No Houses!

TinkerbellMTSU · #1 07-27-2001, 12:40 AM

My school has really, really nice frat houses, but no sorority houses--they just stay in dorms or in apartments, and they meet in a particular building once a week. Apparently we're supposed to go through Rush with the sisters of all the dif. sororities in the same building. **I wonder how they'll work this out with the different parties each night and such???** At least it will save some walking! LOL! I think they are working on getting sorority houses in the next few years.

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***Tinkerbell***

~~~Don't worry, be happy!~~~

orchid2 · #2 07-27-2001, 02:07 AM

Hey, that sounds exactly like it is at my school! Except we have a dorm for sorority women to live in. Each sorority has its own floor. Its wierd though, bc independents can live in it too, and I just found out they placed me in the ZTA hall! I'm going through rush in the fall as a freshman and I can't help but wonder what kind of effect that will have on everything. But the rush parties are supposed to be all around campus, in designated areas that the sororities use for activities and stuff during the year. In our rush booklet they warn us about how we'll walk to parties rain or shine, and that we'd better bring an umbrella! There's talk about getting sorority houses within the next few years though, and it will be good bc by that time I'll be a JR or SR, and probably be one of the first ones to live there (for whichever one I get in)! I'm really excited. When is your rush? Ours is Labor Day weekend.

wishinhopin · #3 07-27-2001, 03:52 AM

Our school doesn't have houses either, mostly because they don't allow a greek row or anything. But, I think some of the frats have houses, so that's where the parties must be!

SSS1365 · #4 07-27-2001, 08:50 AM

My school doesn't have sorority houses either, and no frat houses that are actually affiliated at all with the school. There is a dorm reserved for the sororities, and we all have our chapter rooms on our floor. So for recruitment, it's really easy for everyone to get around.

orchid2- I don't know how it is at your school, but recruitment is really strict here. There was a girl who lived on a sorority hall but was not a member of a sorority. She had a really rough time during recruitment because she couldn't go out in the hall, and she couldn't have any guests in her room (you won't have to worry about that stuff since you'll be going through recruitment though). Also, because of strict silence, it may be kind of weird living with people who technically aren't supposed to talk to you. I don't know from experience what it's like to have a non-Greek who is going through recruitment living on our hall, but we will have one this fall so it'll be interesting to see how it turns out!

Greek_Girl · #5 07-27-2001, 09:57 AM

Tinkerbell-
I don't know if it's the same for everyone else, but they just don't allow sorority houses anywhere in Tennessee. It dates back to some old law that says, basically, that sorority houses are "whore" houses. That's the reason that there are no sorority houses anywhere in Tennessee on campus. My sister went to UT Knoxville, and the sororities there were housed in a dorm, and she told me that there was that old-and I do mean old law that says that. That's just what I've always heard.

SSS1365 · #6 07-27-2001, 10:18 AM

I imagine you can just live with the wrong sorority for a year or semester, or whenever an opening becomes available for your sorority's hall. We have RA's on each floor that do not belong to any of the sororities on that particular floor, but they do belong to sororities. And it really isn't too awkward. The sororities just don't want you to be walking around in the hall while they're doing certain ceremonies and stuff.

TinkerbellMTSU · #7 07-27-2001, 10:32 AM

That's ridiculous--the "old law that says sorority houses are whore houses in Tennessee"! I swear, (nothing against those of you who grew up in the South--I've only lived here 3 years), sometimes Southern ethics don't make any sense.
Anyhow, somehow I guess we're bypassing that law because I was told that in a couple of years they are going to build some sorority houses. Oh, well.
Now what's this thing about having to be quiet on certain floors? I'm not sure I understand this, but say my roommate is not rushing, am I not allowed to talk to her, or what? Because that would be pretty rude of me.

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***Tinkerbell***

