socials on decline?
 

I was wondering if socials were on decline at anyone else's campuses? When I joined, we had some pretty fun mixers, but now - three years later - they are practically non existent. I think part of it might have to do houses going dry and chapters getting put on social probabtion. The fraternities don't even have parties like they used to. Any suggestions?

I've noticed the same on my campus. Mostly for the reasons that you've mentioned, as well as the push to get social events at third party venues, which can be costly and therefore reduces the number of events a house can have. A lot of houses on my campus get kegs at a local bars with other houses. They're only a few blocks away from greek row so transportation doesn't need to be arranged, and it qualifies as a third party vendor event. Try talking to establishments in the area and see if they'll let you rent out a portion of the bar for cheap or give your houses drink specials for the evening.

Do you think that the amount of mixers drying up (no pun) has had an effect on amount of people rushing or on sister involvement? I am alum, but have followed these new policies closely and was just wondering how they were actually playing out.

Socials
 

I pledged a social called Sisters Incorporated at Point Park College in Pittsburgh, PA in 1982. It started as Brothers and Sisters Inc., at Clarion University in the late 70's. When I graduated from Point Park in 1985, there was only one member left. No new memebers joined. If there are any SIC/BIC members on this board, please let me know!:(

Ugh! I so understand about no socials! When I joined (2 yrs ago St Pats day!) we had mixers every week! And now, we have to register a social 2 weeks in advance, there cant be alcohol and NO ONE does anything anymore. In my opinion it sucks. I could see if maybe the over agers can drink or something, mixers were our way to cut loose, get away from the stress of school and the business aspects of the org!!!

I agree with the decline in socials. I thought it was just on my campus...since we just made the switch from local to national, everyone is on their best behavior. But I agree about 3rd party vendors...we used to have mixers all of the time, but now (especially with a low budget), that's not a possibility. Plus, mixers used to get planned in a couple of days. Now you need notice to reserve a place, etc. I'm not sure if this is a negative or a positive, but it's definitely a change that I've noticed since when I pledged 2 years ago.

Re: Socials
 

Mango - the word "socials" in this case is used as a synonym for social events or mixers, not social fraternities themselves. Do you know whatever happened to the original chapter of Brothers & Sisters Inc?? I went to Clarion in the 80's and I've never heard of it. Perhaps they went with a national org?

When this policy was put into effect, NPC swore up and down that they were not mandating prohibition or eliminating mixers, but by making rules that make them so expensive to hold I think that for a lot of chapters they have done just that. It's fine if you are Texas A & M and have 200+ sisters paying in dues, but that's not the majority of chapters. That's my main prob with this policy, it is dividing chapters into "haves" and "have-nots."

Actually 33girl, our sorority structured recruitment numbers have gone up in the past two years. I can't really speak for how it affects sister involvement in general but, in my chapter, it's made our chapter do a 180...when I joined, sisterhood events weren't taken very seriously but everyone partied together; now, we have more sisterhoods, but most people don't go out together. Everyone kind of does their own party thing whereas we used to go out as more of a group and have fun with our sisters.

something that got our socials back on the upswing after some serious decline was having some brothers from KA dress in bear suits and serve at the event. We did it once but word got around that bears were serving at the KD sociol. After that, socials become fashionable again. Weird, but it worked.

Mixers were so much fun when I pledged. Now we never have them. To tell you the truth, I feel as if my chapter is run more like a business and all we ever do is philanthropy work. This is fine, but I would like to have some fun too and we just aren't allowed to anymore. And fun doesn't even need to include alcohol but it seems that these days the word fun means alcohol to headquarters. There are rules in place that are justified, and I understand them, but there is no room for freedom to have fun anymore and that is what I am really starting to hate about being in a greek organization.

Agreed
 

I don't know if people here have it as bad as us, but lets find out. We are a strictly "dry" fraternity. No drinking or alcohol inside the house or on the property. If we do, our alumni drop us, just like that. Thats cool though I guess. Its nice having a house thats a lot cleaner than the other fraternities. But we havn't had a social for the last two quarters. Not to say that we probably couldn't have had one, but it would have sucked. We too have put a lot of time and money into more philanthropy's.

Is this what the alumni and alumnae wanted when changing the drinking policies of fraternities?

To me, its not so much the drinking, but more hazing being a problem. If you have drinking but no hazing, it works fine. People don't feel obligated to drink a lot and get hammered. However, you get hazing involved, you have problems. Our freshman this year all have drank. They have all thrown up once or twice, but it were somewhere else. Not around their brothers. A good way to get to know someone better is to drink a couple beers with him. They use it in the business world, why not use it to build brotherhood. Not saying it be mandatory, but at least leave the option open.

Getting back to the main subject however, We can't have "wet" parties. We can't have wet events at other places without a third-party vendor. We can't even have a "wet" founders day. No wine. No martinis. Nothin. We can't hold "wet" socials. We cannot in reality have a "party" as defined by the university. That would require alcohol.

Now try to create a fun event for sororities without alcohol. Granted... its been done. Its difficult though. Our house really tries to be involved in the greek system here, but is forced to be "that one house that's dry". Try livin that one down. We consistantly place placed in the top four in every philanthropy this year. We've won two. It actually really sucks. At least in my old dorm room, I could drink without being fined. I can deal with it now that I'm 21, but what about the freshman this year? They have about three years to go. What do you say to them?

