Ridiculous Sorority National Rules

So a few of the sororities at my school had their national consultants come up for their yearly visit. I was talking to a few of the girls each time the consultants came up, and the things I was told they couldn't do was pretty outrageous.

"You can't come over at all....our national rules say that no boys are allowed in our rooms"

"You can't come over after 10:00...our national rules say we can't have boys over after that time."

And a few other things as well. All I have to say is WTF nationals??? This is college, not high school! If I want to go hang out with my friends that just happen to be girls, that just happen to be greeks, then I should damn well be able to! As for the late night thing, I am in a group project with one of the girls that has a curfew for boys set by her national. What if we had to stay up **gasp** past 10:00??? Oh noes!!!

Seriously, if anyone on this forum has any ties to a national, why are these dumb rules put into place? And why are they expected to be followed? You're dealing with people ages 18-22, and these rules just seem out of hand.

[Kevin]

These rules are put into place for the protection of the organizations and their members. I can see where it may look a little paternalistic, but whatever. When someone moves into the house, they know the rules associated with that residential decision.

I can't see where I'd be concerned about this anyhow. If I didn't have my own place where a young lady and I could spend some quality time, that would be the chief of my concerns.

These types of rules are actually very attractive to many young women and their parents.

[honeychile]

Legalities, legalities, legalities.

If someone's little girl gets pregnant at 10:01 in the sorority house, it's a lawsuit.

If someone's little girl is hurt by anyone outside of the sorority - or even IN the sorority after hours, it's a lawsuit.

If someone's little girl overhears her roomie doing something "out of line" after hours, it's a lawsuit.


Y'all say that the women involved are adults, being 18-22, but according to their parents, they are most certainly NOT adults, NOT capable of making mature decisions, and NOT anything but a perfect angel.

The entire reason sorority and fraternity expenses have quadrupled in the past 20 years is because of insurance and yes, legalities.

[aephi alum]

The rules are there for the protection of the sorority and its members. Most NPC sororities also prohibit residents from keeping alcohol in the house, even if they're of age.

It's not just sororities. Some dorms have similar rules about guests. The one all-female dorm at my school requires all visitors to sign in and be escorted by a resident. Wellesley had (and I believe still has) the "horizontal-vertical" rule: If you have a guest in your dorm, male or female, you must be on the same floor as your guest.

Like honeychile said, these 18-22 year olds are legally adults, but their parents still view them (especially daughters) as small children in need of protection.

On the one hand, you can say, "if you don't like the rules, don't live in the house/dorm". At some schools, that's an option; off-campus housing is readily available, and GLOs don't require members to live in. On the other hand, some chapters do have a residency requirement because they have to keep their houses full, and some schools do require all undergrads or all freshmen to live on campus. So not liking the rules can mean not going greek.

[jubilance1922]

Originally posted by aephi alum

It's not just sororities. Some dorms have similar rules about guests. The one all-female dorm at my school requires all visitors to sign in and be escorted by a resident. Wellesley had (and I believe still has) the "horizontal-vertical" rule: If you have a guest in your dorm, male or female, you must be on the same floor as your guest.

That must suck. My dorm didn't have any rules like that, except when I lived in a freshman dorm, and the only rule was that it was substance-free (no alcohol or illegal drugs).

[PhoenixAzul]

OC is slowly relaxing its dorm rules. We went from very strict male only/ female only dorms to 1 mixed dorm (male wing/female wing) to 2 mixed dorms (male floor/female floor) to 3 mixed dorms (male floor/female floor). Then they added the Commons Apartments, where it was men and women living side by side, but not mixed within apartments. The newest (and desperately needed!) dorm will be 2 person suites sharing bathrooms with people next door. Essentially, a quad dorm, divided in 2 by a bathroom. But it will be men/women in the same hall, an OC first.

But visitation hours are still till midnight on weekdays during regular term, and till 2 on weekends. During finals, visitation hours are curtailed till 10 and 12 respectively. Even if it is a male who lives in the same building. Visitation hours in the lobby are 24 hours, but there is to be no sleeping in the lobby. All visitors must be escorted, whether on a floor of the same sex or not.

In our fraternity/sorority houses, the house manager makes and sets the rules, or they are set through by-laws. OC as well as Panhel and TD guidelines dictate dry housing for our girls. As far as opposite sex guidelines...they're pretty relaxed. Several sisters have had male family members stay on the sleeper sofa during their college visits. It's generally a "ask the house manager and let all house members know" type of situation.

