Sleeping porch vs. Bedroom
 

Alot of people feel strongly about sleeping porches. From what I hear, at many schools they are unheard of, wheras at OSU they are the norm.

Do you think it helps or hurts your brotherhood/sisterhood one way or the other?

Sleeping porches are almost all confined to the mid-west, and date from a time when Greeks provided the best student housing available. I suppose whether they're attractive or not these days depends on what the alternative is on your campus. Dpesn't have much to do with brotherhood or sisterhood. They come from a time when women couldn't be upstairs in fraternity houses, nor men in sorority houses. My guess is that today everyone wants some privacy.

Can someone please inform me of what a sleeping porch is? It sounds like it might be a barrack.

Traditionally, sleeping porches are large rooms in the house, usually on the ends, where beds are stacked and only sleeping takes place. Individual members also have their own "study rooms" in the house - usually two to a room - which are outfitted for studying and storing of some personal effects. Where they exist, they are found in both sorority and fraternity houses. They're usually found in those huge, traditional houses in the mid-west.

Most have done away wiht the sleeping porches, however -- or at least anyone who could raise some money from the alums for renovations.

So where does the sex happen?

Sleeping porches are in the majority at Idaho and Washington State University. Very few houses do not have "the porch", and the windows are kept open at all times. Some houses have more than one porch, and electric blankets and down comforters are the norm. All the sororities have rules about boys on the porch, and at least one fraternity has a no women on the porch or upstairs after 2 am rule. I think that is the one fraternity who locks their doors at night too.

As far as where people hook up and shack up, it happens on the porch, but most people move off campus into apartments by their junior year if not earlier.

Which explains why population in the mid-west is decreasing...

How does this comment relate to the examples given which are from Oregon, Idaho, and Washington - none of which are in the midwest?

It's OK Firehouse - I got the joke.;)

Why are windows kept open at all times?

To let the germs out :)

It's all a matter of what you're used to. If you attend a school that has chapters with sleeping porches, they don't seem all that strange. If you don't, they may seem odd.

Many chapters at Iowa State have sleeping porches (or cold airs as we called them) and most people who lived in chapters with them absolutely loved them. They do take some getting used to, but they're really not that bad.

As far as having an affect on brotherhood/sisterhood, unless someone is mad they have to do wake-ups or can't shack, I don't know why it would be an issue.

Ew can you imagine sleeping in a room with a bunch of sisters come, say, November or December when everyone gets colds and the flu? It's bad enough even with the windows open, but if there wasn't any circulation... gross.

Can you imagine what would happen if a sister got mono??

I think most of the personal rooms have at least one bed in them in the event that a sister is sick (or wants to shack - the shame!). At least the one house that had a sleeping porch at my school did.

At my campus there are no sleeping porches, but when I went to UofA for a sorority house tour it found out what a sleeping porch is. Not all the houses at UofA have sleeping porches but many did. It seem kind of weird to have a bunch of girls sleeping in the same room. I would think it would be kind of hard if you have a sister that snores load or something. I prefer having my own room.

sleeping porches
 

Sleeping porches were more economical, quiet hours enforced,
and they were for sleeping, nothing else. Girls were never ever allowed to be above the first floor, and the gettin' laid in the house is one, but only one, thing that destroys morale. We felt
one either oughta get a motel or use the back seat, and that the
use of the house for sex was tantamount to a whore house. But
times have changed and the pill has hastened deflowering.
Back in the 50s we only had one TV in the house; the study rooms
would often have a hi-fi but quiet hours went into effect at about
8 and were STRICTLY enforced, really stiff fines. Grades were very important and the flunk out rate amongst frosh was 30%.
Flunk out rates for transfers was high and we took few of them,
'cause there were many and they were not too adjustable to us.
To have a semester with less than a C was a horrendous thing,
and the top grades (Beta) would be about 2.8. No booze in house. The average house at KU in the 50s would accommodate 60 men. We had 88 live ins, but when the sleeping porch was done away with, we could house only 62. Times they were a changin' and kids had TVs, boom boxes and other things which took up room, and soon that house which once would handle 60
was cut down to 45, and great problems ensued due to making
a mortgage payment predicated on the higher numbers. By 1970
our house shrunk from 88 in and say, 25 out to 60 in and 40 out.
Huge apartments, condos, etc. were built and the richer kids lived
in them, paid big bucks--but they had 'em at the big U's.
Pledge duties and room inspections were the rule and the houses
were immaculate compared to today's hovels. Our theory was that mom and dad could inspect the place anytime and for those
'special' weekends, there was an intense effort to have a white
glove-inspection. The sight of a beer can would send an alum to
banana land, cleanliness and pride was the order of the day.
I forsee a lodge-type house in the future, housing about 20, due
to costs, land, risk fees, lifestyle changes, and the never-ending quest for privacy plus more discretional monies available.

