eating houses
 

I wanted to bring up the subject of eating houses to discuss. I have a friend who is an eating house in the south. I find the system a bit interesting only because you can switch eating houses but they operate similar to sororities in terms of membership and parties.....

What is an eating house? :confused:

Gotta admit, I've never heard that term either! Although, my imagination is running wild right now...

I'll try my best here. Eating houses are like greek orgs in terms of social, rush and sisterhood aspect. I know somewhat about the system at Davidson College. There is a "rush" per say but really each new member can choose wherever they want to go as long as there is room for them. Davidson has fraternities but no sororities. So basically the eating houses there function like female greek organizations, I think there is a new member process as well. The term eating house basically implies that the function of the house is strictly for meals, no one resides there. It is purely for a social aspect. I know that students at Davidson who are interested in the system may eat at the house in order to get to know the members of that particular house better.

Here is a website:
http://www.davidson.edu/administrati...tWeb/index.htm

Princeton has eating clubs. They also have fraternities and sororities but I think the eating clubs are more popular. I have a friend that is a member of KKG and Cap and Gown eating club.

Here is a link to some of the eating clubs at Princeton.
http://etc.princeton.edu/Campus/chap11.html

wow.. that is all really interesting.. i had no idea these existed

I also knew about this since i also have a friend who goes to davidson and is in an eating house there.
I guess the thing im still confused about and maybe some of you more experienced people could tell me if you know really about the switching thing. I think thats whats intruiging to me because of the fact i heard you can kind of rush and then get placed but if you dont like your house you can switch. To me that seems so crazy but then again an eating house is not the same as a sorority.

I was picturing a gingerbread house when I saw the title of this thread. :p

I have heard of eating clubs. I had no idea that there was a selection process. It's very interesting to learn the different ways that colleges do things.

Interesting, I did not know such houses existed.

I also find it quite interesting that their Order of Omega chapter accepts women in eating houses.

OMG! I just went to their page to see more info about these eating houses and i noticed that their advisor- Graeham Hesp. He was our IFC advisor at Elon and was fired when they found him giving alcohol to underage freshman girls in HIS OFFICE! it was a big scandal in 2000, i can't believe davidson hired him!

Wow, I just read more about this "self-selection" thing. I don't think NPC would touch that with a ten-foot pole!

Wow, that's kind of bizarre.

This is all definately interesting since it's the first time I've heard of it.

do "eating houses" have new member/pledge periods and initiation?

I'm not a member of Order of Omega myself, but I had always assumed it constitutionally limited membership to members of Greek lettered organizations. Is that true, or is it left up to each individual chapter? Maybe it allows exceptions for scenarios such as this where being a member of a Greek lettered organization isn't possible.

I also found myself wondering how often women elected to switch eating houses. Is it a very rarely used escape hatch, mainly put in place to prevent a woman from leaving the system entirely, or do many women switch in a year? I think it would be hard to develop a sense of sisterhood if the latter were true.

Boy, you learn something new every day, don't you?

I'll say!

I took a look at the Davidson website, and I am massively confused.

For the women, it seems straightforward enough. It's very similar to the way dorm rush ran at my school. You visit all the eating houses, or just the ones that interest you most, and then you rank them and get matched to one according to your lottery number. The eating houses have no say in who joins them. (And no, NPC wouldn't touch this with a barge pole.)

It's the men's rush that confuses me. It looks like you have to receive a bid to be considered a member of the fraternity on the national level, but you can be a social member, and be considered a full member as far as Davidson is concerned, just by self-selecting. So the fraternities actually have to accept social members who are crammed down their throats? :confused:

As for Order of Omega - we had several "independent living groups" at my school, only some of which were Greek lettered. If I recall correctly, their members could be selected for membership in Order of Omega just like members of any fraternity or sorority, but few if any of them went out for it - I don't recall any ILG members being active members when I was.

It is similar to Creighton's guaranteed bid system in sorority recruitment.

aephi alum- What exactly is an "independent living group?" How do they compare to a fraternity or sorority?

The independent living groups (ILGs) at my school are considered part of the greek system, and hold rush at the same time as the fraternities. Most are coed; one is all-women. A couple are former fraternity chapters that decided to admit women; their charters were therefore revoked, and they became local coed fraternities.

Back in the day, all fraternities, sororities, and ILGs (other than NPHC orgs) were members of IFC. There was also a Panhellenic Council for sororities. Since my graduation a few years ago, the sororities have seceded from IFC and are now governed only by Panhel. The ILGs have also seceded from IFC and have their own governing body.

Hmmm. Interesting. Thanks for the explanation.

Creighton's Greek website indicates that "Recruitment is a mutual selection process between sororities/fraternities and potential members. " - so I don't think it's the same thing as the one-sided selection process for the Eating Houses, is it?

Guaranteed Bid = if you go to the maximum number of houses available to you at every round of rush, you will be guaranteed a slot at one of the houses you attended during Pref Night. You don't get to select the house you want, though - you rank AND the houses rank. And you are only guaranteed a slot at one of the house you attend on Pref Night - not any house you want. (This is how it worked at UTexas - detailed info on Creighton's exact permutation on the concept isn't available on their website)

Eating House = the rushee, and only the rushee, selects the house she wishes to join. The house itself has no say.

That's wild! The girl just picks her house, and the house has to live with it!