On the visitation hours thing...I can see where OC is coming from. The year before I came to OC, a guy broke into our dorm and watched a girl in the shower. There've been peeping incidents on campus every year I've been there. There was also an attempted sexual assault in one of the dorms last year (by someone who was not an OC student). OC is even in a VERY quiet suburb, and these things still happen. It sucks that we couldn't even go down to the boys floor to ask questions on assignments, but that's how it worked.

[Senusret I]

Originally posted by jubilance1922
That must suck. My dorm didn't have any rules like that, except when I lived in a freshman dorm, and the only rule was that it was substance-free (no alcohol or illegal drugs).

The only rule I can remember in my residence hall was "no cohabitation"..... someone of the opposite gender couldn't spend the night with you. But NOBODY enforced it. Even the RAs had their girlfriends or boyfriends practically living there.

[alum]

AT CMU back in the pre-litigation days, the majority of dorms were coed and none of the dorms had visitation or alcohol (other than being 21) restrictions. Most dorms had 2 rooms sharing one bathroom accessible only through the dorm rooms. So the floor was coed but not the bathrooms. The women's fraternity houses did enforce the rules set by their respective Nationals.

At West Point, barracks are coed but they do have separate bathrooms for male and female cadets. Nobody except authorized personnel are allowed in the barracks. Dates of the cadets usually stayed in the Hotel Thayer on post in the "dormitory wing", 4 girls to a room. There were signs posted all over saying "No Cadets Allowed Past This Point."

[Tom Earp]

Desnt it seem in todays Moral climate, that there Must Be Regulations in place for protection of all concerned?

A branch of the US Govt. even issued warnings for women going on Spring Breaks. Dont drink to Much and dont have a lot of sex.

Thank You My Govt!

[LPIDelta]

Can anyone say Natalie Holloway?

It's sad that its come to that but yes, sometimes people need to be told how to protect themselves.

[honeychile]

Originally posted by Heather17
Can anyone say Natalie Holloway?

It's sad that its come to that but yes, sometimes people need to be told how to protect themselves.

Amen!

[rhochi2002]

I think those rules are a good thing. My campus recently started to allow 24 hour visitation on the weekends. I never could live in the dorms because of all the coming and going. The visitation policy was never really enforced unless there was a overzealous RA. I don't know how people could get any work done in those environments. The campus recentlly introduced Leadership dorms and academic dorms where the noise level would be lower.
But that aside, 18 year olds in college for the first time can make immature decisions, especially since many are away from their parents for the first time.
As for sorority houses, the rules are there for a reason. Although they are a a throw back from "the old days" The rules decrease the sororities liablity. Also Do you really want to have a guy in the bed rooms when people are trying to sleep, ect. This rule limits roommates ablility to be inconsiderate to each other. I have heard of girls that practically live in their boyfriend's fraternity house, (yuck) so I imagine that the reverse could happen without the rules being in place.

[Sister Havana]

Many years ago, IU had what was called "women's hours." All female students had to be back in their dorms or sorority houses by 11pm on weeknights, 1am weekends. (there were no such rules for men) Some of the older dorms that used to be all-female still have doorbells (women who missed curfew were locked out and had to ring the doorbell to get into the dorm, letting everyone know she had missed curfew) It was only in the 70s that coed dorms started becoming more common. This was just one generation ago! Even when I was in school, in the early-mid 90s, many dorm floors still had limited visitation hours, and there were still one male dorm floor and one female dorm floor with closed visitation - no one of the opposite sex allowed on the floor, period, no matter who it was.

At IU, most of the sorority houses have cold dorm sleeping arrangements (rather than individual sleeping rooms) - I can imagine if guys were to sleep there it would be way awkward!

[sugar and spice]

I agree that they're ridiculous. There's not anything that can happen at 10:01 that can't happen at 9:59, or 4 pm for that matter. Honestly, I think the argument that it's to promote safety is b.s., because when you don't allow girls to have overnight guests in a sorority house, this doesn't stop them from spending the night with boys -- it just moves it to another, less secure environment like a fraternity house or a random apartment.

Debates on this website have made it clear that most people here don't agree with me, though.

[KSUViolet06]

It's one of those rules that was put into place back when national sorority officers really thought that part of keeping women safe was keeping men out past a certain hour. We all have those archaic rules that are still around and we unfortunately still have to follow them.