Re: sleeping porches
 

Lots of places already have those.

sleeping porches
 

Sleeping porches were more economical, quiet hours enforced,
and they were for sleeping, nothing else. Girls were never ever allowed to be above the first floor, and the gettin' laid in the house is one, but only one, thing that destroys morale. We felt
one either oughta get a motel or use the back seat, and that the
use of the house for sex was tantamount to a whore house. But
times have changed and the pill has hastened deflowering.
Back in the 50s we only had one TV in the house; the study rooms
would often have a hi-fi but quiet hours went into effect at about
8 and were STRICTLY enforced, really stiff fines. Grades were very important and the flunk out rate amongst frosh was 30%.
Flunk out rates for transfers was high and we took few of them,
'cause there were many and they were not too adjustable to us.
To have a semester with less than a C was a horrendous thing,
and the top grades (Beta) would be about 2.8. No booze in house. The average house at KU in the 50s would accommodate 60 men. We had 88 live ins, but when the sleeping porch was done away with, we could house only 62. Times they were a changin' and kids had TVs, boom boxes and other things which took up room, and soon that house which once would handle 60
was cut down to 45, and great problems ensued due to making
a mortgage payment predicated on the higher numbers. By 1970
our house shrunk from 88 in and say, 25 out to 60 in and 40 out.
Huge apartments, condos, etc. were built and the richer kids lived
in them, paid big bucks--but they had 'em at the big U's.
Pledge duties and room inspections were the rule and the houses
were immaculate compared to today's hovels. Our theory was that mom and dad could inspect the place anytime and for those
'special' weekends, there was an intense effort to have a white
glove-inspection. The sight of a beer can would send an alum to
banana land, cleanliness and pride was the order of the day.
I forsee a lodge-type house in the future, housing about 20, due
to costs, land, risk fees, lifestyle changes, and the never-ending quest for privacy plus more discretional monies available.

when the Thetas built their new house a couple of years ago it was designed with sleeping porches, which I am guessing is to keep things equal with the other eight sorority chapters. Even the dorms at Idaho were orginally designed with the same concept of a sleeping area. A room with desks and a living space, and a small closet like area that had bunk beds and a window permanently open. One dorm had suites with two people to a living area, sharing a bathroom and a sleeping room with two other students. That was built in the 60s. I lived in a suite style that had beds and space for dressers and closets, and had an adjoining room with study area and lounge space that made living with another person much easier.

As far as shacking goes for the ladies, most people stay at their guy's place until they move out of the chapter house, which really varies depending on chapter size, amount of beds, holding an office, and other reasons. It isn't uncommon for women to keep a bed at their chapter house and spend every night at their boyfriend's apartment for years. Off campus living is cheap and abundant, and once people fulfill their housing obligations they move out of the house.

Every sorority house on my campus (U of Oregon) had sleeping porches, although the arrangement of them varied from chapter to chapter.

Most of the sororities had one large sleeping porch, that was basically for all of the sophomores (and sometimes some of the juniors as well.) And then they would share a bedroom with a more senior member who was the "room owner" and actually slept in the bedroom. The more junior member would just use the space to store her belongings and/or hang out during the day. (How equitable these arrangements were varied a great deal from chapter to chapter.)

One of the reasons I was actually drawn to my chapter was because it was one of the few sororities on campus where there were no room owners, everyone slept on a sleeping porch and the bedrooms were just where you spent your day/kept your stuff. I actually enjoyed it, but we also had a number of sleeping porches of different sizes so it wasn't fifty girls all sleeping in one giant room. We had a series that slept eight girls each and one larger one that held about 30, I think. The varying sizes also allowed us to designate different "types" of porches. We had one that was for light sleepers who needed absolute quiet, another for rowdier members/loud sleepers, etc...

