What’s it like to be in a Huge Chapter?

[NWguy]

Our fraternity averaged 65-70 brothers when I was there, but it never felt crowded. The other two houses I considered joining during Rush were slightly bigger, and I took that into consideration.

I have a few questions pertaining to these very large sorority chapters.

1) Where does everyone sleep? Do the pledges sleep in one big room, or basement?

2) How do they feed everyone? That's a lot of food for 150+ women.

3) Are there weeknight curfews/lights out times?


I shared a room my first year with two other pledges, and we had enough space for bunk beds + 1 single bed, a couch, TV, walk-in closet, and we even had a coffeemaker and mini fridge.

[Hartofsec]

Originally Posted by NWguy

I have a few questions pertaining to these very large sorority chapters.

1) Where does everyone sleep? Do the pledges sleep in one big room, or basement?

2) How do they feed everyone? That's a lot of food for 150+ women.

3) Are there weeknight curfews/lights out times?

^ Sounds like pledges held captive in an asylum or something, with Nurse Ratched in charge of lights out!

New members of most sorority chapters -- especially huge chapters -- don't move into the house. Even with the enormous new sorority houses at Alabama, where chapter size may be 350 - 400, the chapter house may only accommodate 75 or so girls living in (typically officers and upper-upper-classmen). The public areas/facilities are huge, however.

[AnchorAlumna]

Originally Posted by NWguy

2) How do they feed everyone? That's a lot of food for 150+ women.

3) Are there weeknight curfews/lights out times?

2) That's a mystery to me. Nobody's ever really explained it. Some chapters are around 400. Of course, not everybody eats every meal, but still it's a massive amount of food. How many restaurants feed that many every meal, every day?

3) Lights out times? Curfews? You must be thinking of the 1950s. Girls have access to the house through their Act cards (activity cards). They come and go as they wish. No house mother goes around making sure every darling is in bed. They stopped doing that in the 1960s.

[navane]

Originally Posted by NWguy

Our fraternity averaged 65-70 brothers when I was there, but it never felt crowded. The other two houses I considered joining during Rush were slightly bigger, and I took that into consideration.

I have a few questions pertaining to these very large sorority chapters.

1) Where does everyone sleep? Do the pledges sleep in one big room, or basement?

2) How do they feed everyone? That's a lot of food for 150+ women.

3) Are there weeknight curfews/lights out times?

The chapter I advise isn't huge by some people's standards; but, 200 members isn't something to sneeze at. Here's how we check out:

1) The house itself sleeps 32. The 6 executive board members are required to live in. The rest of the members put in for room picks every year and are selected to live-in the spring prior based on merit points. Pledges don't typically ever live-in as they don't join until fall semester, after room picks are done. If we happen to have a space open up, and no one wants to live-in, we offer the space to the new members. The members all get to choose who they want to room with - we don't care about class standing.


2) We have a professional chef and an assistant who prepare the lunches and dinners during the weekdays. These meals are for the 30 live-ins only and are served buffet style. Members are welcome to pop by the dining room during meal service hours to help themselves to a plate. Any members not living in are always welcome to eat at the house as well. The live-outs are allowed a certain number of free meals per week (I think 2 dinners and 3 lunches) as a part of their dues. Any more than that and they can pay a modest $3-$5/plate to eat in on extra days. On Monday nights, when we have our meetings, the entire 200+ chapter comes to dinner and it's an event! We squeeze all of the members into the dining room and tables set up in the living room. The chef, her assistant and 4-5 hashers serve the plates and they get it done! We have a commercial kitchen; but, it is not open to members to cook in (it gets locked up after dinner). We do have a fridge, toaster oven, microwave, covered salad bar, coffee pot, juice machine and bread and snack pantry available to the members 24/7. Like someone else mentioned, the members who know that they will miss a meal can sign up for a "late plate" and their dinner will be left for them in the community fridge.


3) Nope. The live-in members are free to come and go as they please. The only "time certain" type of thing is that the House Director (House Mom) will go around to lock all exterior doors and set the house alarm before going to bed. Once the alarm is set, the members can come and go freely though one door only.

[NWguy]

Not only is it a lot of meals, but the purchase and delivery of the food, the space to put all of it, and the waste...boggles my mind.

We had a similar meal system, a kitchen staff that prepared lunch and dinner on the weekdays, and then we were on our own for the weekend. Most of the time we ordered pizza, but we were just a few blocks from a major street that had a grocery store and restaurants. Once a month, usually at the end, our kitchen staff would make a big sheet cake for everyone who had birthdays that month. They also cooked special meals for Initiation and a Graduation/Farewell reception for our seniors. We would always get a turkey dinner before Thanksgiving break, too.

The city I went to college at now has both a recycling and compost law, which I'm sure includes Greek Row. You have to separate all the recycled goods and compost from garbage, or you'll be fined. Back when I was in school, everything went into one garbage dumpster.

As for curfews, our house didn't have any either, but we were advised to keep the noise level down past 10pm on weeknights.