This February my Social Justice group and I FaceTimed a woman named Annie J. Gardner She attends Dartmouth College is the President of her Sorority, Sigma Delta. Usually, college parties are held at frat houses, but Annie and her sorority recently opened their house to parties in order to address the issue of rape on campus.

We spoke to Annie about her sororities decision to make their house the party location. She told us that there has been an absurd amount of sexual assaults in fraternity parties and opening their house would eliminate some of this because it is hard for a girl to be taken advantage of in her own home. We also spoke about the recent alcohol policy change at Dartmouth which is: Hard liquor, being anything over 15 percent alcohol, is officially banned from campus. This was mostly aimed to lower the number of sexual assaults on campus. Her attitude on this recent change was not what we were expecting. She talked about it as if it were not the smartest decision to make as a school. She says this because if people are not allowed to have something, it makes them want it even more and therefore it is more likely for alcohol to be around campus. Overall, our conversation about the alcohol change concluded in that it is not about girls to drink less it is about the rapists to stop raping.

We then talked about her open house parties. She says that college is ultimately a place to learn but also a place to find yourself and have a bit of fun. Now of course rape has nothing to do with having fun but college parties are and should be different. This was the main reason to have a sorority party instead of a fraternity party. Girls are in more control if they are in their own familiar home.

Annie was a great person to talk to because she was in the middle of all of this chaos and was passionate on making a change.

Annie J. Gardner FaceTime