, and community service for the betterment of the individual and the world.”

Despite their efforts to characterize Rho Ep as an empowering organization, Finn and Oliphant said that President Roth has not been Rho Ep’s biggest supporter.

“I think it had been pretty clear from the get go that Roth does not like the idea of a sorority and has fallen into the trap of liberal close mindedness [sic],” Finn wrote.

In general, Rho Ep has struggled to win the support of the University, particularly regarding the use of communal spaces.

“Since we started, we’ve been charged to use open spaces, denied the use of university lounges, and classrooms because they were ‘too nice’ for us to use, rejected from acquiring 190 High [Street, with members of AEPi], blatantly ignored repeatedly when it comes to how the University has unilaterally decided to handle, or mishandle, Greek life and communicate their policies, and so many other unfortunate incidents,” Oliphant wrote.

President Michael Roth said he is aware that the sorority wants a house, but has repeatedly said he does not wish to expand Greek life on campus. In an interview with The Argus, Roth remarked that the recently-rejected proposal to house Rho Ep with Delta Kappa Epsilon (DKE) in DKE’s 276 High Street residence did not meet the University’s requirements for coeducation, and that most student groups manage without owning a house of their own.

Despite these difficulties, Oliphant maintains that, regardless of its housing situation, Rho Ep has been able to establish a rich and thriving environment for its members. Current Rho Ep president Alix Liss ’16 said she remembers experiencing nerves when she arrived at the University, which drew her to the sorority.

“Rho Ep provided me with a support network of incredible women who could impact my experience at Wesleyan in the most positive way possible,” Liss said.

Liss also underscored the importance of the diversity of the sorority members. She said that, in striving to provide a voice for all women on campus, Rho Ep has members of different sets of beliefs and seeks to provide a safe space for discourse.

“Some of these [goals] include finding a dedicated and permanent space for women on campus, bringing professional women on campus to speak about their careers and experiences, building a relationship with the Middletown community through service, and opening up a dialogue about shared issues between varied organizations on campus,” Liss said.

If numbers are any indication, Rho Ep has indeed established itself on campus. Last year’s pledge class had 13 members, the sorority currently has 22 pledges, and the group currently boasts just under 50 members.

Although most criticism of Greek life on campus has been levied against the all-male fraternities, some do criticize Rho Ep as part of larger Greek life on campus.

“Greek organizations are very funny and anachronistic,” said Virgil Taylor ’15, who has been highly involved in queer community activism.

Taylor pointed out that the sorority distinguishes itself from other Greek organizations because it was not founded during a time in which the University was single sex. Taylor also pointed out that he has heard of Rho Ep only doing positive things, such as its major participation in Relay for Life, an organization that runs fundraisers to fight cancer.

Though feminist activist groups on campus have criticized fraternities for propagating misogyny, the critique has largely not been extended to Rho Ep. Jennie He ’16, head of the FGSS majors committee, expressed concern about the elitism insinuated by the presence of fraternities on campus. She acknowledged that Rho Ep might raise some of the same problems that fraternities have generated, but for the most part, He regards the sorority as a group working within an inherently unequal system.

“I can understand how sororities can and might be contributing to a patriarchal norm, but every single day that we wake up and put on a gendered piece of clothing, we are contributing to the gender binary,” He said. “Even for trans people, they are working within the gender binary and they are working within the ‘patriarchal system.’ And so yes, Rho Ep and all sororities are working within this patriarchal structure, but we are also all working in it. We’re all implicated in it.”

Since her graduation, Oliphant has witnessed the growth of the sorority. When she was on campus for Homecoming in 2013, for example, parents whose daughters had considered transferring prior to joining Rho Ep thanked her for starting the sorority.

“That is why we exist, to help women feel loved and supported,” she wrote.