House Mothers
 

I searched and didn't find another thread like this-- soooo

1. If you have a house, do you have a house mother/director?
2. Does your university require GLOs to hire house mothers/directors?
3. Is your house mother/director a member of your GLO?

Washington and Lee University requires house mothers. Ours is Miss Joan. She is a Golden Arrow (50-year member in Pi Phi) from William and Mary. She is just the picture of a southern sorority lady. :D

(1) We have a house mother.

(2) They require some sort of director -- either a house mother, a house director or a resident advisor. I believe all the sorority houses have house mothers, though. At one point we had house parents! But I don't think it's been that way since the 80s.

(3) I really don't know . . . but if I had to guess, I would say probably not. I think I would know by now if she was.

As a local Founder, we broke the House Mother Rule!

Looking back, I now wish we had house Mothers!

When I was a AB pledge, Mrs. Mom was great and taught proper maners and dress for her Boys.

I met the House Mother at the LXA Chapter at U of Kansas, wow, if it wasnt so far to drive for a date, well, you ?

In todays problems, it might be better! Not only to keep an eye on, to give a shoulder to, to teach how to eat a dinner, tie a tie, what color to wear with what!

Funny story, at Founders DAY, had the Pres. wear a black shirt with a black tie and looked like a pimp! DA!:( The International Director was there. It was worse when he had his tie wrapped around his head with a t-shirt on!?

I am house manager.

Billy, you need a house sitter, not for the house dude but for YOU!
http://www.handykult.de/plaudersmilies.de/beerchug.gif

From Mawah to Youse!!!!:)

If youse be de house manager, Man you have the tuffiest job in Your Fraternity Chapter!!

Just be the Prick that I know you can be and make them toe the line!:D :cool:

1. Yes, we have a house mom

2. I don't know if they are required but I'm pretty sure all the sororities have one... not sure about the fraternities here...

3. Our house mom is a ZTA... one of our advisors who is an ASA is the DZ house mom....

No we don't have a house mom..
University probably doesn't know what that is:D
Only one of our Oklahoma chapters (that I know of for sure) has a house mom. She just got married to the ex-governor:D

We have a House Mom...

All the Houses have House moms, with Phi Psi actually having a House Dad (who they often call "Mom").

I know that some of the sororities have house mothers who are members.

I think we are required to at least be looking for a house director if we don't have one.

Coolest House Mother is Delt's. She's like 30, and she's my director for an organization I'm in. She's super fun, and great to just talk to.

There were no house moms at Ball State when I was there in the 80s-90s (still aren't), but they were there up to the mid 1960s. Why there are no more house moms is a Ball State legend.

Back then, everyone's house mom was an older lady, usually a widow (ours was in her 60s, her picture is on the composite). It was not considered a suitable job for a young woman. Apparently the house moms at all the fraternity houses were quite strict and so all the chapters got together and plotted to do away with them.
The story goes, the undergrads all decided to prank the house moms till they quit. Our alums claim that some of our members found a dead dog that had been hit by a car, frozen in a snowdrift and put it in the house mom's shower! Of course she quit!

Apparently all of the other chapters did equally evil things to their house mom's, so the university was confronted with all of the house mom's positions vacated at once. The university then dropped the house mom requirement.

It may just be urban legend, but many of our alumni swear it was true.

Ball State's Greek Life is just full of stories like that!

Ask me, and some time I'll tell y'all the story about David Letterman and our Civil War cannon!

At SDSU, only the sororities have house mothers. I think there's a rule that the house mom cannot be a member of that sorority, because none of them are.

Actually at SDSU it is not a rule that the house mom is not allowed to be a member of that sorority. The DG house mom is actually an alum of that chapter. And there are even some active members who where in the house when the house mom was still active. The DG house mom is 25 I beleive. Just wanted to clear that up.

Also at SDSU I believe it was the Pi Phi House mom's daughter was the president A Chi O at SDSU. I am not sure if that is still the case, or if those are the correct houses but I know that it was a situation like that.

