<p>What are the frats like at Swarthmore? And how are they different from each other? I know that there's Delta Upsilon and Phi Psi and I don't know what else.</p>
<p>When Swat had a football team a lot of the football players were in DU. As I understand it, these days a lot of the baseball team are DU brothers. Don’t know much about Phi Psi. Total frat membership is a small percentage of campus men and the frats are not residential, so the impact on campus life is much different and less than at schools where frats play a larger role. But they are there for those who are interested in frat activities. My older brothers keep in touch with their Swat DU brothers even 40+ years later.</p>
<p>From my daughter’s comments, it seems that a majority of Swatties probably like having the frats for one of two reasons:</p>
<p>a) They like a place to go party and drink.</p>
<p>b) They like a place for other people who want to go party and drink that is not in their dorm and that they don’t have to be around.</p>
<p>Both camps seem to be well served by having two small non-residential frats.</p>
<p>Interesting history. Women voted to abolish sororities at Swarthmore in the 1930s, large over the issue discrimination against Jewish students by the national organizations. The last time a student vote was held to abolish the fraternities was in the 1950s, led by an undergrad name Mike Dukakis. The vote failed. Since then, however, the membership in the frats and the number of frats has declined.</p>
<p>frat membership has been increasing in the past couple of years.
[Print</a> edition - October 28, 2010 - The Phoenix](<a href=“http://www.swarthmorephoenix.com/2010/10/28]Print”>October 28, 2010 - The Phoenix)</p>