Houses! who don't have one?

[KappaKittyCat]

At my small, liberal arts school the fraternities used to have houses. The sororities have never had houses. We have a chapter room on the ground floor of a dorm, a communal kitchen, and archive/lounge space in the basement. Before WWII, the fraternities owned houses off-campus. In 1954, the school decided it wished to become more residential in nature. It persueded them to sell their houses and give the money to the school to build a Quad on campus. This was done in exchange for guaranteed occupancy of the houses, in perpetuity. Other campus organizations could apply for a one-year theme house contract. In 1998 the sororities applied for equal housing status under Title IX. This caused a mild uproar. Then the campus Christian organization (among other groups) raised the issue that if the fraternities and sororities were to be guaranteed housing, so should every other campus organization that wanted it. Our school formed a Task Force on Residence Life that investigated for several years and came back at the end of the 2000-2001 school year with the decision to crawl through one of several large loopholes in the original fraternity contracts and declare that no organization has guaranteed right to a group house. The fraternities consulted with their attorneys and realized that there was really nothing they could do. A new program was implemented to begin in the 2002-2003 school year. To find out what happened, check out my post in this thread.

The tricky part here is that my school is now a completely residential campus. You may only live off-campus if you:

1) live with family, are married, divorced, widowed, or have a child;

2) own a house (you personally, not your organization);

3) are student teaching;

4) are more than 4 years out of high school/over 25

5) have other special circumstances approved by the Dean of Residence Life and the financial aid department.

Therefore, the GLOs can't simply declare that we're going to build or buy houses off-campus and move into them. It doesn't work that way. By being a student at this university, you agree to abide by the residential campus arrangement.

So no, we don't have houses. At least not offically. But a girl can dream, can't she?

[KappaTarzan]

alot of the northern schools don't have houses.. which is kinda sucky but, being national, it kicks ass to visit other chapters who DO have houses!

[nwsigkap]

At Northwest Missouri State University, sororities don't have houses. They say that in the beginning it was because of the "brothel" law, but now it is because we are waiting for everyone to have enough money to build before anyone starts building. We each have floors in the supposedly haunted sorority dorm though. Not having a house does have its advantages...lower dues! It would be nice to have a house, but there are girls that live off campus whose houses take the place of a sorority house. While sororites don't have houses, fraternities at Northwest do. Actually 3 of them have rebuilt in the past 4 years, with two of the houses being mansionlike for Maryville.

wow, I'm impressed by the feedback I got on this. I figured most people would be ashamed to admit their frat/sorotity has a ghetto housing arrangement. It makes us all feel better to know that we're not alone!

I think the "brothel" rules are kind of interesting. I never heard of them before.

I wonder though if this no-housing thing is a trend that's more just in the northeast or if it's like that everywhere. It is totally awesome to visit other chapters with nice houses. Our Beta chapter has a HOT house that I stop by all the time. We try to make do with our dorm-based house as well as we can; we can certainly accomadate brothers stopping by but it's not the same. *sigh

anyways thanks for the replies keep postin', I'll keep checkin' up.

[OnePlus69Is70]

At UMass, all the sororities but AEPhi have houses. The sorority houses are BEAUTIFUL- big kitchens and common rooms, nice bedrooms. There are ten fraternities with houses. All but ours and SigEp's are kinda gross- they're all old farmhouses that were converted in the 60's. But they are all together- all but three Greek houses are either right on or just off of North Pleasant St., which is the main street through town.

AEPhi has a dorm floor to itself. And the fraternities without official houses usually rent a smallish house close to the row for themselves. So it all works out.

[BSUPhiSig'92]

At my campus, there are only two fraternities that have a house. The Sig Eps have an old school that has been converted into a house and is absolutely huge! Unfortunately it is about two miles from campus, and they have a hard time keeping it filled. Alpha Phi Alpha is the only group that actually has a house on campus. They have our old President's House, which sounds more impressive than it is. Its just a 50's ranch that holds about eight people. It has a great setting on the lake though.

The city has also enacted zoning ordinances that basically prohibit any type of fraternity/sorority housing in city limits. The Sig Eps are grandfathered in, but the city tried to screw them over when they got the school. Their old house was the oldest brick building in the state of Illinois (built in 1820). The city received a grant from the State to purchase, restore, and turn the house into a museum. The city then worked out a deal to let the Sig Eps have the school. The school though, had been the elementary school for the African-American community when the schools were segregated. It is the only segregated school building left in Madison County, so the NAACP and the Urban League wanted to turn it into a community/cultural center. The city basically ticked these groups off when they let the Sig Eps take possession. However, the city dragged the building and occupancy permit stage out forever, so the chapter didn't get to actually move in until almost a year after the initial projected occupancy date. The city was hoping that the chapter would default on its mortgage and then the house could be turned into the community/cultural center. Then the city would have had a win-win situation. A new house museum paid for with state money, a new community center, and no annoying fraternity house to bother with.

There is a lot of interest from the students for Greek housing on campus, but virtually none from our upperlevel administrators. I know the issue has been brought up at our University's Chancellor's Council, and was soundly rejected by the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellors. My first year as Greek Adviser at SIUE, we even had a property development company, owned by one of the wealthiest alumni and benefactors of the University, present a proposal to build, maintain, and manage Greek Housing on campus at no cost to the University (only the land, of which we have plenty of 2,660 acres, second largest campus in the country!). I was the only person at the meeting in favor of it I have said that Greek Housing would actually make my job easier (it is so hard getting people together for meetings, etc.), and our Director of Admissions has actually said that the lack of Greek Housing is hurting admissions, because when prospective students visit campus, they want to know where the fraternity/sorority houses are. We have been primarily a commuter school,(although nearly 30% total, and almost 50% of freshmen live on campus) and to prospective students it just says that there isn't any campus life and nothing to do on the weekends.

There are A LOT of schools that have built or are building Greek Housing on campus. It seems to be the big trend nationally right now...

I just wish my campus would get it.