Theta Chi chapter history - Beta Epsilon?

[robertjm]

Hello,

I attended the University of Montana, from Sept. 1984 through June 1987. At the time I pledged the brotherhood membership was down to three brothers, and one pledge who had been held over from the previous quarter's pledge class (we were on the quarter system at that time).

My pledge class had six members, and the following two quarters also had five to six members each. For whatever reason, at the end of the school year several brothers decided that UM wasn't the best choice for them, and so either transferred to other schools, or dropped out of college totally. By the time I graduated we had reached something like 15-20 brothers (as I recollect). Unfortunately, as new brothers would be initiated, others would leave, and so we never really gained a huge amount of traction in numbers.

A couple of years later I came back to visit Missoula. The chapter had around 12-15 brothers by then. Sometime later I heard through the grape vine that Beta Epsilon was going to go inactive. After several long phone calls to alumni living in Missoula, it seems the number of brothers had dwindled to a little over a handful, and it just wasn't financially, nor socially, sustainable.

I think it's worth mentioning that the Greek life took a drop in popularity during the late 1980s for any of a number of reasons. In looking at the list of current active organizations, not only did Beta Epsilon close, but also gone are Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity, which colonized UM September 1984, as well as Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity. The only Greek organization not at UM when I attended is Kappa Sigma.

As Wolfman Jack mentioned, the Beta Epsilon chapter house was purchased from the Tri-Delt Sorority. A little factoid is that this is the house where Evel Knievel rode his motorcycle up the inside stairwell to visit his girlfriend of the time! After going inactive, the chapter house was sold or leased to Alpha Tau Omega. The UM map doesn't show it as a Greek house now, so I'm assuming that 501 University Avenue is no longer in the Greek system.

Hope that helps some, though I know you were looking for info over four years ago.