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

[clemsongirl]

Originally Posted by DGTess

This is foreign to me (my chapter totaled 15-20 at the time), but is it really an issue that seniors, and some juniors, simply refuse to live in houses -- to the point they'd resign rather than do so? I don't get the concept at all. We were so concentrated on our studies and internships/plant trips/interviews etc. that the idea of finding an apartment, keeping it clean, doing our own shopping for toilet paper and light bulbs and such, and general home responsibilities was something we literally couldn't be bothered with.

IIUC, my university-owned chapter house (we didn't have a house then) sleeps about 30 of the 100-member chapter, and every year there are more who want to live in than out, largely for the same reasons. MOST of the others live in dorms. Is this the oddball?

This is an issue I've seen at Clemson, and not just with Greek housing. Less than 50% of sophomores choose to stay on campus-they want housing without RAs, rules, and that is larger and nicer than what they would get if they lived in an on-campus dorm or apartment. There isn't room for juniors and seniors to live on campus and the campus culture makes it so that few want to.

The general trend is that sophomores in sororities live in the Greek dorm floors, which hold between 30-48 girls, but convincing upperclassmen to live in is nigh-impossible because very, very few juniors and seniors stay on campus. It's a little more relaxed for fraternities, but they are also smaller and thus a higher percentage of the membership has to live in their space to fill it.

[DGTess]

Originally Posted by clemsongirl

This is an issue I've seen at Clemson, and not just with Greek housing. Less than 50% of sophomores choose to stay on campus-they want housing without RAs, rules, and that is larger and nicer than what they would get if they lived in an on-campus dorm or apartment. There isn't room for juniors and seniors to live on campus and the campus culture makes it so that few want to.

This may be a significant part of it. We had no RAs, few rules, no curfew. The chapter has a house now, but we had one floor of the dormitory and none of my sisters lived off campus the whole time I was there. We had one housekeeper who did bathrooms and hallways.

Of course, it was the '70s -- the height of "I won't live by someone else's rules". But also, none of my sisters left early due to pregnancy, drugs, or grades.

[clemsongirl]

Originally Posted by DGTess

This may be a significant part of it. We had no RAs, few rules, no curfew. The chapter has a house now, but we had one floor of the dormitory and none of my sisters lived off campus the whole time I was there. We had one housekeeper who did bathrooms and hallways.

Of course, it was the '70s -- the height of "I won't live by someone else's rules". But also, none of my sisters left early due to pregnancy, drugs, or grades.

I will add that the Greek housing here does not have RAs, just house managers or property managers designated by the chapter to be liasons with the university housing. Apparently they used to, though-my old room on the ADPi floor had a sign that said RA that I had to cover up so girls didn't think that was my job!

It is probably also easier to convince girls to live on when you have an actual house and not a floor of a dorm as we do, because aside from the obvious perk of living with your pledge class there really is no incentive to stay in a run-of-the-mill dorm versus a nicer apartment. That is more of a campus-specific issue that will hopefully be solved down the road with the eventual building of a Greek Row.