The fraternity added the "goat room" (meeting room) at the rear.
The second physical plant of Kappa Kappa Kappa, located at 22 North College Street and occupied by the fraternity from 1894 to 1924. The College library and instructional curriculum had expanded to include much of what the literary societies had supported, and new Greek letter societies began to appear on campus. Interest in the literary societies declined in the 1830s and 1840s.
In 1825, the college began simply assigning new students to one society or the other. In 1815, the college decided to intervene in the hotly contested recruitment battle between the Social Friends and the United Fraternity by restricting each society to recruit only from separate halves of the new student class. Both the Social Friends and the United Fraternity created libraries in Dartmouth Hall, and met in a room called Society Hall inside Dartmouth Hall. The organizations hosted debates on a variety of topics not encountered in the curriculum of the day, and amassed large libraries of titles not found in the official College library. These organizations were, in large part, the only social life available to students at the college. A chapter of Phi Beta Kappa was established at Dartmouth in 1787, and counted among its members Daniel Webster, class of 1801. A rival organization, called the United Fraternity, was founded in 1786. The first such society at Dartmouth, the Social Friends, was formed in 1783. Social fraternities at Dartmouth College grew out of a tradition of student literary societies that began in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
A chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society is active, but there are no professional fraternities with active chapters at Dartmouth College. Dartmouth College has two cultural interest fraternities, and two cultural interest sororities, which do not participate in the major governing councils, but are member organizations of national associations. The Greek houses are largely governed through three independent councils, the Interfraternity Council, the Panhellenic Council, and the Coed Council. Sororities were introduced to campus in 1977.Ĭurrently, Dartmouth College extends official recognition to sixteen all-male fraternities, nine all-female sororities, and three coeducational fraternities. Dartmouth College was among the first institutions of higher education to desegregate fraternity houses in the 1950s, and was involved in the movement to create coeducational Greek houses in the 1970s.
Fraternities at Dartmouth built dedicated residence and meeting halls in the early 1900s and in the 1920s, and then struggled to survive the lean years of the 1930s. The first social fraternities were founded in 1842 and rapidly expanded to include the active participation of over half of the student body. Greek organizations at Dartmouth do not provide dining options, as regular meals service has been banned in Greek houses since 1909. Greek organizations at Dartmouth provide both social and residential opportunities for students, and are the only single-sex residential option on campus. In 2005, the school stated that 1,785 students were members of a fraternity, sorority, or coeducational Greek house, comprising about 43 percent of all students, or about 60 percent of the eligible student body. Dartmouth College is host to many Greek organizations, and a significant percentage of the undergraduate student body is active in Greek life.