Two Houses

[excelblue]

So, my chapter currently has an "unofficial" house where a lot of brothers live in, but we came to the conclusion that the current one is way too small and the building itself has several issues. The conclusion was made to search for another unofficial house while we wait for our alumni organization to fall into place and eventually get a permanent house.

Now, we have an interesting issue in that since my chapter has an overwhelming portion of brothers who attend classes on a certain weird corner, and since we're growing in size, a lot of us thought it'd be nice to have two houses: one on the side of campus near all the engineering buildings (very few undergrads live on this side of the campus; mostly permanent residents, grad students, and professors), and another one on the side of campus where most students live (as well as where all fraternity houses are). They will be a total of 15min walk apart.

However, after speaking to a few people, some think that this would cause a schism in organizational dynamics, where there'd be an internal "north vs south" rivalry. Yet, I personally see it differently in the sense that our brotherhood remained strong even while we didn't have a house, but having a house helped.

What are your thoughts on the issue? Good idea or bad idea to have two unofficial houses on separate sides of campus with ~10 brothers in each.

[lucgreek]

Two "unofficial" houses means double the potential for risk management problems. I would stick with one house. On my campus, no group has a house. Guys rent out both floors of a 2-flat apartment and that eventually gets known as the "house." There's enough potential for RM issues with one property, two would be a little bit crazy.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by excelblue

However, after speaking to a few people, some think that this would cause a schism in organizational dynamics, where there'd be an internal "north vs south" rivalry. Yet, I personally see it differently in the sense that our brotherhood remained strong even while we didn't have a house, but having a house helped.

It might.

We had an official house (with letters on it, by the other sorority houses) and there was a house several blocks away on "Elm Street" that was owned by the dad of a townie sister that he rented out. Obvi it was easiest to rent it to sisters. Official house held 12-14, Elm Street held I think 6.

There was DEFINITELY a schism between the two, but I honestly think the same schism would have occurred with the people involved no matter WHAT the living arrangements were. This just really didn't help. Everyone needs to have a place to get away from GLO stuff occasionally, but the problem was that people were making Elm Street the "anti-sorority" house - when they were all IN the sorority. It happened other times when groups of sisters had apartments in complexes or something similar, but Elm Street was the worst.

We didn't have a live-in policy for officers (we would have shot ourselves in the foot if we had) and that was part of the problem. Although I don't know if forcing someone who didn't want to live there to live there, or to have to choose our president based on who is living in the house, would have been any better.

For comparison, this is a chapter of 50 where all the Greek housing is off campus. It's also female. I don't know how this would work out for dudes.

[BemoreLXA]

Originally Posted by excelblue

So, my chapter currently has an "unofficial" house where a lot of brothers live in, but we came to the conclusion that the current one is way too small and the building itself has several issues. The conclusion was made to search for another unofficial house while we wait for our alumni organization to fall into place and eventually get a permanent house.

Now, we have an interesting issue in that since my chapter has an overwhelming portion of brothers who attend classes on a certain weird corner, and since we're growing in size, a lot of us thought it'd be nice to have two houses: one on the side of campus near all the engineering buildings (very few undergrads live on this side of the campus; mostly permanent residents, grad students, and professors), and another one on the side of campus where most students live (as well as where all fraternity houses are). They will be a total of 15min walk apart.

However, after speaking to a few people, some think that this would cause a schism in organizational dynamics, where there'd be an internal "north vs south" rivalry. Yet, I personally see it differently in the sense that our brotherhood remained strong even while we didn't have a house, but having a house helped.

What are your thoughts on the issue? Good idea or bad idea to have two unofficial houses on separate sides of campus with ~10 brothers in each.

It sounds like a good idea to me, as long as you treat them as "unofficial"

[excelblue]

Thanks for all the input guys. Keep 'em coming!

Originally Posted by BemoreLXA

It sounds like a good idea to me, as long as you treat them as "unofficial"

Based on discussions with my college's Greek Life advisor, the only real differences are whether or not it's listed publicly on my school's fraternity/sorority website, their ability to send someone to check on parties, and possibly some plausible deniability.

However, the direction that my chapter wants to head toward is actually making things more official. The current unofficial house already functions as an official house for all practical purposes. The goal of getting a larger house (and possibly two) is to advance this.

[dnall]

My campus has several fraternities with multiple houses, one with 5. My chapter has had two for the last couple years, and had two at one point before when I was an active.

Multi houses come in two varieties. There's several houses basically right next to each other, and there's an official houses in one place with a party house in a completely different area.

The multi houses together isn't as ideal as one facility of sufficient size. Obviously those don't exist right now, and we're working on it, but it takes time. Still, they function pretty close to the same way.

The two different areas situation is more problematic. It does work on the surface. We can rage at a remote party house without trouble and still have a decent public house. However, for us at least, it did end up with a very serious division in our chapter. The party house was rented by individual members, and they were in charge of the place, not the chapter. That's where people went for parties & hanging out. They did things there that were FAR outside the risk mgmt or even the law and we had no say in it. People didn't hang out between classes or evenings at our main house. It was a bad situation. There was eventually a fight for our identity and a membership review that threw out several members.

I wouldn't recommend multiple houses. If you HAVE to do it, it needs to be short-term and you need to know what you're getting into so you can mitigate the problems that come with it.

