Always!

Yup. Now anyone else needs to get their own chair, or sit on the floor.

To me, it seems like if certain groups had floors in a high rise, while others maintained their regular stand-alone houses, that kind of discrepancy could cause groups in the high rises to suffer with their facilities being perceived as less than the stand alone houses

It would need to be an all or none move to make it work. This does remind me of something, I know Arizona State had toyed with the idea of a high rise building for the sororities and getting them out of Adelphi. What ever happened with that idea?

I think really cool high rise units would be, well, cool. But I'm a big city girl. I'm picturing a large chapter room looking out over campus with all the bells and whistles of a luxury apartment building, including gym, first floor retail, coffee shop, etc. While it wouldn't be traditional, if a couple sororities and fraternities took over an equivalent amount of square footage and had them done to the nines it could be really modern and eclectic.

Okay, this sounds AMAZING. I am a historian, and I live for the traditions, but this sounds like it is making the best (and I do mean the BEST) of the situation :)

Oh I think it would be cool, I just think it could be a problem when ABC has the big, beautiful house all to themselves and XYZ just gets a floor in a building they have to share with a bunch of other groups.

I agree it would have to be all or nothing. I'm not familiar with the campus, but I feel like it's unlikely that groups would be willing to give up their houses.

But if XYZ has a snazzy new gym, parking garage, Starbucks on the first floor, and concierge service. Sign me up for XYZ. If I get Starbucks and a gym, I don't care who else lives there. If I was 19 and it was cute fraternity sharing the building, even better.

True! I didn't even think of it that way

You got it - that's the culture shift that needs to happen. PLUS add in that the sorority houses are OLD, with sleeping porches. And the new options have single rooms, semi-private bathrooms, etc. And are right around the corner from everything on University Blvd. This ain't the SEC, small town MS or Bama; we're talking lots of PNMs from California and they are into change, the latest thing, etc. Tradition is what happened last year. Not last century, or the one before that.

It's gonna happen. It's a matter of time. Unless the pendulum takes a huge swing in the opposite direction, and the NM classes drop back down into the 50-60 range. Which they were five short years ago.

Yeah, I'm talking a purpose built high rise, not just taking over 12 units of a building. Eeew, that would be doomed to failure. Think of the possibilities for that at NYU, DePaul, any of the urban schools with burgeoning Greek systems and absolutely no possibility of getting houses.

I get very irritated (beyond annoyed) with people who are hanging on to the past. After all, the earth is NOT flat. Seriously. I want to see this alternative greek housing concept take hold and catch fire. Let's be honest and truthful. Some of those older facilities need to be torn down and rebuilt. The plumbing is a nightmare. So is the electrical. The windows. The HVAC system. On and on and on. But noooooo. You have alumnae who are all invested in keeping it like it was when THEY were in school. Good grief, women. Get a life.

At Illinois, going back as far as my recruitment in the 90's, the big houses were a liability, because they brought a two-year live-in requirement with them at a time when campus apartments were booming. Who wants to live in a quad room with no A/C that your boyfriend isn't allowed to visit and fight over the six parking spots behind the house when you could live in a luxury apartment for a comparable cost?

But then again, Illinois is a far cry from the SEC.

Where would the fraternities have parties?

I don't think it is just the alums who want to hold onto the tradition, there are plenty of girls who arrive on campus who think living in a big amazing mansion is going to be like something they see in the movies. Little do they know that they might be crammed into a tiny room (not the one they showed you on house tours day), it might have little daylight, and there will plenty of nights you get no sleep because someone is making lots of noise. The romance of all this wears off after a year... and after two years of being required to live in, you can hardly stand it.

But despite this, young women still want those big beautiful mansions. Campuses where you are only required/allowed to live in one year, have the best situation: You can have a taste of it, but you can also get the chance to live in an awesome apartment with a pool, your other greek friends, and you get to have guys in your room. When a campus has a requirement that people live-in for three years in their sororities, my advice would be to pick a different campus.

I totally see the appeal of a dorm-style apartment, but when you are 18 and you see those amazing pictures of greek houses, that is far more tempting. For many young women, these sororities have living spaces furnished as nice or nicer than their parents homes. We need to remember that many young women picked these campuses because of the appeal of that actual sorority houses... chances are they aren't thinking about the condition of the plumbing, AC or what it is like to be in a cold dorm.

URI
 

As a long time member of the Rhody greek community, I wouldn't consider us to be a great candidate for further expansion at this time. Sure, there was a huge jump in the retention of PNMs this year--but that's only one year. I'd like to see the initiation rate for these large classes, and if next year's formal recruitment is consistent with this year's.

Also, the only sorority on campus without a house (KD) took the largest NM class, so they aren't hurting for members based on lack of housing. Greek Life has never been consistent at URI, so I for one would like to see if this positive trend continues for a few years before adding another chapter. Besides, lots of sorority members like to live off campus after a year or two, so larger chapter size=more freedom in choice of living arrangements.