The Kappas at the University of South Carolina have hired a house director who is a DG. She is absolutely fabulous! I'm pretty sure USC requires each house to have a HD.

My chapter had a HD who was not a member of a GLO. We called her Mama C. We were required to have a HD.

There are no house moms (although the sis in charge of the house is sometimes called that, but it's stil an active sister) at Clarion fraternities or sororities...I think if there were, no one would live in the houses.

None of the fraternities or sororities at my alma mater had House Mothers/Fathers... what are the responsibilities of that position? I've heard of it, but know one i know seems to know what they do. Do they live in the house?

I don't think house moms/directors are mandatory, b/c in all of our canadian chapters (where i'm from) do not have a house mother. i was house manager for my chapter, but i was active at the time. however, i know alot of our chapters in the states do have house mothers. i think it may be different on every campus, and maybe have to do with the size of the chapter?
i agree with 33girl, if we did no one would want to live in the house!! out of the 7 sororities on our campus, i believe 4 or 5 have house mothers. all of the house mothers are alumnae from their respective chapter. the house that is our biggest competition during rush just got one this semester and i (as well as they) think that it will have a negative impact on rush for them.
:eek:
i'm not saying house mothers are bad, but just not suitable for our campus. :)

Ginger,

House moms do live in the house. They have their own suite (bedroom, bathroom, & sitting area generally). They are responsible for running the household--planning meals, buying food, supervising cooks & other employees, keeping within a budget, etc. They eat their meals with the chapter.

ah, okay. That's kind of what I imagined, but I wasn't sure. It makes sense that none of our GLOs had them, then... DO was unhoused, but my understanding of those that were was that they had no employees to speak of, and few meals were provided in house (except for a weekly dinner/meeting).

I suppose it's just another of those things that varies from campus to campus.

The houses at Arkansas had housemothers and the fraternities at Auburn and Mississippi State did (the sororities there didn't have houses--they do now at State). We had sorority dorms at Auburn and each had a housemother--we initiated our precious, precious housemom.

I have always felt really sorry for fraternity housemothers!

hey, uwwsweetie, just out of curiousity was I right about the NPCs at Whitewater? I realize it's been a few years since I've been there, so things might have changed...

At Bowling Green, Greek houses (all "official" houses are on campus and owned by the University) have House Directors. House Directors are usually (like 99.9% of the time) graduate students. Most are pursuing their Master in College Student Personnel. Occasionally two houses next to each other will share a H.D., but that's pretty rare. Or at least it was while I was there.

I've never heard of one being a member of the organization they are the H.D. for (conflict of interest), but most were greek when undergrads. During my time, we had House Directors who were members of AEPhi, ZTA, and ADPi.

I think that House Mom or House Director rules vary from campus to campus and chapter to chapter. I am pretty sure that at IU it is not required to have either. There is one fraternity that I am thinking of that I am just about 100% positive does not have a HM or HD.

Also, AOII does not require that the HM be a member. For instance, the woman we have right now worked as a HM for Sigma Alpha Mu and Sigma Delta Tau before coming to our chapter. I am just about positive that both HM's that we have had were not members of a chapter either.

Here's a blurb that's recycled from another thread:

....house directors at Pi Phi houses cannot be initiated members. It is to maintain the inpartiality of the HD. It is considered a conflict of interest to be a member. HD are not supposed to be involved in the internal workings of the chapter, disciplinary matters among members or conflicts between officers/ alumnae. The lines get blurred when you are talking about someone who has developed enough of a relationship with chapter members to receive an invitation to membership.

that was the one :) Yeah, I didn't even know the Sigmas had a house-mother, but I knew them the least of anyone on campus.

