Despite all the restrictions, both fraternities and sororities say they are reporting swelling numbers of applicants. Students are pining for the connections that college life is supposed to offer. And with many of the normal avenues of meeting people and making friends closed off, many students are turning to the Greek system. There are about 800,000 undergraduate members of fraternities and sororities.
“So far our recruitment registration numbers have been phenomenal, record-breaking,” Ms. Weatherford said.
But that enthusiasm can sometimes translate into behavior that non-Greek students say endangers others.
Robert Beyer, a senior at the University of Southern California, said he had observed good social distancing practices in neighborhoods around campus — except fraternity row, where he said he routinely saw large groups of students standing close together.
“Their attitudes are so selfish,” Mr. Beyer said. “They don’t care about spreading it to other people. I’ve heard people say, ‘It’s worth it to socialize and be with my friends even if it means getting Covid.’”
Some students and faculty said university administrators, not Greek-system students, were to blame for bringing students back to campus and not reining in bad behavior: “I feel like the school should have more strictly enforced the parameters they set in the first place,” said Kesan Ucheya, 17, a freshman at the University of North Carolina.
On Monday, Matthew Spangler, the president of the Sigma Nu chapter at Chapel Hill, where a virus cluster had been identified, said that he tested negative for the coronavirus with a fast test on Friday, but that his mother urged him to get another test.
He is awaiting those results.
