A problem has aroused recently at our cold airs, since most people here now do not have alarm clock. Instead, they set up their cell phone for alarm clock, and bring them to the racks (cold air).

I'm OK with that, except some nights, crazy friends/girlfriends/family or whoever it was, call the person in the middle of the night and the cell phone ringing loudly at the racks ... at 2 in the morning!! :mad:

Time to add a house rule, I guess ...

But generally, I LOVE cold airs. Especially in the winter times like this, when the air is super cold. Nothing better than just cuddle up under TONS of blankets and pillow to warm up :D Especially if there is someone with you ;)

Ok so do you actually have people sharing a bed with like 40 other people in the room? When I had a roomie, my boy NEVER stayed over when she was sleeping in the room, just too weird. So how does that work. It kinda seems like it would be nice cause you can easily keep an eye on sisters and their shadiness. But hum...non sisters sleeping in the chapter sleeping room...

LOL ... it's actually more like guys cold airs. Some girlfriends stay with the brothers, including cuddle up at the cold airs. :D

We don't have a problem with it. If you're going to sleep with someone else you do it elsewhere. No guys are allowed in our house period after midnight. It's simply not done.

My boyfriend's fraternity on the other hand has an upperclassman cold dorm and a freshman cold dorm. Last year his bed was in the cold dorm (his room was too small for ANYTHING other than a desk!) so we would stay up there when I came to visit if the guest room was already booked. There's extra beds in each of their cold dorms so there would always be girls staying there on the weekends (it's an all guys school so most girls have to drive to go visit!).

My mom was a Phi Mu at Purdue, and she always talked about how much she loved staying in the cold air dorm! She said sometimes you would wake up and have snow on your bed! I, however, go to school in Mississippi, so any time of the year besides Jan and Feb, you would roast to death sleeping in an open air thing like that!! Hee, hee!

In the South, a sleeping porch was often for the summer only. It had lots of windows or was just a big porch with screens, and was usually on a second floor. Our sorority house had its sleeping porch on the third floor. I thought it was wierd at first, but grew quickly to LOVE it. Nobody lived on third - just the chapter room and closets up there - so it was quiet and you could sleep any time, day or night. Alarm clocks were necessary, but you were expected to turn them off quickly. The windows stayed open year-round - and it DOES get cold in Tuscaloosa, Alabama - but you just cuddled up in your electric blanket. Daughter's sorority house at UA (DZ, not DG) has sleeping porches, but there are 2 on each floor along with rooms, so they get a good bit of noise. She hated them. But she's spoiled and pampered!;)

I forgot to finish the history of the sleeping porch...remember, this was before air conditioning. The porch, with all the open windows, allowed more breezes to blow through than in one's room. We have several homes in town, built in the 1890s, that have sleeping porches. In the summer, the family slept out there on, for example, day beds or hammocks. In the winter or cooler weather, they slept in beds inside the house.

hum....maybe this is why I'm just not getting it. I come from a place that is pretty...open??? I guess. We have boys that live in our house (well practically) and we have sisters who live in fraternity houses. But I still find the sharing the room with like 50 other people just a little weird. Didn't it freak you out when you first stayed there? and what is this about guest rooms? Wow, I really am not a 'real' greek....

At IU, most of the sororities have rules about where guys can and can't be...I don't know of any which allow guys anywhere except the first floor. Not in the rooms and certainly not in the cold dorm! (Again, rules might have changed since I was there!)

I don't think fraternities have similar rules, but I could be wrong.

We're pretty open but I'm pretty sure it's a national Pi Phi policy not to have men spending the night. We have guys that are over quite a lot but they don't spend the night and aren't in the house after midnight. On the weekends I just about live at my boyfriend's fraternity but this is because of the guest rules in my house! We go to his house to sleep. It's not a hard concept! :) I personally have documented medical reasons why I cannot sleep in the cold dorm and therefore I sleep in my room. I did stay up there once as a pledge when I was visiting a sister late at night and didn't want to walk home. It wasn't scary and if I didn't have extenuating circumstances I'm sure I'd love sleeping up there. It's a respect issue...I'm sure you wouldn't want a random guy in the cold dorm so you don't do it to your sisters. It's also nice because you don't have to worry about the horror story of someone hooking up in the bed below you! :eek:

At my house we don't have a guest room. There are sororities on my campus that have guest rooms so that their alums can come visit. At my boyfriend's fraternity is where I've stayed in a guest room. It's common practice at Wabash College (an all male college) to have guest rooms in the fraternities. The guest rooms usually have a king sized bed and full bathroom with shower for the female guests on the weekends. I really like the guest room at my boyfriend's fraternity. It has a big bed (so comfy!), a big desk, dresser, closet, really nice shower and private bathroom. It's nice for privacy and if you have a big group of girls coming up it's a nice place to stay.

You're still greek even if you don't do the cold dorm. :D It's a matter of preference and there are houses here who don't have a cold dorm. It's just one more thing to learn about! :)

I think I would really enjoy this. It would be nice to be able to be loud in my room (my keyboard is freakishly loud) without worrying about bothering my roommate. My house is basically like the freshman dorms upstairs, just a hallway with lots of little one- and two-person rooms with a bed, desk, and closet for each person.

