Sorority House or Suite

[aephi alum]

Some sororities at my school have houses, others don't.

It actually didn't appear to affect rush patterns greatly. All parties but one were held in function rooms in the student center, so you hardly got to see the houses.

The year I rushed, Alpha Phi had just gotten a house, but it wasn't like everyone suddenly wanted to be an Alpha Phi just because they had a house and no one else did - all 4 nationals either made quota that year or came very close, as was typical.

Right now, Alpha Phi, AXO, and Sigma Kappa have houses, and Theta just moved into a suite. AEPhi was offered a suite but turned it down - not enough interest.

I loved being in an unhoused sorority - I had my sisters and I had my floormates (my dorm's floor was a pretty close knit group for the most part). Looking back, I think it might have been nice to live with my sisters for a year, but no more than a year... my floormates were awesome

[FuzzieAlum]

That's interesting, and I'm glad to hear it can work that way, because at my school, whenever a chapter got a house, guess who was the hot sorority to rush that year! I wish I knew what you all did differently so it wasn't as big a factor at your school.

[aephi alum]

Originally posted by FuzzieAlum
That's interesting, and I'm glad to hear it can work that way, because at my school, whenever a chapter got a house, guess who was the hot sorority to rush that year! I wish I knew what you all did differently so it wasn't as big a factor at your school.

I think having all rush parties except one in the student center really helped. The party in question was during round 2, so the houses weren't the first thing PNMs saw, nor were they the last.

Also, the 5 chapters have very different characters from one another, and PNMs seem to realize that it isn't worth joining a sorority they don't feel comfortable in just because they have a house, when they have the possibility of joining an unhoused sorority that they love.

[sbhill2]

We have sorority floors in the dorms which works nicely. It keeps dues down a lot and its still fun as the floors are set up a little differently than a normal dorm floor. We have a TV room, an office, a kitchen and in the basement of the dorm we have a chapter room. Sororities hold chapter in a classroom on campus. The 'elevator room' as its called usually has a recent composite and shows off the sorority. Its very nice. Members are required to spend 3 semesters on the hall and many of the officer positions require you to live on teh hall.
While the sorority houses are nice, its nice to be on campus in the dorms because you are still close to everything and you aren't so far away from the new members or members who don't live on the hall.
All in all, I prefer the dorms for sororities but thats just my personal opinion.

[Glitter650]

Oh I wish I could say we had EITHER... but we have NOTHING no Suite no floor in the dorms.... no chapter room, no house... all we get is a conference room in the student center once a week to hold our meetings. ( we also get rooms there for rush parties) our school isn't very supportive. I spent a week in the A D Pi wing of Mountain view hall...(the greek dorm at NAU) and LOVED IT. I think that was such a good set up for greek life. It put everyone on equal footing, since one house didn't outshine another, it also promoted greek unity I think because you were always running into people from differnt organizations. Also made study hours really easy becuase they had a study room with a moderator in there that every org. could take advantage of.
Even if my school would build each sorority a chapter room so we could have a place to store all of our things, hang our composites and hold our meetings with out dealing the the EXTREMELY ANNOYING lady who handles the booking of the rooms on campus I would be EXTREMELY grateful.

[meheron]

Originally posted by Glitter650
Oh I wish I could say we had EITHER... but we have NOTHING no Suite no floor in the dorms.... no chapter room, no house... all we get is a conference room in the student center once a week to hold our meetings. ( we also get rooms there for rush parties) our school isn't very supportive. Even if my school would build each sorority a chapter room so we could have a place to store all of our things, hang our composites and hold our meetings with out dealing the the EXTREMELY ANNOYING lady who handles the booking of the rooms on campus I would be EXTREMELY grateful.

I think this is horrible, I thought it was bad enough that our campus is so against us having houses. At least they give us suites. We do have our chapter meetings in a classroom and have to lug everything over there. Initiation has to be held at the student center too.

During Rush we used to host four parties. The first three were held in the suite. Cramming 100 plus girls into that little area makes for a horrible night but in the end when you get your new sisters its all worth it. At least my suite has central air because our housing corp but it in a couple of years back. Many of the suites just have window air conditioners or they use fans. Ours broke a couple of years back and lets just say our numbers were really low that year. The girls who came through were to concerned with being hot to pay attention to what we are really like. But anyway, the fourth party during RUSH is held at an off campus location if you can find and afford the building and trasportation or you can have it in the student center. When I went through I was having a really hard time deciding between THETA and sigma kappa. Well I went to sigma kappa first in the student center. It was a nice ceremony and the girls were great but the THETA's had theirs at a mansion. When we walked in the girls were lined up in black dresses coming down a curved staircase. It was so pretty. They had decorated the house as if it was their own. This personally swayed my vote even though they had been my first choice all along. Sometimes I do wonder what it would have been like to live in a house.......