~~~Don't worry, be happy!~~~

Greek_Girl · #8 07-27-2001, 11:10 AM

I don't understand the whole being quite on certain floors thing. I think all sororities have the rule where you can't talk to anyone in a sorority during rush, and you can't talk to Anybody about rush. That goes for your roommate. But that doesn't mean you can't talk to your roommmate about other things. That's how it is at my school anyways

mets31grl · #9 07-27-2001, 01:31 PM

Our school doesn't have houses either. We have no assigned living for sororities. So the week of rush each chapter gets a "room" in the student center. Each night the ladies go to these rooms for the party. We have four sororities. First night all four parties, second night all four again, third night three, pref night two.

shadokat · #10 07-27-2001, 02:22 PM

Our school has our first round of parties in one building. It's really easy for rushees to get around, because they only have one building to deal with. But, my campus has houses, and our other parties are there. Depends on how you look at it, when you're running from house to house or from floor to floor

purpleturtle · #11 07-27-2001, 02:37 PM

We don't have houses, either, because of that same law! The only way to get around it, from our research, is to have a house on University housing, and have it "supervised" by the school. We fought our city council forever, and our dean (who is greek) decided if the University supervises the building, nothing can be done about it, because it would be just like a dorm. If we get houses, basically all the school would do is say they supervised them, just so that we could have them. Our dean has gone out of his way to try and provide for our greek system- from what I hear about other schools trying to shut greeks out, we are really lucky. Now, the only thing holding us back is the school imposed rule that no sorority can have a house untill all can afford them. We have a huge fund set up, and so does AGD, but Phi Mu is pretty new and struggling, so we have to wait for them to get more $.
We have rush partys in seperate ballrooms in the student center. It's great for the rushees, because its basically all in one place, but it gets really rowdy with only a wall seperating the rooms when we all start singing and chanting.

In the Flame,
Missy

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"To the world I promise temperance and insight and courage...."

"Don't you think that life would be awfully boring, if the good times were all that we had?" -Pat Green

aephi alum · #12 07-27-2001, 06:44 PM

At my school, some sororities are housed, some aren't. We held rush in various function rooms of the student center - even the sororities with houses. During informal night, the sororities with houses were allowed to bring PNM's over and give them tours of the house etc. while the unhoused sororities typically took people out for ice cream, walking tours of the city, etc. Since the vast majority of rush parties were in the student center, and freshmen live in the dorms regardless, the housed sororities didn't have much of an advantage over the unhoused ones.

sigkapdancer · #13 07-28-2001, 12:17 AM

My school does not provide sorority housing either--each chapter has a floor of a dorm. In the past, we've had freshmen live on our floor, and it's not a problem at all. Some rushed and joined other houses, and it was no big deal. Since it's a dorm atmosphere, we treated each other like how you treat any of your floormates--with courtesy. The independents were welcome to use our kitchen and TV room. So, for you women assigned to sorority floors--don't sweat it!

orchid2 · #14 07-28-2001, 02:52 AM

Hey Localsororities, They have a policy where the girls can move after 3 weeks. So if I pledge XYZ, I get to move to their floor. Or I could just stay on ZTA's hall, depending on the circumstances. I imagine I'll want to live with my sisters though!

A lot of the freshmen girls who applied to live in Sparkman (the name of that dorm) ended up on ZTA and AOTT's floors, so I don't know what in the world is going on. I have a friend who is a ZTA and she told me that she was trying to get into the hall...surely they would have to make exceptions for members, you know? Rush is definitely going to be interesting!

TinkerbellMTSU · #15 07-28-2001, 03:12 AM

Thanks for all the input, guys. Something a little off-subject, but not really: I (hopefully) will find out who my roommate is supposed to be in a couple of weeks. I'm really nervous about it. I hope it is someone I can get along with. My worst nightmare is that the person will be really mean and psychotic or something LOL. I know I'm probably just being paranoid.
On the form where it asks preferences for roommates, it asks whether you'll be rushing or not, and of course I put yes. I hope my roommate will be, because it will make it easier to vent about things. Otherwise, I'll feel like I'm shutting her out due to all the rules about not discussing rush or pledge stuff with other people and such.

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***Tinkerbell***

~~~Don't worry, be happy!~~~