I personally loved the cold dorm! (Also, I don't know if jharb mentioned it or not, but we also had a warm dorm as well. :)) It was so peaceful to sleep in when it was warm, and in the winter time was cold enough to be comfortable.

I kind of miss it! Even when living in my own apartment I keep the heater turned down low at night. :D

I don't mind sleeping in the cold but when you wake up in the morning and get out of bed, aren't you FREEZING? I wouldn't want to get out of bed.

I first learned about this from one of Mr. Adrienne's classmates at Purdue who is a Pi Phi and described their "cold air dorm" when she visited. The reason she gave was the "preventing the spread of germs" which I think someone else mentioned earlier.

Is this a trend in Indiana, or is it Pi Phi specifically? (Just curious.)

Adrienne
:)

I think this is a midwestern thing (not just Pi Phi).

Considering I stayed in the same room for 2 years (even when larger ones were available) because it had its own heat that I could crank, NWIH would I have lasted in a cold air dorm!!! :)

It's not just Pi Phi. There are other sororities on Butler's campus with cold dorms.

Yeah, it's a little cold when you wake up, but I guess I never minded too much since my bed was right next to the door. :)

There are two houses up here that have cold dorms or as we call them: dormers. During recruitment when I saw them, I thought it was sort of wierd, but I think that I would have gotten used to it, but up here in Michigan I think that it would be even colder in the winter. ;) It would be interesting to try to live in. Plus who can pass up having the 24 hour dark room to take naps in peace.

Definitely not just a Pi Phi thing, although Pi Phi was one of the houses at IU with such a sleeping arrangement.

I think it is mostly midwestern, although I've seen some schools on the West Coast with that sort of arrangement.

Im just so fasinated by the whole idea of a sleeping porch. Its origins make sense (southern climate, pre AC)...but its amazing to see how its a greek cultural thing. I kinda wish they had something similar to that in our Up North houses...the heat within the bulidings the winter killssss me.

I'm also curious to see how this is set up...could someone be a doll and post some pictures??? It would be much appreicated!:p

We don't really take pictures of the cold dorm...but think of a big huge room filled with bunk beds. That's basically it! lol...not that exciting, but it's nice for the girls who sleep up there. Ours is on the third floor of our house and has a bathroom up there too so you don't have to come down to the second floor to use the facilities! :D

Here are some photos:

http://www.digitaljayhawk.org/Projec...es/porches.jpg

http://www.life.arizona.edu/residencehousing/maricopa/

Bed assignments
 

Are you assigned a specific bed? If you get sick, does your rommate sleep in your cold air bed while you sleep in her room bed?

What keeps someone from coming in the open windows?

Silver

Thanks DGMarie!

That is so interesting...I must say I'm a wee bit jealous of the idea!

There are a couple pictures of a sleeping porch here. (scroll down) Here's another one from a fraternity site.

As for why no one comes in, at IU the cold dorms were on the top floors of the houses (usually the 3rd floor or so), and they are humongous houses. It would be hard to get up there!

:)
 

Now that I've read all of the posts, these cold air rooms sound a lot like military barracks. Very cost/space efficient! And a nice way for everyone to get comfy around each other.

preciousjeni

Re: Bed assignments
 

We were assigned specific beds. As for the roomie thing, well, it didn't work that way in the house. Your roomie had the same sleeping arrangement as you did. Either you had beds in your room or you didn't. However, if you slept in the cold dorm but were really sick you could sleep on the couch in your room.

Our cold dorm was the top floor of the house. LOL, if anyone scaled up the building and tried to open the window our alarm system would go off. It would be funny to see though!

Hope this answers your questions. :)

in the summer, is this room air conditioned? Being on top of the house with that many people must have been really hot!

Wow... this idea is so foreign to me! It definately seems cozy and nice though. :)

Nope, no AC in the cold dorm. Sometimes it would get stuffy, but a good number of us had those little clip on fans on top of having rotating fans. With the number of fans it would actually be cooler upstairs than downstairs! In our house only our formal rooms have AC. I would sometimes go up to my bed to study during the day. :)

Wow, I think it would be great. Seems like that would cut out so many problems with one roommate needing to sleep, and the other wanting to watch TV or do homework!
I could definitely deal with the cold, too -- I sleep with my window open now, even when it's 20-something outside, and last year in the dorm I kept my window open all year long because it was so dang hot in there!

when i was a student our house had two sleeping porches-to describe them to others, i would say they look like the barracks on the gomer pyle show. we chose our own bed which was ours for the year. we used our owns sheets , pillow and comforter. it was lights out and quiet 24/7 on the porches and people were quiet in the hallways outside the porches. our house has been remodeled and expended and now beds are in the rooms and sleeping porches are no more. the porches weren't really porches, just large rooms with bunkbeds and central heating and air.

as far as colds and illness go, i don't remember a higher incidence of germ swapping.

i don't know where the term, cold air porches originated from, but here in florida a long time ago before air conditioning was invented, people used to have sleeping porches which were large, high ceilinged porches with screens used in the hot months.often ceiling fans were used to help create a breeze, as the whole household slept in beds on the porch.lisa

At Penn State, most of the fraternities had them, and they called them "rack rooms" rather than "sleeping porches". Sororities were in the dorms, so no rack rooms for us.