Yale Dean Asks Blue Fraternities To Drop National Organization Ties

Yale's dean of undergraduate activities has asked fraternities there to disaffiliate with their national organizations.

Dean Harold B. Whiteman requested fraternity leaders to assess the role they are to play in undergraduate colleges. He claimed that alumni were responsible for the continuation of national ties. "They remember the good old days before the colleges were built when the fraternity meant something more than an eating place and a bar to its members," he said.

Whiteman's concern comes largely because of the fraternity's shaky financial situation.

Most national organizations take a sizable part of the initiation fee required of each member. Yet the fraternity's income has been reduced this year by Yale's new policy of charging a flat board rate instead of the optional 14 or 21 meal rate. Students who previously ate in the fraternity houses at least seven times per week have been cutting them.

In another economy move, the fraternities are charging their "rushees" for meals and liquor on visitation night instead of providing it gratis.

Whiteman's proposal occurred simultaneously with the national fraternity controversy at Williams College, where one fraternity's national connections were severed because of admitting a Jewish student.

Whiteman stated, "Nothing of this sort has happened here yet. If it did, I am quite sure the university administration would do whatever the student body wanted."