I don't know if I am talking to a brick wall here or not but the house is not going to be empty, second of all, recruiting a fraternity without a house is no picnic either.

Some hypothetical questions.

Would a sorority lease a house knowing that it would only be for X number of years? And how many years do y'all think a chapter would be willing to lease it? Would it hurt the chapter "down the line" to have been housed for a couple of years, then un-housed?

And a non-hypothetical "real" question.

Why are some chapters un-housed? Why not rent something off campus? Do they have some sort of space (suite, dorm floor, etc.) currently?

Any word on Greek Park 2? It's been in the works forever and I thought they finally got the turtle problem solved.

I agree. I think it would help the unhoused chapters tremendously to be on "equal" footing at recruitment. So many girls won't even look at an unhoused chapter because the ones with houses are perceived as stronger. Which is very silly.

Although getting a house doesn't mean that a chapter won't experience growing pains. When Alpha Xi got the DG house a few years ago, a large number of women cancelled -- dues experienced a sharp increase. While I think this was a good opportunity to separate the women who truly wanted to be there from those who didn't, I recall a good number of wonderful members who truly couldn't afford the extra expense. All in all, it's really been a pleasure to watch Alpha Xi grow-- I got to campus when they were still relatively new to UCF and they have just taken off since they got a chapter house.

They simply don't have the space available for Greek housing. Thus, of the 11 sororities, only 6 are housed: ADPi, ZTA, KD, DDD, Alpha Xi, Pi Phi. During recruitment, XO, Theta, Kappa, DG and AEPhi each take over a fraternity house and rush out of that house for the week. And even the housed chapters can't fit all of their members into the house as live-ins. Of 100+ members per chapter, 30-40 can live-in. Off campus, members will rent blocks of apartments together.

We don't have formal sorority suites or dorms-- there isn't the space within campus housing. The university has gotten so large (at or over 50,000 students-- one of the largest universities by enrollment in the US) that it has purchased privately owned apts just off campus for use as university housing and the continue to build more and more oncampus housing options, not to mention new classroom buildings. Everytime I visit the school, another dirt parking lot is gone and there's a new classroom or paved road in its place.

The unhoused chapters have weekly meeting rooms on campus or the student union for their meetings and conduct ritual at alumnae's homes or nearby churches. There's some prohibition about renting a house off-campus to function as the "chapter house." The fraternities are allowed to, but the sororities won't do it-- I don't know if this is a university rule, campus Panhellenic rule or a Risk Management issue unique to each sorority's house corp.

The Florida Epsilon chapter of SAE may not sound as "pretigious" as the ones in the SEC, but at UCF, SAE was a very strong fraternity, and well-recognized throughout the state. It is very unfortunate that the chapter has closed due to the immature actions of a few members. I hope other fraternities will exercise better common sense so that this trend does not continue at UCF. Whether or not they were hazing, they got caught doing something. I realize there are other fraternties doing similiar stupid things and not getting caught. And sadly, that is what makes the difference in the end.

And a wall was removed in the Pike house, so it's def unsafe to live in it until it's fixed.

I heard that most of off campus Greek housing aka "The Greek Ghetto" is being leveled, that really sucks for all the groups in there.

At our Founders Day this fall, the current collegiate Kappa president told me and some other young alums that it is in the works (for real this time :D ). It is supposed to be located across from Sigma Chi. The houses will be smaller than the current houses, but each house will have its own distinctive front. If you have been on campus recently, you'll see that they're changing all the roads. The entrance off University isn't going to be the "main" entrance anymore. I got the impression that maybe they were going to have the main entrance at this new Greek park.

Well, I certainly hope you're not talking to a brick wall. :-)

I agree, recruiting without a house is no fun for anyone, epecially when chapters around you are housed. However, I will argue that it is different. Now, I'm no expert on fraternity recruitment (obviously), but my understanding is that they have a much more laid back recruitment. More time for the PNMs to get to know the brothers, etc.

Now take sorority recruitment. At UCF, we generally had between a half hour and a hour with the PNMs. You have a very short period of time to make a first impression, which was often all the information the girls had with which to make a decision. The first thing girls noticed when they were walking into my chapter during recruitment was "Wait, we're walking into a fraternity house." I haven't even met the girl and I already have explaining to do!

The first words out of her mouth are "Why don't you have a house?" After I finish the answer, the next question is "Are you going to get a house?" Beleive me, "eventually" doesn't seem to satisfy most PNMs. So I've just wasted several minutes out of my precious thirty minute conversation answering questions that really don't have happy answers. IMHO, that is why recruitment without a house is far worse on sororities.

Not only are UCF's houses small, it is my understanding that there is at least one group with a house so small they can't even hold chapter meetings there!

TrueBlueKappa, I really hope housing works out this time. I really do. I'm just not going to believe UCF will actually make it happen until I'm standing on Kappa's front porch.

Oh, to be a rich alumna who could dangle a nice fat donation in front of UCF's face and ask that they fix the Greek housing situation.

Protect them from what? What do they need protecton from if you aren't doing anything dangerous?

should you really admit to having those?

Are you sure about that? Our chapter is only 3 years old. I am a charter sister, and I think I'd know if one of my pledge sisters donated acres and acres of land to UCF.

That was what I was about to say, too. Maybe it was a Kappa alumna, but in that case it's hard to believe I wouldn't know that for fact.

TrueBlueKappa, I tried to reply to your PM, but I got a message that said you had elected not to receive PMs. Can you figure out what's going on?

I haven't been able to receive them for awhile, but no one can fix it for me. :(

Since when is having old tests and notes a bad thing? Hell...most teachers here post there own test files on our university website. If a professor is too lazy to make new exams every year......thats their problem.