There are both pros and cons to the sleeping porch arrangement and I think a lot of it can vary depending on how it is set up. But our sleeping porches were all on the third floor and had 24-hour quiet hours which was definitely nice. You don't have to worry about staying up until 4am and waking your roommates and you don't have a situation where a younger member feels like a guest in their own room and has to tiptoe around the older member.

does anyone have a pic of what a sleeping porch would look like? i'm having a hard time imagining what one would look like.

Imagine sort of like a summer camp cabin...it's just a big room with rows of bunk beds.

Yep. That's how it was at Iowa State as well. Senior year, my roommate slept in our room probably less than 10 times. And we had one woman who we saw only when she moved in and out of her room at the beginning and end of the semester.

Or had Mexican food for dinner? ;) :eek:

I don't know of the percentage, but many of the houses at WVU has them, too. It's all good, unless someone snores.

There was nothing like this at my school or any other campus in the region... I imagine there would be a tremendous lack of privacy, like in military training when everyone's bunks are lined up in a bay. I can see the pros and cons... Good for team-building and bonding, but somebody posted something about mandatory wake-ups (?); what happens if you had a late class and you wanted to sleep in???

A sleeping porch at UW AXiD house:

http://students.washington.edu/alpha...epingporch.jpg

Two of the houses at Hillsdale have dormers, but not sleeping porches. Their dormers are on the third floors of their houses.

For whomever asked about what sleeping porches/dormers look like - when I toured the Chi-O house during recruitment, I remember thinking it looked like the room in the Madeline books, with twelve beds in two straight lines. :)

Personally, I'm not sure I would have enjoyed that arrangement. We had double rooms and community bathrooms in my sorority house, and I liked that pretty well.

times have indeed changed
 

If we had some girl who tried to shack in our house, we would
call her a "dirty leg" We had a housemother and it is tough for
me to fathom some female gettin' by her. It was not a fearful
situation at all, but we did respect the quiet hours, and some of
the guys who'd plank their girl were not too considerate as they
would want to spend hours with her. How quickly us oldsters forget. But there was still something to be said for discretion,
and remember, mom and dad are paying the bills in most cases.
There were posted hours in sorority houses and it'd have been
difficult to march in the dorm, sneak out, and return the next day,
and the housemother or resident supervisor were charged and expected to 'protect' the girls.
And, for us in the house, if we had the slightest hint that one of our guys was shacking with a girl in our house, we'd kick his ass
out...immediately. It is OUR house, not a brothel. Those manners
have apparently disappeared. And, there were simply some men
who'd study and did not appreciate other goings on. But today there does not seem to be a big stigma for having bastard kids
or kids out of wedlock...but I do not have to deal with that...LOL
This is no lecture...this is how it was...
I don't think I care to project further.

I don't think I would have been too happy with a sleeping-porch arrangement. I like it quiet when I'm trying to sleep. Suppose you have a sister/brother who snores, or is sick, or stumbles in drunk at 3am making noise and waking everyone up?

There is only one org at my school that I know of that has an arrangement where everyone sleeps in the same room. Everyone has a bed in the attic - women at one end, men at the other (this is a coed house). One person sleeps downstairs in a private bedroom with an alarm set for 5am. Everyone else specifies what time they want to be woken up, and it is this person's job to wake people up at their chosen times - so there are no alarm clocks in the attic. Being the person who woke everyone up was a house duty that rotated among the members... it was called "arousal". :p Each member also had an assigned room in the main part of the house (usually 3-4 people to a room, I think) where s/he could keep personal effects, study, spend time during the day, etc.

Sounds like some kind of cult. Not a fun way to go through college.

Isnt it True, that one gets used to what the Norm is?

