 Social fraternities at Dartmouth College grew out of a tradition of student literary societies that began in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries . The first social fraternities were founded in 1842 and rapidly expanded to include the active participation of over half of the student body . 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 . 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 . Sororities were introduced to campus in 1977 . In the early 2000s , campus @-@ wide debate focused on whether or not the Greek system at Dartmouth would become " substantially coeducational " , but most houses retain single @-@ sex membership policies . 