[nauadpi]

Woo Whoo...someone who has seen our hall and likes it. I actually love the setup we have also, I just am not a fan of how the university runs it. They are way to centered around filling their space then having a good greek system which encourages bright and talented indviduals. But that is a different matter.

Originally posted by Glitter650
Oh I wish I could say we had EITHER... but we have NOTHING no Suite no floor in the dorms.... no chapter room, no house... all we get is a conference room in the student center once a week to hold our meetings. ( we also get rooms there for rush parties) our school isn't very supportive. I spent a week in the A D Pi wing of Mountain view hall...(the greek dorm at NAU) and LOVED IT. I think that was such a good set up for greek life. It put everyone on equal footing, since one house didn't outshine another, it also promoted greek unity I think because you were always running into people from differnt organizations. Also made study hours really easy becuase they had a study room with a moderator in there that every org. could take advantage of.
Even if my school would build each sorority a chapter room so we could have a place to store all of our things, hang our composites and hold our meetings with out dealing the the EXTREMELY ANNOYING lady who handles the booking of the rooms on campus I would be EXTREMELY grateful.

[kateshort]

Valpo's sororities *used* to have housing, but were moved to Scheele Hall in the 1960's. It's a 5-story dorm that's got two legs with a connecting bit in the middle, like two L's joined at 180 degrees.

The main floor is the main lounge area, the computer room, and the "quiet cafe" and "loud cafe" which used to be dining areas but are now just large rooms. Those are used as study areas and are often closed off for alumnae gatherings at Homecoming, or used for Songfest rehearsals, NPC presentations, etc.

There used to be eight sororities on campus, so four had Chapter Rooms on one leg, and four on the other, with the girls living on a dorm floor corridor on that side. There are keys to open the CRs, but anyone *could* walk in if the dorm's open. The CRs each have one wall that's a kitchen, and either one full wall or two half-walls of windows. All furniture, TVs, ceiling fans, etc. are up to the sorority to provide. (We can redo the carpeting, etc, but I think you have to go through the university to do so.) I *think* they're about 20x20-- that's it! Over the years, sororities have been from under 25 to over 125 girls in a chapter, so it could get squishy!

Initiations *have* been held in the CRs-- it involved lots of covering of windows and locking of doors. Ugh. When we were still local, we'd often go outside to some park after dark and do things there. (Hey, we were *local*. No clues.)

Each sorority had a half-floor of Scheele, known as corridor. Members usually are supposed to live on corridor the year after they pledge, if they're going to live on campus and not commute. Seniors can live off-campus, so there are often unofficial "party" or "sorority" houses rented by four to six girls who try to let other sorority members get the lease the following year. But as for corridor, you get a two-sink, five-john, four-shower bathroom on your wing. If you didn't fill corridor, upperclass and nontraditional students could be placed in the dorm there, starting on the "L" connecting two wings, and then onto corridor itself. And you could have a roommate who was in another sorority or a GDI, though we used to have corridor theme parties when we were local, so that was also tough to arrange if your chapter was small!

The fraternities used to have some large chapter houses on Mound Street, and other fraternities had housing they owned. Only PMA Sinfonia, Sigma Tau Gamma, Sigma Pi (two houses) and Theta Chi have their own "house" houses. Phi Kappa Psi, Phi Delta Theta, and Sigma Phi Epsilon have the huge brick university houses, with a larger kitchen area and a faux-brick downstairs living room and smaller tv room area. Two older ones were torn down when Lambda Chi Alpha and Pi Kappa Alpha left campus, but the old Delta Sigma Phi house is being used to house someone else. Sigma Chi used to have the "grey house" as its unofficial chapter house (they all rented there) but it burned down a few years ago. They're in dorms or on their own (dunno). And I don't know what will happen with the new Lambda Chi Alpha colony.

Alumni feel that the university is trying to get rid of the old housing system, and there's been a rumor over the years that they'd build a fraternity dorm to parallel Scheele Hall. (That was decades ago, so who knows now?) Other rumors are that the university is buying up houses on one street as they go up for sale, and will eventually build fraternity housing there and tear down the old box housing, forcing *all* fraternities to live in university quarters. Dunno how true *that* is, either. It'd give the school a newer fraternity row, but take away the traditional homes that many orgs have had for decades.

[chloe173]

My chapter has a beautiful house that wass the former house of the French diplomat to Los Angeles in the 1800's. All the sororities and frats at USC have a house either on "the row" or barely off of it. However, we are the only chapter that owns our house, all the rest are owned by the university. We also have a fairly large lawn that is really nice. I love having a house, and especially a historic one because it feels like a home and there is always room for whoever is there to just chill whether they liive in the house or not. Plus, having a house also means getting a nice cook, having a security guard, and having a secret, secure place to have our meetings. All in all, it is actually cheaper to live in our house than to live in campus housing at USC . But then again, I think at USC where all the chapters are so large it would be impractical to have anything other than houses.