Just bringing up a few points.

my chapter still has socials (both dry and otherwise) and while not every sister attends those that do have a blast. and i definately do not think, atleast in our case, that it has effected involvement. i am proud to say that my sisters and i are all very involved in the org. both socially and otherwise. "social" sororities (as opposed to service and others) are not just about the social aspects anymore!

We use to have some amazing socials at the fraternity houses before the campus went dry. Everyone in the chapter use to come to the socials. It was just easier because we would all meet at our house and then walk to the fraternity house together. It was safer because anyone who was drunk would walk back to the ZTA house and just crash there. Our socials are now all off campus. Not as many girls show up...especially if we don't charter a bus. In that case, the risk of having people drive home drunk is greater. I feel the socials at the fraternities houses were more fun because we had cute themes where we would all dress up....many of the stuff that you cannot do at local bars or venues. PC 99 is the last pledge that got to experience UCF before the campus went dry.

I swear Phi Mu and Phi Sig have the same bylaws! We, too, have to have paperwork in 2 weeks ahead of time, and if Phi Mu's name is mentioned at all we can't have alcohol or go to a bar. For example, we were going to have an unofficial Jammy-Jam with TKE, but since Phi Mu was mentioned, we had to cancel it. The bar thing with the 3rd party vendor really sucks too. We want to do karaoke, but the only places they have it are at bars. Ugh...if anyone has any ideas for good mixers that are alcohol-free, email me at PhiMuMama00@aol.com . We've tried bowling, pool, game nite. Any other ideas that are guy-friendly?

I don't think it's an issue of our own organizations, but I do think it affects greek-wide involvement. Throughout my first two years, I knew at least a hand full of people in every house...in my last year, I don't feel like I met and got to know very many new people, which I feel is an important part of the Greek Experience.

Huh. I am an alum but still young enough that I keep up with what's going on at my campus, and the number of mixers doesn't seem to have dropped at all. To be honest, though, the girls find ways around it. Everyone goes home, changes, and then comes back to the boys' house and then they just happen to drink!

There are several dry fraternitiy houses on campus and they still have parties and mixers - I don't think the loss of alcohol has affected their numbers or popularity.

It does seem a little hypocritical of us to complain that we're no longer allowed to have alcohol at the fraternity houses anymore, though, whether it's because our own rules forbid it or because the fraternity's or university's rules do. After all, we've been "using" the fraternities for years - our houses have been dry forever. Turnabout is fair play, I guess.

Our socials started going down to the point we didn’t have any for a semester or two but recently everyone found a loop hole that says mixers only last 2 hours after that it’s considered friends hanging out and you can do what you want. Our seniors swear it’s not the same as when they pledged but its better than nothing.
Some of the things we do now are
Fun and games mixer – twister, or any other game
Italian wedding- the dry part is a dinner then you get your partner
I hope this helps

Sure, we can't distinctly prove causation, but . . .

There's a large group of ladies here saying that new policies have limited the social aspect of their house, to the point of making the experience markedly different from previous.

No one will explicitly say it, but it seems like a lot of the comments point toward "Now, it is less fun."

Remembering that nearly every one of our orgs here (assuming NPC and NIC at the center of this particular organization) were founded as social organizations . . . there seems to be at least some sort of flaw in logic here.

Have decisions made to lower insurance costs and liability risks left organizations (esp sororities) with few options to live up to this founding purpose as well as previous?

To me, it seems like the moves made to 'go dry' were very sharp, almost overbearingly so, and that very little resembling a successful attempt has been made to help the houses (on a chapter-to-chapter basis) recover the social aspect of greek life.

To me, this is a potentially great loss - losing the "Good Ol' Days" are one thing, but for these girls the good old days shouldn't be 3 years ago.

I'll chime in. If you go by the number of registered parties, and events that are strictly Greek, then there's no social life here. But parties are rarely registered. Our typical weekend is four or five of the fraternities holding huge 200-300 person bashes, $5 for GDI's, girls and Greeks get in free. The parties invariably get broken up by the town police (the university has no jurisdiction).

This year we had a new NPC advisor who tried to get the sororities to go for dry mixers and such (the advisor just graduated from OU, where she claims such things go on). She also tried to get the women to keep out of the fraternity houses. It was somewhat less than successful, although her influence did produce the first acceptable Greek Week in years.

For my house, we're dry, so we don't hold the huge parties, and we're small, so the sororities look down their pretty noses at us. Though I can't blame them- an exchange between a 20-man fraternity and a 70-woman sorority would be a bit lopsided. So we don't have any traditional socials. We have some random BBQ's and holiday parties, but that's it. At least on the dry side, next year we at least get some company- Theta Chi's new colony will be dry.

I totally agree. When I was a pledge it was a blast. Now that I am a member, my sorority life doesn't extend beyond business meetings. There are some cool parties, but there few and far in between. If greek life doesn't start to show some more spunk... I don't know how I can tell people at recruitment about all the "fun" we have. Philanthropy aside (a worthy and noble cause), greek life is about having fun and that doesn't neccessary mean consuming large amounts of alcohol. I would rather go to a dry party than no party at all.