But according to Asssistant Dean of Residential Life Deborah A. Carney, the administrator who oversees the CFS system on campus, the student societies actually rely very little on the college's financial resources and would not necessarily collapse without official college recognition.

And if the college were to withdraw its support from CFS organizations, it would first have to create additional living space for students who now reside in the Greek houses where they are members, Carney said.

CFS organizations provide about 15 percent of the beds on campus--a statistic which led the steering committee to recommend the construction of additional residence houses on campus. "We're frankly hostage to [the CFS] beds, right now," Ackerman said.

The faculty council Monday asked the Dartmouth board of trustees--the group that will make the final decision on the fate of CFS organizations--to make the construction of new college residences its highest priority in the coming year.

The board is slated to respond to the steering report by April. Ackerman acknowledged that the board has not given much weight to faculty resolutions in the past, but said administrative concern appears to be growing for the problem.

According to Christopher T. Carney, president of Dartmouth's Alpha Delta fraternity, the faculty council's proposals would be easy to impose but would have detrimental effects on smaller, non-residential Greek groups that rely on the larger organizations for their funding.

"Getting rid of the residential organizations causes problems for all types of organizations [on campus]," Carney wrote in an e-mail message.