[Firehouse]

Hi, guys. Thanks for your comments.
To adpiucf: There are few if any fraternity systems with anything like total or ceiling or quota. Men and women are very different in that regard. Men are combative; women are cooperative. We're generally not interested in a more level playing field as you say. We want to win and toward that end we'd like the field to be slanted as much our way as possible. There are disadvantages to both approaches. Women have all the Pan-Hel rules and they provide stability. However, my experience in large sorority systems has been that whichever sorority currently has the lowest membership and is the closest to going out of business, is one that has nearly always dwelt in the lowest tier. Fraternity systems do not have the stability of sororities, but individual houses (like the SigEps at OU) can come from far back to challenge for the top spot.
To Tom Earp: Hi old friend and fellow Heller devotee. I appreciate your kind words but I do not know what a PSE is. As for Sig Ep being the "shining light of greekdom", they have come a long was up the ranks nationally in a relatively short time. They have done it by being exteremely aggressive in both housing and in membership. Your LXA has certainly done well too, and for the same reasons.
To AlphaSigOU: I'd rather not say right now which house is mine because I'm embarrassed that I sounded critical of them in this forum. I didn't go to school at OU but I have visited that chapter over a long time and I have always been frustrated at their lack of ambition and vision. They need to build their membership to competitive size, bulldoze their house and build a mansion to compete with Beta, SAE, K-Sig and now Sig Ep. Instead, they seem to 'not get it'.
By the way, I googled up Sig Ep's OU web page, and it's tremendous. there's a photo pf all 75 pledges dressed in matching shirts. It's an awesome statement of purpose and strength. Their composite already has over 100 men pictured. Trust me, SigEp at OU was not on the radar screen in the past. Now it looks like they've built a fantastic new home, with three-storey columns, and their membership competes in numbers and quality with SAE, Beta etc. Bully for them.