Fifteen minutes. The College Halls initiative has been imagined, re-imagined, debated and discussed for nearly a decade, and in the end, it is almost undone in 15 minutes.

This is approximately how long it will take first-year students to walk from The Commons to the main campus. These 15 minutes remain one of the biggest arguments against The Commons, and nowhere is this truer than along Greek Row. It is this quarter of an hour that terrifies Greek Life like no suspension ever could.

No longer will fraternities be situated near the geographic and population centers of first-year housing. Many believe that fraternities will no longer be the social life of choice for first-years. Hardly a day goes by that we do not hear from the doomsayers predicting the end of Greek life at Vanderbilt.
This, of course, is ridiculous.

In all likelihood, The Commons will have little impact on recruitment numbers for Greek life. There will always be the legacies who were going to pledge without question before they even arrived at Vanderbilt. If all goes well, a revamped Vandy Van system should make next year’s trip from The Commons to Greek Row quick, simple and safe.
Yes, The Commons hopes to instill a sense of community among first-years, but a community of 1,650 students is different from and not in competition with the small, close-knit communities Greek life aims to foster.

Furthermore, while many contend The Commons will only isolate first-years from upperclassmen (a farfetched concern; first-years will not suddenly stop being involved in extracurricular activities) and thus from Greek life, such isolation will only help Greek life. Unless the university finds a way to remedy this, fraternity parties would be one of the few chances first-years get to hang out with older students. The result? Most of their upperclassman acquaintances would be Greek.

If that does not allay fears, it may help to look at future recruitment on sororities and fraternities independently.

Sorority women are allowed very little natural interaction with first-years. First-year and sorority women get to know each other through classes, activities and Facebook stalking, so the location of sorority chapters has little bearing on recruitment anyway. It is not as if Branscomb first-years can stop by a chapter on a whim simply because they live close by. Besides, first-year women regularly go through enormous pains to get into sororities already. If they are willing to restrict their dating pools, spend an inordinate amount of time dressing to impress and sacrifice a week of winter break, they will be able to manage an extra-long walk to main campus.

The Commons’ impact on fraternities is less obvious but more or less the same. The biggest recruitment tool for fraternities is their parties. Sure, these parties will not be as conveniently located as they are now, but that should have little effect on party attendance. It is an axiom as old as co-ed colleges that first-year men will go after first-year women, and first-year women will go after upperclassman men. Guess where the upperclassman men are?

An even older axiom is this: College students like to drink. Guess where students can find free alcohol at a (still relatively) near and safe environment?

If that does not ease the mind of Greek life, then there is only this left to say: If fraternity parties are not good enough to get first-years to take a 10 minute Vandy Van ride, then it is not Vanderbilt's fault that recruitment takes a hit.

When it comes to The Commons, Greek life has little, if anything, to worry about.