Strangely enough, I lived in Lee Matson house (across from Anderson library) for a while, and it has a suite like those described here... I've heard it used to be a sorority house (though I don't know for whom), and when I was there, Delta Omicron was trying to work something out with DLK for us to take over that house but it never came through. Anyway, it never occured to me that someone other than a student would live in there... I figured it was just the president's suite!! (or at least I hoped ;))

Re: Lee Matson
 

How does only haveing 8 active girls = "not doin too well?" I don't understand that. A group could have eight actives and be doing great.....

I guess if you are looking at it from a quantity point of view....

Point is, small doesn't always mean bad or weak or struggling.....word.

Hmmm... I know that can't be true since our house mom is a Pi Phi, and nationals definately knows that. What thread did you find that on?

In regards to the conflict of interest question, sorority HDs at my school are minimally involved in the chapter. Miss Joan doesn't really have too many responsiblities. She knows nothing about the internal workings of the chapter and we make sure that that stays the case. She cooks us dinner on the weekends when our cooks have off, decorates the tables for the seasons, buys us little goodies, helps keep the house clean, etc... Honestly, she's the greatest, but she doesn't have a real good idea about modern sorority life (she was initiated in 1950!). There really isn't any conflict of interest.

(Alpha chi omega) We have a housemom who I'm pretty sure, isn't Greek. She used to be a housemom for Delta Chi and Kap Sig in New Mexico, among others. We think she's great.

Being non- Greek isn't an issue to us, even w/past housemoms, none were allowed at chapter, and all were requested to leave the house during initiation. Mom's apartment is connected through our foyer- she has her own bathroom and living room/cable, but since our house is really old she has to share the driveway as her parking spot.

Mizzou requires all fraternal organizations w/housing to have a 24 hr live in "babysitter", if you will. Kind of a rule that works nicely with our attempt at a dry campus...........

Personally i see the benefits to both a non- Greek and Greek housemom/dad. If not anything else, they'd be more likely to understand certain customs (dinner etiquette, serenades, etc.) Last year for about 5 months we had this woman who never really liked sororities. We nicknamed her Sweaty D b/c she'd always be running around the house yelling at us and sweating profusely. She just didn't understand why there were young men standing on our grass and flowers singing at such a late hour of the nite. (!).

Another question- do you guys call your housemom "mom"?? We do , and it totally freaks some of my friends out who go to school on other campuses.

http://forums.greekchat.com/gcforums...5&pagenumber=2
posted by dakareng

hmm... dakareng works for nationals... I assume we've cleared it in some way, then.

Maybe I am reading Ms. Gunther's words inccorectly, and if I am, hopefully someone will correct me.
From what I understood of her post was that HD's could not be initiated members of that particular chapter. Perhaps they can be HD's of another Pi Phi chapter?


Edited for horrible spelling

Re: House Mothers
 

1. We have a house, and we do have a housemom
2. As far as IFC, it is not required to have a housemom, however, different case for PanHell, they are required to have housemoms.
3. Yes, she was initiated long times ago (she has been our housemom for 18 years), and we call her "Brother North" (her name). Oh well ... it is about brotherhood, anyway ....

Re: Re: Lee Matson
 

Exactly!! My sorority currently only has 8 active members, but we're not weak. As a matter of fact, there are three chapters under 10 on my campus right now.

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None of the greek organizations on my campus have House Mothers. Most have the position of House Manager as an active position. It would be inconvenient to have a House Mother, as most of the recognized organizations live in the Student Apartments.

I loved all the little named houses in WW, I thought they were so cute! And I love their Tri-Sigma house and the DZ house and the Alpha Sigma house. :)

Re: Re: Re: Re: Lee Matson
 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by uwwsweetie
[B]You did say that they (Delta Omicron) wasn't doing that great. In that same paragraph you also stated they only had "8 active sisters."
So it is compared to the rest of the sororities? They don't have as many members as the others so they aren't doing that great? I don't buy it, a chapter doesn't have to have 40, 50, 60 members to be doing good or not. Even if they don't have a number comparable to the other sororites on campus, doesn't make them weak, if they are a social sorority or not. That's my point....