I am sure many good memories were and are had by all of us today!:)


Living conditions must Be shared to understand what it means.:cool:

big beds
 

one never came into the porch making noise as a fine could be
assessed by anyone to anybody, subject to appeal. The major
problem occurred when we gave up our rack to a visitor. Often a
TKE from another chapter could not seem to grasp our seriousness about a quiet porch. Seldom, but it happened, was a
visitor kicked out. There were fisticuffs with the drunks.
We really had a problem when unannounced pledge sneaks would appear; one weekend we had almost 200; our social calendar was drafted each semester, so unless we had advance
notice, hard feelings often occurred. But, say Warrensburg with
50 pledges or Maryville with 40 or Jonesboro with 60, or Missouri
Valley with 30 would appear at our doorstep, suppertime, a very
undeserved rep for lack of hospitality developed. The lesser or
smaller schools did not understand the rigid formality we had to
embrace so we were sometimes called snobs...but warm ones!
We borrowed Clyde Lovellette's rack from the Sigs; he was 6'10":and we had a 6'9" guy and two 6'7"s so we made up a
new three-decker. After one semester, the 6'9" one flunked out,
and we returned the big bed. Our porch was triple-decked. The
open window was for health reasons and I never heard of any
problems. However, grandma's quilts were commonplace! You went to the porch to sleep! Lights out, too.

I always wanted to live in a sorority house that had a sleeping porch and I have NO idea why, but Mizzou doesn't have them so that never happened.

I did have a boyfriend for awhile at a different school who had a sleeping porch in his fraternity house. You could not have PAID me money to sleep in that place...yuck. We always slept on the futon in his "bedroom" that he shared with two other guys that only held desks, the futon, and a TV whenever I went to visit. All of their beds in the sleeping porch had the shacker sheets hung up all around them, (which is what most guys in fraternities do here in houses for some privacy in rooms they share with 2-6 other guys)...but I cannot imagine any girl that would ever actually want to shack in the sleeping porch with all those dudes around...:confused:

Re: sleeping porches
 

I didn't know a member of the South Dakota legislature posted here.

I go to Washington State and I love the sleeping porch.

My boyfriend is a PhiKap and he has a single room, so occasionally i sleep there. His house does have a pledge porch, but all older members have single rooms... i think a few people may have doubles.

Most of the sorority houses at IU have some sort of cold dorm/warm dorm arrangement. I couldnt have handled it, but the women I know who lived in those houses loved it.

UI student satisfactory after frat fall

Kandis Carper
Staff writer
April 2, 2006

A University of Idaho student who fell out of a third-floor fraternity house window remained in satisfactory condition Saturday at a Spokane hospital.

Gawain "Dewey" Neighbor, 21, of Boise, fell out of an open window on the sleeping porch at the Beta Theta Pi house, 727 Elm St. in Moscow, around 4:15 a.m. Friday, said Joni Kirk, UI spokeswoman.

Ken Henderson, house president of Beta Theta Pi, the largest fraternity house on the Moscow campus, said Neighbor suffered broken heels, ankles and a small fracture in his lower back and may undergo surgery either today or Monday.

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Henderson said Neighbor will not be back at school this semester.

"The doctor said … after a summer of recovery he should be able to come back. He's doing great. He's in high spirits. He has full movement," said Henderson.

He confirmed that Neighbor had been drinking at an area bar Thursday night.

Fraternities and sororities on the campus were dry, meaning no alcohol on school property because it was Greek Week and Vandal Friday.

"Every time high school seniors come up to visit, the campus goes dry. He was at a bar. He's 21. There was no alcohol on campus or in the house," said Henderson.

He said that there were six students sleeping in the 10-person sleeping porch. Two students heard moaning outside, and they found Neighbor on the ground. They took him to Grittman Medical Center in Moscow, where he was treated before being transported to Deaconess Medical Center in Spokane.

"As far as the police are concerned and everyone else is concerned, it was a complete and utter accident," Henderson said.

A Moscow Police Department spokeswoman said that no information on the incident would be released until Monday.

Neighbor's bed was located right next to an open window, and he apparently was disoriented and got up on the wrong side of the bed, Henderson said.

University health codes require that a window be open at all times in the sleeping area.

"What we're dealing with right now is a way to secure those windows so it doesn't happen again," Henderson said. "And we hope that other fraternities will consider taking proactive measures (to make sure windows are secure) as well."