[excelblue]

Yeah, whatever we decide to do, this is going to be temporary as we're hoping to get an official house once our alumni corp becomes big enough to handle it. Right now, one of our top priorities is to grow that and get it more "serious" so we can hopefully get an official house within the next three years.

Until then, it's a temporary solution, but there's always got to be the preparation as to what happens if temporary ends up being not-so-temporary.

The idea is that neither will be designated official, but because of how the rules work in my area, if there are four members doing something together, it's considered an official event. So, if even if four of us live in a two-room apartment and throw a rager, nationals and the Greek Life office will know about it if there's a second response noise complaint.

So, in both places, individuals will be in charge, but the schism is a real concern since people of one type would prefer the one on the north, whereas those with a different type of personality will prefer the one on the south.

To the best of my knowledge, no fraternity or sorority has a house on the north, not even unofficial ones. It's just considered weird. As for parties: not gonna work out at all on the northside; sometimes, I wonder if my headphones would generate a noise complaint. It's almost certain that if this setup happens, the following division will appear:

- North: study sessions, alumni events
- South: parties, projects, mailing address

[dnall]

The division that tends to occur in that situation is more serious and for more reasons than I think you're realizing at this point. And, you're stuck in a lease, so it's not something you can correct immediately when you see it start to happen. It becomes a long slow train wreck you can't do anything about, and the end result is drastic. I'm not saying it necessarily will go bad for you, but the odds lean that way.

I hate to drag the thread off topic, but the housing corp/building a house thing is something I know a whole lot about. Maybe I'm misreading your situation, but it sounds to me like you have some VERY unrealistic expectations for what's involved with that and how long it takes. If you want to talk about it, I think that's something I can give you some insight on.

[DTD Alum]

We had two...one official house (slept about 18-20), and then there was an apartment building that was 95% ours...we were very close with the house mom for the apartment, and she gave first priority to guys from our fraternity.

Here's the catch: they were both on fraternity row, only about one minute walk apart, yet there was still a schism in the brotherhood because of it. There were brothers who partied almost solely at the apartment building and would never come to the house despite the fact it was seconds away. In addition, we began having a hard time filling our house, despite that it only held 18-20 and we were a 90 person chapter at the time. Everybody wanted to live in the apartment building because you didn't have to put up with the smaller rooms and rules of the house.

On the other hand, it helped in a lot of ways. It gave us a space to do things when all the official fraternity houses were supposed to be dry or on moratorium, we were able to hold some meetings there (at the time, we were far too large for our house and the apartment building's large common room could hold us more comfortably), it was a fun change of pace, etc. But there is no denying that it caused schisms to the point that there were two groups, and some brothers even dropped the house but continued living in the annex.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by excelblue

So, in both places, individuals will be in charge, but the schism is a real concern since people of one type would prefer the one on the north, whereas those with a different type of personality will prefer the one on the south.

To the best of my knowledge, no fraternity or sorority has a house on the north, not even unofficial ones. It's just considered weird. As for parties: not gonna work out at all on the northside; sometimes, I wonder if my headphones would generate a noise complaint. It's almost certain that if this setup happens, the following division will appear:

- North: study sessions, alumni events
- South: parties, projects, mailing address

Yeah, that is REALLY going to eff things up.

I honestly would say if you have to have the two houses, make one for seniors and one for juniors, or something else that doesn't play into personalities. Also make sure that you have an organized party cleanup list so that EVERYONE takes turns cleaning up after parties, not just the guys who live there.

[dnall]

Disclaimer: In no way am I encouraging anything that meets even the strict technical definition of hazing.

This is a fraternity, so I would assume pledges show up the next day at any location an org event was held. When I was an active & we had the two geographically separated houses, we split house hours (something like MWF at one and TTh at the other) expressly to ensure both were clean and taken care of. That compounded the issue. You had one group becoming increasingly renegade and running pledgeship the way they saw fit when pledges were at their house, versus the "official" program at the other house and everywhere else. I realize you're talking about two near campus places, but if there is any difference in the people that hang out at one location versus the other, then that will play out in everything else.

Obviously you can't define it by jr/sr either. You wouldn't be able to keep both houses full for starters. But, that would still create a dynamic operation. You'd have an internal division by class rank rather than all being one brotherhood. Redefining the basis of a major division in your chapter doesn't solve the problem.

What I think a couple people have said is multiple houses are not desirable, but can work on a short-term basis IF co-located.

[excelblue]

Great advice! Seems like the consensus is that getting two houses is a bad idea, and there's no reason why the issues mentioned wouldn't apply to my chapter.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by dnall

Obviously you can't define it by jr/sr either. You wouldn't be able to keep both houses full for starters. But, that would still create a dynamic operation. You'd have an internal division by class rank rather than all being one brotherhood. Redefining the basis of a major division in your chapter doesn't solve the problem.

I didn't really dig that particular way of separation either, I just was trying to find something that you couldn't twist as far as people's personalities. I mean you are what you are as far as class rank is concerned...although I'm sure even that could get dicey as far as "junior by credits" and "junior by year."

[SWTXBelle]

I keep thinking "Diddle de de de - two houses . . . diddle de de de . . . two houses . . . . "
Everything is either a Shakespeare or Broadway allusion to me. Sigh.

[33girl]

If both the houses brought to life that song/musical number, I don't think the guys would care which one they were living in.