[EE-BO]

Morning all,

For those not aware since I have not posted in a while, I am a Texas Beta alumnus and have been the chapter’s advisor for the past four years.

It was hard to see the chapter temporarily close down, but there was no alternative. And I have to give the guys a lot of credit for how they did it. On advice of alumni looking at membership levels and costs, the chapter paid their bills and voluntarily exited gracefully. This means the charter is still active and Beta is still in good standing with the University. Our national office has been very supportive in this process and we plan to come back in the future at a time when it makes economic sense. We may not have a footprint in West Campus this fall, but we still exist- and this is important considering our long legacy at UT.

To address the more general questions about Texas and the state of fraternities, I have spent a good bit of time the past four years examining the real estate and Greek Life situation at UT as compared to how it was in my day, and I have some answers to the obvious question of why Greek Life is on the decline in terms of numbers.

In 2004, the City rezoned West Campus. For years building restrictions were very tight- which is why a University that traditionally housed less than 5% of its students on campus had 2 and 3 story apartment buildings, small houses and numerous Greek houses offering a very expensive and inefficient housing solution right next door to campus. If you think the $1,200 a month for a 2 bedroom apartment in one of the now numerous high rises is expensive, 15 years ago when I was at Texas- my 2 bedroom apartment in West Campus was $1,500 a month!

Being Greek was not only prestigious, it made financial sense. When I lived in the Beta House, yes my dues were close to $3,000 a year- but I also paid $400 a month for a private room in the house with 14 meals a week and all utilities paid. If you merge my dues and rent- I was essentially paying $650 a month to live in West Campus- versus my $750 share, plus utilities, of the apartment I had after I moved out.

Back then, off the top of my head I would speculate there were 20+ viable fraternities with decent sized houses and enough members to sustain those properties.

Today there are 11 that fit that category- and a couple of them are a major needed renovation away from being on the financial brink.

With the rezoning happening during the housing boom, and decades of pent-up property development lust suddenly unleashed on a golden opportunity, property values skyrocketed- and so did taxes. Based on the 2007 appraised value of one of the largest and most prestigious Texas fraternities, I would estimate about $1,800 a year for every active goes just to pay property taxes.

Even if you are just living in a bedroom and sharing a bathroom with 10 other guys, living in a fraternity house in West Campus is no longer of financial benefit when you add in the cost of dues (which are as much as $3,000 a semester these days plus costs to get to OU, buy tuxedos etc.)

On the numbers side, the Hopwood ruling had an enormous impact. A significant number of top fraternity candidates suddenly could not get into UT with the 10% rule in effect (which has gradually been worked back to a more rational approach since.) So the big party scene migrated a bit to other schools- directly reflected in a rise in serious RM incidents at other campuses while at UT things improved dramatically. The guys still have their fun, but academics are definitely taken far more seriously by virtue of who is getting in and what UT expects from students.

The combination of fewer undergraduates with the money and interest in Greek Life with spiraling housing costs created the situation of 3 years ago. The economy has made it worse since for many chapters.

The so-called “Big Five” plus a couple of other chapters are doing just fine. Their numbers are down too, 150ish per chapter versus close to 200 back in my time, but they are alive and well- and it is worth noting that, unlike in the past, their average GPAs are astonishingly high. 3.2+ in most cases, which is pretty impressive for any student group at any school.

But outside of that, things remain difficult. There may be fewer fraternities in the traditional sense of the term at Texas, but there are a LOT more GLOs than ever- and lacking the cost of maintaining a large house they are able to offer a more financially viable option.

Now that housing has busted, one might think it is a good time for a chapter to come back. Unfortunately that is not the case. Thanks to the timing of the bust and rebuilding of West Campus- there are large empty plots of land all over the place. Two perfect chapter houses were demolished before the bust and so what might have been a good rental or purchase option for a few Greek groups is now an empty space that would require a major building campaign at a time when even the wealthiest of alumni are hard pressed to pump millions into the construction of a new house.

It is worth noting, by the way, that the sororities are doing fine. Most of the houses are still there and the chapters quite viable. This is part of a long term trend I have mapped back to the 1960s. For decades, fraternity chapters here would get shut down for some bad incident (Beta is one of the few, maybe the only one, that has NEVER been shut down for any length of time for an RM incident)- only to find on their return that land options were limited as sold properties were redeveloped into apartments or bought by the University.

There are still many sorority houses within 1-2 blocks of campus. Not so for fraternities, and I created a map once that shows the very clear migration of most fraternities to the further reaches of the student areas of West Campus as chapters shut down and later re-started. Back in the 1940s, many fraternities were just as close to campus as the sorority houses are today.

I think we are a good 5-10 years away from the days when there may again be 20+ viable fraternity chapters with houses large enough to host parties and meetings. And even then, the houses will not be like they were before.

The new norm is going to be a house with 2-4 bedrooms and a very large meeting/party area- or in rare instances something like what SAE did where you have an apartment complex physically separate from a lodge-type building. It is the only way to offer an option that is financially appealing compared to other West Campus options, and also allow housing corporations the flexibility to own and financially maintain the properties through periods of low membership or suspension.

Anyhow- there it is. Sorry to be so long, but that is the whole story (in brief, believe it or not.)